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entire property is $1,695,000. A 25 per cent interest in the property is being offered at $479,000. Two 25 per cent stakes are available, or one 50 per cent stake.
Mr. Chilton figures that another owner or two could take over the lower floors and create their own units. Or they could just keep it as a rooming house.
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"It's divided up very nicely as a triplex," Mr. Chilton said on a recent tour of the building.
Each floor is approximately 1,300 square feet and Mr. Chilton has already had an architect who lives in the building draw up plans for what the new owners' suites could look like. He points to original architectural elements such as the turret, bay windows, stained glass and pressed-tin ceilings.
Mr. Chilton doesn't see any problem with working out a deal for a buyer to purchase part of the property. The buyer would be able to sell their share in the future.
"People will see what they're getting," he says.
But Mr. Freeman allows that the unusual ownership structure makes it hard to establish an asking price for a share.
"It's a little more complicated to create a value," he says.
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Large houses are sometimes divided into condominiums but that process takes time, money and a lot of busting through red tape, says Mr. Freeman.
He has coined the term "nondo" to describe the unusual arrangement they are proposing.
Mr. Chilton says that he is open to selling the entire property.
"If I can't find the right kind of situation, I'll sell it and move on."
And Mr. Freeman believes that there's a likelihood that Mr. Chilton will receive an offer that makes moving less painful.
"There's a good chance we're going to sell the property to the highest bidder."
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Even the lawyers they consulted along the way warned them against the scheme. It took a bit of research to find one who would actually agree to work with them.
"I think the odds are against him because the market is not familiar with this type of sale," says Mr. Freeman. "I'm going into this with a little trepidation."The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the lower court’s sentence of a suspended eight-month jail term and a fine of Bt20,000 against Chiranuch Premchaiporn, the director of Prachatai online newspaper.
This case will clearly have an impact on most online service providers, such as commercial and social media websites as well as web-boards, because they will have to closely monitor to see if any comments are violating the law, especially Article 112.
Apisilp Trunganont, co-founder and chief technology officer at Internet Marketing, the operator of Thailand’s largest web-board pantip.com, said that on the website there are three mechanisms to manage content, which is generated by 4.5 million active daily users posting between 5,000 and 6,000 times and encouraging over 100,000 comments per day.
The first measure is a programme that monitors sensitive key words, especially those related to lese majeste, and as soon as it finds any mention of sensitive information, it will immediately send a report to pantip.com’s response team to verify the post before taking action.
The second mechanism gets users to inform pantip.com’s team to take care of the case, while the third level of control has dedicated teams monitoring web-board sessions where users may be discussing sensitive issues, especially those related to the monarchy.
Generally, Apisilp said, pantip.com always monitors all the content on pantip.com and has strict measures to manage inappropriate content.
“The content management team on pantip.com is very conservative and even though some posts may not be illegal, they may be removed because they are inappropriate, such as sale of products or personal tiffs," he said.
In his capacity as president of the Thai Webmaster Association, Apisilp also said that website service providers cannot deny legal responsibility as it is their role to monitor and remove inappropriate content from their website, otherwise it would seem they find the content acceptable.
Also, as the Computer Crimes Act authorises officers the right to request log files, the webmaster should comply with the law.
Meanwhile, Jakrapong Kongmalai, vice president of Content Business at Sanook, another often-used website in the Kingdom, said a lot of users visited sanook.com daily and they were content monitoring and checking measures in place to control inappropriate content and prevent spam. Users are also bound by the website’s terms and conditions to not duplicate topics in different web-board sessions.
He said users can only select one web-board session per topic and that all duplicated posts will be deleted from the system, adding that anybody found posting duplications will be blocked from sanook.com.
Users are also not allowed to post content that can provoke social violence, is an infringement of content, phone numbers, images that may be considered inappropriate for the young or one that violates copyright laws. Those who break these rules stand to face legal action.I’ve been to five GDCs now and each one has been different, and each one has been much, much better than the previous one.
This year I livetweeted over a dozen sessions I attended for those stuck back home without access to the vault. You can find them all here: https://storify.com/lizardengland/gdc-2016-session-livetweets
This year VR was huge. I initially thought VRDC would kind of segregate or corral VR people into their own separate, smaller conference but I was wrong. VR was everywhere, and lines for their talks filled up the hallways. I stayed away from them in general, since I worked in VR for the year prior to moving to Ubisoft and don’t really carry much developer interest in it anymore. (Small indie studios, please stop just testing sim sickness on yourselves. Test a wider range of people. Your products are going to give VR a bad name.)
I also saw lots of long lines for some of the indie summit business or marketing oriented talks, which obviously don’t carry much interest to me. I ended up only attending one indie talk – on procedural generation – and leaving the rest to catch up on the vault.
I filled Monday and Tuesday with a ton of talks from the Narrative Design summit. I had never attended it before but looking through the vault from previous years had stemmed my excitement because they largely seemed to be talks for writers with very little on design. This year felt different – it felt like design, systems, and narrative structure in games were at the forefront. My favorite talks were in the Narrative Design track, including my best-of-GDC award for “Forget Protagonists: Writing NPCs with Agency for 80 Days and Beyond” by Meg Jayanth, which delved into ways the player lacked power over NPC stories.
One of the trends I’m seeing from the Narrative Showcase, the narrative-focused games up for IGF and on the show floor, and the conversations I had around me is that systems are becoming a lot more integrated into narrative, and there’s a lot of narrative innovation coming out that is very specific to games. This might be my own biases sneaking in since I love interactive narrative so much.
Beyond the sessions, this year I attended a couple break-out sessions in the park organized somewhat spontaneously. Alex Jaffe from Spryfox organized a system designer hangout one morning, and Emily Short organized a group interested in procedural interactive fiction. Both were better than the official roundtable formats, since they encouraged mingling and smaller groups of similar interests rather than a handful of people dominating the conversation. Tying into my prior remark about narrative systems – the procgen IF group was huge, and the system designer group pretty much talked about procedural narrative and social simulation half the time. I suspect the rise of the “roguelike” and success developers have been making with procedural content is on a collision course with the narrative-focused developers. To be fair, I’m pretty trendy too – the last side project I made was a procedural interactive fiction game.
As usual, I said yes to any opportunity to do outreach. Last year I talked with IGDA scholars, and this year I spoke with women scholars from Diversi, a group that helped a whole bunch of students and scholars in games (and games-adjacent) programs attend GDC. This year I also was recruited to talk to a crowd in a less formal Q&A with two of the creative directors from Ubisoft Toronto – I think it went well, but I had to defer answers to others fairly often with my limited experience at the studio. For the first time I got on the list to attend the Women in Games Luncheon hosted by Microsoft and I definitely appreciated that outreach (in spite of their pretty epic stumble at their party the same night).
I did give a talk this year as part of Richard Rouse’s “Rules of the Game” microtalks. While I think the content is solid, I also think I flubbed a bit on my delivery (I think my 10min talk went to 13min). You can find my slides (as well as the other speakers) on his website here (direct download): http://paranoidproductions.com/miscwritings/RulesOfTheGame2016.pptx
This is also the first GDC where “I know you from twitter!” almost became a meme for me. It was great but also kind of awkward – I don’t know how to respond and my instinct is to question, “Do I tweet too much?” In the end it doesn’t bother me too much, and it was great to put names to lots of faces I’ve chatted with online. It’s even cooler when someone I want to meet from twitter also just happens to want to meet me for the same reason, and I found myself in a few ‘consultation’-like meetings where I let people extract whatever they wanted from my brain and vice-versa. Someone even brought me a birthday cake (no, I did not eat the whole thing). For all its flaws, twitter has been invaluable for making friends with like-minded designers.
There was one big downside to the whole conference: I was sick. Now, it wasn’t the GDC flu and thankfully I’ve avoided that. But I have had real issues sleeping starting about a month ago which means that almost every day at GDC there was a window of time where I started to fall asleep where I sat, regardless of how exciting the talk was or how hard I tried to stay awake. I was exhausted in the evenings and couldn’t stay out too late at parties, and I had about an hour commute on BART to the couch I stayed on at a friend’s house. I don’t really have a lesson here other than it’s hard to attend GDC without your full health and know when to take a break and take it easy.
That’s all. Fingers crossed I will be there again next year.Amended U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act would have let Congress vote for or against a deal with Iran, over its nuclear program.
Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has removed a key piece of pro-Israel legislation from the committee's agenda, which would have allowed Congress to vote for or against any deal that is negotiated with Iran over its nuclear arms program.
The decision to pull the bill – the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act – was reported by The Cable, which cited congressional aides who explained that the bill would have forced Democrats to choose sides between the White House and members of the pro-Israel community.
The U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act would expand cooperation between the two nations in a number of areas, including defense, intelligence, energy, and homeland security. It enjoys broad bipartisan support and would have likely passed the foreign relations committee, but Menendez decided not to have the committee vote on it when he learned that the committee's ranking member, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), planned to introduce an amendment related to the Obama administration's nuclear talks with Iran.
“Should President Obama reach a deal with Iran and five other world powers to restrain the country's nuclear program, the Corker measure would have forced the president to submit the full plan to Congress within three days,” reported The Cable. “The amendment would then give Congress the right to hold a 'vote of disapproval' on the final deal and make way for hearings on the matter. Notably, the legislation would not give Congress the power to block the deal, only to express its will on the issue.”
Such a vote would have likely divided Democrats, forcing many of them to choose between standing behind the White House in a midterm election season, and standing up for their beliefs regarding the Iran deal – which many are deeply skeptical of.
In a statement Monday evening, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee supported Corker's amendment. "AIPAC supports provisions such as the Corker Amendment which underscore the key role that Congress must play in defining the terms of an acceptable deal and its implementation," an AIPAC official said.
A spokesman for Menendez declined to comment. An unidentified Senate aide blamed Corker. "It is deeply disappointing that a bipartisan bill cosponsored by over 60 senators sending a strong message extending far beyond the United States... is being politicized when it should be passed," said the aide. "This is the right bill for the right time as the United States and Israel continue to make advances in technology, homeland security, agriculture, and other areas. It is not the appropriate vehicle to legislate on Iran." He also expressed frustration that the amendment was introduced just days before the markup of the bill, which had been in the works for more than a year.Washington (CNN) -- A controversial proposal to build a giant oil pipeline between Alberta, Canada, and Texas cleared a key hurdle Friday as the State Department said the project could be built without significant damage to the environment.
Known as Keystone XL, the 1,700-mile pipeline has drawn fierce criticism from environmentalists, who are staging a two-week demonstration at the White House. So far, some 370 people have been arrested for protesting the project.
"There would be no significant impacts to most resources along the proposed pipeline corridor," Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES) Assistant Secretary Kerri-Ann Jones told reporters on the release of the State Department's final environmental impact statement.
She stressed that the report is not the last word on the pipeline, which now must pass through a 90-day review period that will include public hearings. A final decision is expected before year-end.
Supporters say the pipeline would create jobs and let the United States replace Venezuelan or Middle Eastern imports with well-regulated, dependable Canadian crude.
Opponents say the project would bind the country to an unnecessary and dirty form of oil for decades to come and expose surrounding areas to dangerous spills and leaks.
"It was disappointing, but expected," Daniel Kessler, a spokesman for the Rainforest Action Network, said about the State Department's report.
He is part of a group of activists that has been protesting the pipeline at the White House since August 20. Some 370 people have been arrested so far and 2,000 are planning to be before the scheduled end of the demonstration on September 3, he said.
According to the U.S. Park Police, roughly 50 people have been arrested per day since the start of the demonstration for failure to obey a lawful order.
"It really doesn't make a lick of sense," Kessler said about the pipeline. "There's no excuse for not doing the right thing on this."
The company that wants to build the pipeline, TransCanada, cheered the State Department's report. It emphasized the project's benefits, economic and otherwise.
"The fundamental issue is energy security. Through the Keystone system, the U.S. can secure access to a stable and reliable supply of oil from Canada, where we protect human rights and the environment, or it can import more higher-priced oil from nations who do not share America's interests or values," said Russ Girling, TransCanada's president and chief executive officer.
The pipeline would draw from oil sands deposits in Canada and pass through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas, with construction on an existing pipeline in Kansas. It could transport up to 830,000 barrels per day and is estimated to cost $7 billion.
CNN's Dana Ford contributed to this reportThe next release of each ArcGIS API and Viewer (for Flex and Silverlight) will be significant in that they are the last planned releases of two once-popular technologies. While technical support will be available for both APIs and viewers through June of 2016, maintenance of these products will be discontinued. Customers who develop with these products should begin exploring web solutions that are based on JavaScript or HTML5.
More information on the product lifecycle can be found in the following pages:
The Transition to JavaScript
Over the past year, Esri has focused on greatly expanding the capabilities and usability of the ArcGIS API for JavaScript, enabling developers to build powerful and expressive applications with minimal code. In addition, new JavaScript-based applications have been introduced that enable users to quickly create beautiful, responsive web applications without writing a single line of code. These include several new web application templates as well as the Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS, all available with ArcGIS Online and Portal for ArcGIS. Customers that have built applications using the ArcGIS Viewers for Flex and Silverlight can now leverage the Web AppBuilder to create fully-functional GIS apps that can be used on any device.
As the ArcGIS Flex and Silverlight products move from mature support to their end of life phase, our Support teams are available to help customers transition to JavaScript, explore the various apps and tools available for getting started, and answer any questions that may arise.
More on Esri’s Roadmap for Web Developers
- Esri Support ServicesPlease enable Javascript to watch this video
KENOSHA -- Kenosha police say three people -- teenagers under the age of 18 -- were shot and wounded late Saturday, July 30th.
Police say it happened shortly before 11:00 p.m. near 58th Street and 19th Avenue.
Police tell FOX6 News the area was blocked off for a block party, and all three shooting victims were apparently attending that block party.
"I saw a bunch of police cars coming down 60th -- coming down 14th. I was scared for my life because I didn't know what was going on. I'm walking down the street -- anything can happen to me. If someone's shooting over here, they can be shooting down there. None of this should be going down in America. This shouldn't be happening here," Nicole Jenkins said.
The victims suffered non-life threatening injuries. By Sunday, two had already been treated and released.
We're told this shooting was possibly gang-related, and Kenosha PD's "Gang Unit" is investigating.
"Who's to say what may happen later today? I don't know. Like I said, it's getting worse. I keep to myself. I don't bother nobody," a neighbor said.
"I have a young son and I don't like this gang violence or whatever it is. They were checking houses for bullets and I was here with my grand babies and I'm glad no shot came firing over at my house," a neighbor said.
Multiple suspects are being sough in this case. No one is currently in custody.
Monitor FOX6 News and FOX6Now.com for updates on this developing story.Comedian Conan O’Brien delivered the commencement address at Dartmouth College yesterday (June 12), and he didn’t miss the chance to deliver an MBA bashing line to the crowd. In the spirit of Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy, he said he felt the need to set forth his own policy at the Ivy League school. O’Brien called it “The Conan Doctrine.”
His very first rule: “All bachelor degrees will be upgraded to master’s degrees. All master’s degrees will be upgraded to PhDs. And all MBA students will be immediately transferred to a white collar prison.”
Over at The Tuck School, General Electric Co. Chairman Jeffrey Immelt had a different view. Among other things, he said the need to innovate requires that students continue learning well after they receive their MBAs. “The dumbest I was, was the day I graduated from school,” said Immelt. “One of their goals needs to be the ability to get smarter and look around corners as time goes on.” After all, in a reverse-innovation world, the CEO needs to be both bold enough to bet on uncertain new industries but also humble enough to look for new ideas in unexpected places. “The obvious things are obvious because you already know them,” he says. “To be successful,” adds Immelt, “you have to have a notion that people count. You need to treat everybody, from the factory floor to the board room, with respect.”
For laughs, here’s Conan O’Brien’s complete commencement address.
I’ve been living in Los Angeles for two years, and I’ve never been this cold in my life. I will pay anyone here $300 for GORE-TEX gloves. Anybody. I’m serious. I have the cash.
Before I begin, I must point out that behind me sits a highly admired President of the United States and decorated war hero while I, a cable television talk show host, has been chosen to stand here and impart wisdom. I pray I never witness a more damning example of what is wrong with America today.
Graduates, faculty, parents, relatives, undergraduates, and old people that just come to these things: Good morning and congratulations to the Dartmouth Class of 2011. Today, you have achieved something special, something only 92 percent of Americans your age will ever know: a college diploma. That’s right, with your college diploma you now have a crushing advantage over 8 percent of the workforce. I’m talking about dropout losers like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg. Incidentally, speaking of Mr. Zuckerberg, only at Harvard would someone have to invent a massive social network just to talk with someone in the next room.“For the gays out there,” Donald Trump said Wednesday, “ask the gays and ask the people, ask the gays what they think and what they do in not only Saudi Arabia, in many of these countries with the gay community. And then you tell me: who’s your friend, Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton?”
From behind his lectern at a rally in Atlanta, Trump was suggesting that Clinton’s current stated support for the LGBT community is compromised by the Clinton Foundation’s decision to accept donations from the Middle Eastern country—up to $25 million since 1999, according to The Wall Street Journal— where institutionalized homophobia is rampant and often manifests itself violently.
But Trump omitted an important detail that weakens the potency of his criticism: even as he runs for president, it appears he continues to do business in the country. And he has previously said he wants to “help” the Kingdom in its struggle with Iran.
For Clinton and Trump, the de facto nominees for the Democratic and Republican parties, Saudi Arabia neatly captures just how complicated and fraught a political issue LGBT equality remains for each of them.
Clinton, a devout Methodist, didn’t arrive at her support for gay marriage until 2013, long after it became a matter of consensus on the Left, making it politically safe for her to do so.
What’s more, she willfully misrepresents her past positions on the issue, claiming to have previously believed it was best left up to the states despite her support for the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage, at the federal level, as being a heterosexual enterprise.
Trump, a devout egotist who sporadically attends the Marble Collegiate Church on West 29th Street in New York City, has long expressed sympathies for the gay community but continues to obfuscate his position on marriage equality.
He claims to support the LGBT community while, at the same time, telling evangelical Christians who oppose equal rights for the gay and transgender among us that he stands with them. He fosters relationships with anti-gay religious figures and yet getting a straight answer from his campaign about what he truly believes is impossible.
Both candidates’ have at times been at odds with their respective parties beliefs on the subject. In Trump’s case, he continues to be.
“Viewed exclusively through the prism of LGBT issues, Mr. Trump is actually the most gay friendly nominee for president this party has ever had,” Gregory T. Angelo, the president of the Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative LGBT advocacy group, told The Daily Beast.
Angelo acknowledged that, “Donald Trump can often vacillate,” but, he said, “I also have a concern that Hillary Clinton’s views on LGBT issues are driven largely or entirely by polling.”
In the aftermath of the terror attack at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, which left 49 deceased in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history, Trump has voiced support for the LGBT community and characterized Clinton as its enemy.
“Thank you to the LGBT community!” he tweeted Tuesday. “I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs.”
At another point, he posted to Facebook, “Crooked Hillary says we must call on Saudi Arabia and other countries to stop funding hate. I am calling on her to immediately return the $25 million plus she got from them for the Clinton Foundation!”
In 2014, according to The Wall Street Journal, with the Clinton Foundation’s ban on receiving gifts from foreign governments—imposed at the behest of the Obama Administration while Clinton served as Secretary of State—lifted, the charity accepted an undisclosed sum from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The same year, a 24-year-old gay man in the western city of Medina was arrested for attempting to use Twitter to find and date other men. Found guilty of “promoting the vice and practice of homosexuality,” he was sentenced to three years in jail and 450 lashes.
Meanwhile, in May 2015, Ivanka Trump, his daughter and the executive vice president of development and acquisitions at the Trump Organization, told Hotelier Middle East that the company planned to construct a hotel in Saudi Arabia. “We are looking at multiple opportunities in Abu Dhabi, in Qatar, in Saudi Arabia—so those are the four areas where we are seeing the most interest,” she said. “We haven’t made a final decision in any of the markets but we have many very compelling deals in each of them.”
Trump’s financial disclosure filing, in May 2016, revealed that, in August, he had incorporated four companies that appeared to relate to a hotel project in Jeddah, a large city on the Red Sea coast.
That was 15 months after Lifestyle, a brand operated by the Landmark Group, which is based in Dubai, announced it would be partnering with Trump to sell home goods, dubbed Trump Home, “inspired by the luxury and elegance” associated with his name and his family’s lifestyle. The products were to be sold “exclusively in stores in Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.” (The company, citing Trump’s inflammatory campaign rhetoric, later pulled out of the deal.).
But even before their dealings with a country ruled by a fundamentally homophobic government, both candidates had complex histories on gay rights.
As president in 1993, Bill Clinton signed into law the HIV travel ban (Saudi Arabia, incidentally, imposed similar regulations). On Hillary’s campaign website, she now boasts that, as secretary of state, “she oversaw the repeal of the HIV travel ban, which prevented people with HIV and AIDS from entering the United States.” She makes no mention that, as the First Lady who took an historically unprecedented, active role in governing, she neglected to voice any opposition to the initial legislation.
During her Senate campaign, in 2000, Clinton said she would have signed the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, into law herself, like Bill did in 1996. DOMA federally defined marriage as being between one man and one woman. According to The Atlantic, Clinton still held that position in 2003, though at the time her spokesperson claimed she was actively “evolving” on it.
In a 2004 speech on the Senate floor, she described the view that marriage is just for heterosexual couples as a “fundamental, bedrock principle.”
During her first presidential campaign, in 2008, she opposed gay marriage and often twisted herself into a pretzel trying to get out of explaining why. Ellen Degeneres, the openly gay talk show host, asked Clinton, in 2007, why she supported civil unions but not marriage for same sex couples. Clinton responded by talking in circles to avoid answering. Frustrated, Degeneres asked if she thought it would be possible for a candidate who openly agreed with gay marriage to win.
“I don’t know,” Clinton said. “I’ve had the same position for years, so I don’t know what somebody could or couldn’t do. But I’ve always believed that marriage should be left to the states.” (An inaccurate portrayal of her views, given her support for DOMA).
In 2013, after leaving her post as secretary of state, Clinton finally endorsed marriage equality. “I support it personally,” she said, “and as a matter of policy and law.” The following year, in an interview on NPR, Clinton disagreed with the assessment that her change of heart was a political calculation.
“Just because you’re a politician,” she said, “doesn’t mean you’re not a thinking human. You gather information. You think through positions. You’re not 100 percent set, thank goodness.”
Trump’s evolution is just as transparent, except it happened in reverse.
Unlike Clinton, Trump does not seem to harbor any strong religious convictions. Though he doesn’t frequently attend, he’s a member of the congregation at the Marble Collegiate Church, which is part of the Reformed Church of America. Leaders of the denomination held their annual gathering last weekend, during which they moved to reaffirm their belief that marriage is limited to heterosexual couples.
On June 13, the general synod, the denomination’s governing body, voted to make its marriage liturgy gender-specific to heterosexual couples. And on Tuesday, it moved to put language in its Book of Church Order to “assure that marriages in a church or congregation are between a man and a woman.” Regional church bodies will vote over the next year on that change, and if it gets enough support, then it will be up for a final vote at the denomination’s 2017 general synod.
According to The New York Times, he donated to charities working to end AIDS during the height of the crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
And in 2000, while deciding whether or not to run for president, he told the Advocate, the LGBT interest magazine, that gays and lesbians specifically should support his candidacy because, “I grew up in New York City, a town with different races, religions, and peoples. It breeds tolerance. In all truth, I don’t care whether or not a person is gay…I’ve worked with many gay people…Their lifestyle is of no interest to me.”
He said he would have no problem appointing an openly gay person to a position in his administration, and he would seek to amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act “to include a ban of discrimination based on sexual orientation. It would be simple. It would be straightforward.” He added, “It’s only fair.”
Where he drew the line, however, was marriage. He said he believed gay couples should be afforded the same rights, but, “I think the institution of marriage should be between a man and a woman.”
According to Laurence Leamer, the author of Madness Under the Royal Palms, a book about swanky Palm Beach culture, who spoke with the Times, Trump’s private club, Mar-a-Lago, was the first in town to allow openly gay couples. “He really changed the nature of Palm Beach,” Leamer told the publication.
When Elton John married his partner David Furnish in 2005, Trump posted a blog item congratulating them on Trump University’s website. “It’s a marriage that’s going to work,” he said. “If two people dig each other, they dig each other. Good luck, Elton. Good luck, David. Have a great life. (But because I wasn’t invited, do I still have to send them a toaster?)”
These days, it’s hard to get a straight answer from Trump about what he believes.
He was on both sides of the North Carolina transgender bathroom controversy. On the Today show, he said trans individuals should “use the bathroom they feel is appropriate.”
Then, on Fox News, he told Bill O’Reilly the matter should be decided by the states. He said, “the amazing thing is so many people are talking about this now and we have to protect everybody even if it’s one person…but this is such a tiny part of our population.” Trump said he disagreed with providing gender-neutral bathrooms nationwide because it, “would be unbelievably expensive.”
Just a few days before the attack in Orlando, Trump told evangelicals at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington, D.C. that he believes “the family” and “marriage” are “so important.”
He didn’t specify what types of families or marriages in particular, but to a crowd like that, the meaning is obvious: traditional, one man and one woman and 1.5 children, minimum.
A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign did not respond when asked if he now supports marriage equality.
But for those who do care about the issue, there hardly seems to be a good—or, at least, a consistently good—candidate to represent them.
-- with additional reporting by Betsy WoodruffThe state deployed three emergency response teams to quell the revolt, which was confined to a housing unit of the prison, according to local reports. Officials from Holman declined to comment about the current state of affairs at the prison when reached by VICE News on Saturday afternoon.
The Alabama Department of Corrections said in a statement that around 100 inmates were involved in the melee, which began with a fight in a dormitory. A guard was stabbed when he tried to detain one of the inmates, the statement said. Warden Carter Davenport was also stabbed when he and other corrections officers attempted to intervene. Neither of the stab wounds were life threatening.
The uprising began late Friday night at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility, a 1,031-bed facility about 50 miles north of Mobile in the city of Atmore. A large contingent of Holman inmates are serving life without parole, and there are 168 cells set aside for death row inmates, who are executed on site at the state's only death chamber.
The prison that houses Alabama's death row is on lockdown following a riot that saw the facility's warden and a guard stabbed, and at least one fire set by inmates, who used contraband cell phones to document the mayhem on social media.
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The prison that houses Alabama's death row is on lockdown following a riot that saw the facility's warden and a guard stabbed, and at least one fire set by inmates, who used contraband cell phones to document the mayhem on social media.
The uprising began late Friday night at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility, a 1,031-bed facility about 50 miles north of Mobile in the city of Atmore. A large contingent of Holman inmates are serving life without parole, and there are 168 cells set aside for death row inmates, who are executed on site at the state's only death chamber.
The Alabama Department of Corrections said in a statement that around 100 inmates were involved in the melee, which began with a fight in a dormitory. A guard was stabbed when he tried to detain one of the inmates, the statement said. Warden Carter Davenport was also stabbed when he and other corrections officers attempted to intervene. Neither of the stab wounds were life threatening.
Related: A Plan to Slash the Exorbitant Cost of Phone Calls for US Prisoners Got Put on Hold
The state deployed three emergency response teams to quell the revolt, which was confined to a housing unit of the prison, according to local reports. Officials from Holman declined to comment about the current state of affairs at the prison when reached by VICE News on Saturday afternoon.
In video footage posted online, inmates could be seen roaming through the prison at will. "It's going down in this bitch," one inmate said in a video that was posted to Facebook. The footage showed a small fire being tended by another inmate waving what appears to be a makeshift sword.
Several other inmates took to social media while the riots were going on, with some imploring the public to help rescue them.
A similar riot erupted at the prison in 2011 after an altercation between a guard and an inmate over a contraband cell phone. Inmates took control of an entire dorm and refused to comply with a team of corrections officers that arrived in riot gear.
Holman, like many other prisons in Alabama, is chronically overcrowded. According to a 2006 documentary series called LockUp, the institution is known among inmates as "The Slaughterhouse," the "House of Pain," and the "Slaughter Pen of the South" because of the frequent stabbings that occur there. Last April, a 67-year-old inmate named Lawrence Utley was fatally stabbed at Holman.
Alabama's correctional facilities are designed to house a total of 13,318 inmates, but, according to the state's most recent data, there were 24,770 prisoners locked up as of January 2015.
Related: How Private Prisons Are Profiting From Locking Up US Immigrants
In 2014, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program filed a federal lawsuit against the Alabama Department of Corrections for consistent failure to address the medical and mental health needs of its inmate population, as well as discrimination against prisoners with disabilities.
A damning SPLC report assessed the various ways in which inmates were being mistreated in Alabama prisons, and discovered that untreated hepatitis C is a rampant problem. Only four out of the 2,144 prisoners with hepatitis C were found to be receiving treatment. A prisoner at Holman died from complications of hepatitis C after not receiving treatment, while other reports out of Holman said several untreated inmates became jaundiced as their livers started to fail due to progression of the disease.
The report also found that Alabama prisons were woefully ill equipped to treat mental health problems, and had just a fraction of the recommended number of psychologists on staff.
Follow Tess Owen on Twitter: @misstessowenNewsPolitics - U.S.
December 20, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – On Monday, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts denied a request to consider whether the Senate must be forced to vote on President Obama's pro-abortion Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. Garland has now returned to his job as chief justice of the D.C. Circuit.
"The effort by a New Mexico lawyer to force a Senate vote on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland may have reached its final point on Monday morning, as Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., refused the request," wrote Supreme Court watcher Lyle Denniston on his law blog. "The Chief Justice acted without giving any reason, without sharing the issue with his colleagues, and even without seeking a response from the Senate."
The "legal efforts on behalf of Garland failed for lack of standing in the district court and in the D.C |
for hair length, or fur length.
Whats really different is the pattern of where it grows. Your dog or cat is basically covered with hair, whereas humans tend to grow hair in a few selected places. And thats one of the things that have changed through evolution in a number of mammal groups. Whales, for instance, are mammals, but they are nearly hairless. We lack hair over a lot of our bodies.
SA: Is hair a defining characteristic of mammals?
NS: Its one of them. Other features that define mammals include producing milk to nourish the offspring.
SA: When does hair appear to have arisen?
NS: We dont know, because the evolutionary lineage leading to mammals includes many fossil forms going way back in time, and hair, as a rule, doesnt fossilize. So we cant know whether many of these relatives of mammals from the age of dinosaurs and earlier had hair or not.
SA: Are there any impressions of hair in the fossil record?
NS: There are very few fossils where there are impressions of anything in terms of soft tissue.
SA: How did hair evolve?
NS: I think most evolutionary biologists believe that the evolution of hair is correlated with the evolution of endothermy, or warmbloodednessthe ability to produce internal body heatand hair is a very good insulator. If youre going to spend a lot of metabolic energy heating your body, its more efficient to hold on to that heat and not to lose it to the environment around you. So having hair as a means of insulation is one of the ideas about why we have hair. Of course, there is no way for us to tell whether hair evolved first and then endothermy evolved, or whether endothermy evolved and then somehow hair evolved. We really dont know anything about these things.
SA: Humans evolved in Africa, along with a lot of primates that are covered with fur. Why did humans lose most of theirs?
NS: We dont know. Theres a lot of variation in how much of the body is covered with fur in various primate groups. Some are incredibly hairy, and some have considerably less fur on the face and the chest and so on. Primates tend to rely on facial expressions for social communication, and of course the better you can see the face, perhaps the better that social communication works. That doesnt mean you have to get rid of the hair to see the face. That just happens to be what happened in apes. But that could be one of the reasons why we dont have hair on our faces.
SA: Is a whisker a special kind of hair?
NS: Yes, it is. There are many different kinds of modified hairs to which we give different names. A porcupines quills are greatly enlarged hairs. Whiskers are hairs that work as sensory receptors. Theres a strange animal from the Old World called a pangolin, which has these scaly plates that cover most of its bodythose are modified hairs.
SA: So this is all the same material?
NS: This is all the same material.
SA: How does a whisker work as a sensory receptor?
NS: It has to do with its size, and whiskers have special nervous connections that make them highly sensitive to movement. Those nerves are directly connected to a part of the brain that keeps track of that information and allows the animal to interpret it as sensory information in conjunction with the other information its getting from adjacent whiskers.
SA: When you see something that looks like a whisker on a catfish, for example, what is that structure?
NS: Well, its a similar structure in the sense that it is a long, skinny thing that sticks out from the body and is used to help sense whats going on in the environment. But its not homologous; its independently evolved. Its not made of the same material, and it wasnt inherited from a common ancestor. Its a completely different structure that may serve something of the same purpose, but completely independently.
We may think about human haircurly versus straight versus whateveras being really different from what animals have, but if you think of the breadth of mammals out there you can find equivalents in many other groups for long hair versus short hair versus tightly curled hair and all that. You can actually find all of that in dogs, without even having to look to other species.What the hell is going on at Eurovision? At first there was attempted smearings, shady six-figure contracts and jobs for the boys; but now the EBU is straight up firing dissenters. If this is their attempt to seem less suspicious, then it couldn’t be going any worse…
A few months ago, we wrote a detailed piece on some of the shady sounding dealings going on behind the scenes at Eurovision. By complete chance, it just so happened to coincide with the arrest of a number of high-ranking FIFA officials on some serious charges of financial misconduct.
There were some interesting parallels to be drawn between the stories coming out of the two institutions. Obviously FIFA is an absolute Goliath of alleged corruption – a body so rotten it makes the remains of Richard III look like a vision of health. While the accusations being levelled at Eurovision were much smaller, they did appear to show some similar traits starting to emerge. Both were Switzerland-based organisations, funded in part by public money, whose terminal lack of transparency was causing people to ask some very serious questions.
And then this week, Eurovision fired its first dissenter. Someone from inside the EBU, trying to speak out.
What happened? We’ll tell you – but first, a little recap.
Previously, On Eurovision…
There are four things you need to be aware of:
* Jarmo Siim – the Eurovision Song Contest’s (ex) Head Of Press
Jarmo started the whole ball rolling when he was caught apparently sending secret messages to journalists on Facebook, trying to get them to smear the Swedish entrant Måns Zelmerlöw (the bookmakers’ favourite) ahead of the 2015 competition. His consequent attempt at a denial set a new bar in shiftiness and he resigned shortly after.
* Sietse Bakker – Jarmo Siim’s immediate boss and CEO of Wow!Works
Sietse was the man tasked with heading up an investigation into his own employee’s alleged misconduct. However, as Sietse’s company, Wow!Works, currently holds a series of contracts with the European Broadcast Union (EBU) totalling €440,000 per year, this threw up a rather glaring conflict of interests. Would he find Jarmo guilty and risk nearly half a million in business interests? Or find him innocent despite something of a smoking gun?
* Jon Ola Sand – EBU’s Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest
Jon was the one who appointed Sietse to head up the internal investigation. He was also the one who then decided that, actually, maybe a potentially embarrassing investigation into a rapidly unfolding shitstorm wouldn’t be necessary after all. So pulled it.
* Wow!Works – Sietse Bakker’s company
Sietse’s company, Wow!Works, holds two contracts with the EBU. There’s one €321,955 contract for ‘Web Services’ which Wow!Works has been getting for years (one which, until this week, had never been put out to any competitive open tender process). There’s also another, separate €120,000 contract – first signed in 2014 – for ‘Consultancy Services’, also provided by Wow!Works.
Leaning on journalists. Conducting opaque internal investigations. Handing out lucrative contracts to friends. All in all, the very picture of an Old Boys’ Club.
But that’s not where it ends. As we predicted at the time, it looks like this may well be the tip of a massive, murky iceberg – and we might have just caught a glimpse of another chunk of it.
Contracting Up
Whenever EBU officials have been questioned about why such sizable contracts had been handed to Sietse Bakker’s Wow!Works without any sort of competitive tender process, their answer has been something along the lines of ‘setting up an international tender process and getting someone to analyse, compare and evaluate all the applications would increase costs instead of reducing them’.
In other words: it’s too expensive to see if anyone could do the job cheaper.
Quite how they could be so sure there are no savings to be made without actually asking anyone their price is unclear – but that’s all by-the-by now, because guess what? The EBU has suddenly decided that putting this work out to tender is a good idea.
Hang the expense! they’re now saying. Overtime be damned! Let us shake ourselves clear of the clouds of conspiracy, and step out into a bright new day – whatever the cost!
So how does this new tender process work exactly? INCREDIBLY SUSPICIOUSLY, IS HOW.
First of all, the deadline could hardly be tighter. The announcement that these contracts were up for grabs was made on Friday 16th October. Submissions were being accepted from Monday 19th October and the deadline is Friday 13th November. From announcement to curtain close – four weeks.
Four weeks would be a pretty swift turnaround for a contract of that magnitude at the best of times, but – either by unfortunate coincidence or sneaky design – this has all come at a rather hectic point on the Eurovision calendar. Because anyone who is well acquainted with the internal workings of the Eurovision Family of Events (i.e. the sort of person that would be perfect to put in a bid) will be hard at work putting on the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.
When is Junior ESC? Saturday 21st November. The following weekend.
But, wait. There’s more. Tucked away in the terms and conditions of the tender is the stipulation that any company which does decide to bid can’t publicly reveal that they’ve submitted a bid – even if they are unsuccessful – unless they get the express written permission of the EBU to do so.
So much for being open and transparent.
And worse than that, anything that a company does submit as part of the tender process becomes the exclusive property of the EBU. In the terms and conditions of making a bid, bidders agree that “the EBU shall be entitled to use (free from any payment or restriction) all ideas, concepts, proposals, recommendations or other materials (save for the bidder’s trademarks and third parties’ copyrighted materials as communicated in writing by the bidder to the EBU)”
All of which appears to mean that the EBU can take your ideas, not pay you for them, and you aren’t able to speak up about it because you aren’t allowed to reveal that you submitted a bid.
It might just be clumsily worded, but what sort of maniac would submit their intellectual property under such limiting conditions? The sort of maniac that knows for certain he’s going to get the contract, perhaps? Anyone else would surely be crazy to try.
Bakk In Business
On the same day that the tender process was announced, Sietse Bakker made two announcements. The first was that he would be standing down as the Events Supervisor of Eurovision after Stockholm 2016 (this is the job that commands the €120,000 fee). The second was that his company would be putting in a bid to win the tender to provide the web and online services that Wow!Works has been providing for years (this is the job that commands the €321,955 fee).
Sietse is, of course, completely entitled to bid. He’s got quite the advantage too because not only has he been working for the Eurovision in an official capacity for ten years now, he’s also got a fair bit of free time at the minute – as he was taken off a then-floundering Junior Eurovision back in 2012.
This second announcement was not entirely warmly received. When he posted his intentions on Facebook (presumably after getting the EBU’s written permission in order to talk about his bid publicly) one member of the Eurovision team, Kath Lockett – the Head Of Press for Junior Eurovision – asked a few rather pointed (and since deleted) questions of Sietse.
Specifically she asked him if he had any intention of paying the team of volunteers who write for the eurovision.tv site that he draws a €321,955 fee to run. She also asked if the video staff will get any share in the YouTube revenue generated by the 2,000,000,000 views of Eurovision Song Contest videos.
Interesting questions which probably deserve some further investiga… Oh, wait. Did we say ‘member of the Eurovision team’? Sorry. We meant ‘ex-member of the Eurovision team’.
Kath Lockett was fired, effective immediately, from her position of Head Of Press for Junior Eurovision for posting those questions – which lasted all of 15 minutes on the site.
To repeat: Mere weeks ahead of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest starting up in Bulgaria, the show’s well-liked Head of Press has just been fired for asking questions of Sietse Bakker.
Damage to the EBU’s reputation, apparently.
There’s something spookily reminiscent of Phaedra Almajid in all this – the International Media Officer for the Qatar 2022 bid turned whistleblower at FIFA. The last thing the EBU should be doing if they want to distance themselves from comparisons to FIFA is fire a woman who is speaking out about questionable practices in the organisation. And yet here we are.
As we said last time though, maybe this is just all an unfortunate misunderstanding. Maybe the EBU just wanted to show that they’re perfectly capable of doing damage to their own reputation without Kath’s help.
If so, Eurovision, we applaud you. You’re doing an excellent job.WARNING – EXPECT AWFUL GRAMMAR (HASTE TO POST OVERTOOK REQUIREMENT TO FOLLOW THE RULES OF LANGUAGE, SORRY)
Last weekend I spent some of my time drinking beer and talking to Sir Peter Blake about Kendo Nagasaki. This weekend I spent an hour biting into a pen like a shire horse as my brain failed to comprehend a journalist I was sitting next to. I was at QEDcon, on a panel entrusted with the subject “Is Science the New Religion?”
It is the sort of title popular with media folk, like “is comedy the new rock and roll?” or “is knitting the new psoriasis?”
The answer to “is science the new religion?” is obviously yes, so long as you redefine religion as “a self-correcting, evidence based system of exploring the universe which attempts to unearth the least wrong laws and theories that can explain what exists or might exist whilst accepting that room must always be left for doubt and further enquiry”.
We went off topic pretty soon when the journalist explained that politicians, crippled by uncertainty, were now led by behind the scenes scientists. Whether true or not, the actual evidence offered seemed scant. Something about secondhand smoking and something else about education policy. From my view it seemed that the most that was actually being offered was the idea that MPs might cherry pick data to justify the policies they wished to put into place. This seemed very different to the notion that a muscular cabal of scientists are leading the nation into a dictatorship of evidence under the heavy hand of advanced critical thinking. I won’t dwell on my disagreements with the journalist’s position, hopefully a recording will be available soon and you can make your own judgements and throw a virtual egg or tomato at me via the means of futuristic communication.
Though I spent much of time either startle-eyed or furiously furrowed, as if an invisible Duchenne was experimenting on my face, there was one opinion expressed that continues to haunt me. There is a gaggle that seems to consider that expertise is an unfair advantage, that all opinions are equal; an idea that people who are experts in climate change, drugs or engineering are given unfair preference just because they spend much of their life studying these things. I do not think it is fascism that heart surgeons seem to have the monopoly of placing hands in a chest cavity and fiddling with an aorta. Though I have my own opinions on driving, I have decided to let others do it, as I have never taken a lesson. I do not consider myself oppressed by the driving majority. I own an umbrella and a thermometer, but I do not believe this is enough to place me on a climate change advisory body.
I attempted to explain to the journalist that the world we live in has never been more complex or filled with things that require work and patience to understand. Though democracy lovers may shiver at the idea, the penalty for living in the civilisation we currently walk through is that we must sometimes accept our ignorance and defer to others. We can hope that they might be trusted, that the heart surgeon is sober and the climate scientists isn’t swayed by the desire for fame on the front cover of Vanity Fair kissing a Polar Bear.
The journalist suggested this was the kind of fascistic thinking that held up women’s suffrage and the education of the poor. My belief that we are not always equipped to make the best decisions is apparently the alibi that has always been used by people like me who wish to oppress “the common man”. I believe that people should be given as many tools as possible to understand as many complexities of the world as possible, to be armed with knowledge. As William H Calvin wrote, “knowledge is a vaccine”.
But to blithely suggest that that the world is not complex, that expertise is not only not required but a form of oppression, seems to be a position that can only be taken if you are blinkered when progressing through 21st century society. Go back one hundred years and I believe that pretty much any tool or device in your house could be repaired by you with a little ingenuity and swearing. Look at what you have around you now. Look at the device you are reading this on or your television or mobile phone or digital radio, when they cease to function correctly I wonder how many of you would confidently turn to your toolbox, uncover the technology within and effectively repair it. When I picked up the journalist’s ipad, something which seemed to alarm him as if I was a Hyde-ish brute (and I almost was) and declared “mend this”, no answer came forth. Go back a couple of hundred years and there was something closer to a democracy of experts, the downside of this was that medical people couldn’t cure you, the streets had considerably more human excrement in them and life was often cold and short. The price of technology, comfort and hopefully greater understanding of the universe and our place in it is an acceptance that we may not know best in all events and common sense, a hammer and a bag of leeches may not get you through it all.
We should not trust people just because they are experts, but if we are not prepared to put the time and effort in to understand something, to take a step beyond that column we read in The Guardian or “what my friend Phil told me”, then we are placed in a position where must defer and try and make the best decision we can as to who we should defer to. If you are really interested in an issue, then you must take time to read and investigate it, to learn how to ask the best questions, to interrogate with interest, open-mindedness and rigour. A good society, a healthy democracy, is not based on complacency and whining.
FOOTNOTE (added 15/4)
This hour continues to haunt me. I have not felt this exasperated since I appeared on a TV debate show with Stephen Green of Christian Voice. I regret (indeed I had forgotten) saying “you’re a fucking idiot” to the journalist near the conclusion of the event. Insomnia, coffee, exasperation, and an audience certainly didn’t turn me into Spencer Tracy in Inherit the Wind.
here is someone else who watched the peculiar show – http://violettacrisis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/eight-signs-of-bogus-historical.html
I am currently on tour – Finchley, Goole, Sheffield, Alderhot plus many more soon http://www.robinince.com
Most comments will be approved, even the spiteful ones if I am in the mood, though this will probably not be done very quickly due to tour commitments and wifi scarcity.
AdvertisementsA decision has been made. The California Supreme Court has decided to hear the legal issues over Prop. 8, the same-sex marriage ban which passed by razor-thin 52% of the vote, but said it won't issue a stay against the voter-approved same-sex marriage ban. Which is to say, county clerks will not be allowed to resume issuing licenses to queer couples until the case is decided. Prop. 8 is still in effect.
Court spokeswoman Lynn Holton, according to the The Sacramento Bee, said the court asked the parties who filed the suits to write briefs on three issues:
(1) Is Proposition 8 invalid because it constitutes a revision of, rather than an amendment to, the California Constitution? (2) Does Proposition 8 violate the separation-of-powers doctrine under the California Constitution? (3) If Proposition 8 is not unconstitutional, what is its effect, if any, on the marriages of same-sex couples performed before the adoption of Proposition 8?
(Feel free to write your own brief briefs as well in the comments, readers.)
An "oral argument" could happen as early as March 2009. To read the court's decision, go here. (Warning:.pdf file.)Regardless of your role in an organization, this glossary of cybersecurity terms was compiled for everyone from the security professional to the general end-user. Here, you’ll find definitions of terms commonly used in the security industry. Uncover knowledge areas in which you excel and where you want to expand.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A Top
access control — The means and mechanisms of managing access to and use of resources by users. There are three primary forms of access control: DAC, MAC, and RBAC. DAC (Discretionary Access Control) manages access through the use of on-object ACLs (Access Control Lists), which indicate which users have been granted (or denied) specific privileges or permissions on that object. MAC (Mandatory Access Control) restricts access by assigning each subject and object a classification or clearance level label; resource use is then controlled by limiting access to those subjects with equal or superior labels to that of the object. RBAC (Role Base Access Control) controls access through the use of job labels, which have been assigned the permissions and privilege needed to accomplish the related job tasks. (Also known as authorization.)
anti-virus (anti-malware) — A security program designed to monitor a system for malicious software. Once malware is detected, the AV program will attempt to remove the offending item from the system or may simply quarantine the file for further analysis by an administrator. It is important to keep AV software detection databases current in order to have the best chance of detecting known forms of malware.
antivirus software — A software program that monitors a computer system or network communications for known examples of malicious code and then attempts to remove or quarantine the offending items. (Also known as Malware Scanner.) Most anti-virus (AV) products use a pattern recognition or signature matching system to detect the presence of known malicious code. Some AV products have adopted technologies to potentially detect new and unknown malware. These technologies include anomaly detection (i.e. watch for programs which violate specific rules), behavioral detection (i.e. watch for programs that have behaviors that are different from the normal baseline of behavior of the system), and heuristic detection (i.e. watch for programs that exhibit actions which are known to be those of confirmed malware; it is a type of technological profiling).
APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) — A security breach that enables an attacker to gain access or control over a system for an extended period of time usually without the owner of the system being aware of the violation. Often an APT takes advantage of numerous unknown vulnerabilities or zero day attacks, which allow the attacker to maintain access to the target even as some attack vectors are blocked.
asset — Anything that is used in and is necessary to the completion of a business task. Assets include both tangible and intangible items such as equipment, software code, data, facilities, personnel, market value and public opinion.
authentication — The process of proving an individual is a claimed identity. Authentication is the first element of the AAA services concept, which includes Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting. Authentication occurs after the initial step of identification (i.e. claiming an identity). Authentication is accomplished by providing one or more authentication factors—Type 1: something you know (e.g. password, PIN, or combination), Type 2: something you have (e.g. smart card, RSA SecureID FOB, or USB drive), and Type 3: something you are (e.g. biometrics—fingerprint, iris scan, retina scan, hand geometry, signature verification, voice recognition, and keystroke dynamics).
authorization — The security mechanism determining and enforcing what authenticated users are authorized to do within a computer system. The dominant forms of authorization are DAC, MAC and RBAC. DAC (Discretionary Access Control) manages access using ACL (Access Control Lists) on each resource object where users are listed along with the permissions or privileges granted or denied them. MAC (Mandatory Access Control) manages access using labels of classification or clearance on both subjects and objects, and only those subjects with equal or superior clearance are allowed to access resources. RBAC (Role Based Access Control) manages access using labels of a job role that has been granted the permissions and privileges needed to accomplish a specific job or role.
B Top
backing up — Creating a duplicate copy of data onto a separate physical storage device or online/cloud storage solution. A backup is the only insurance against data loss. With a backup, damaged or lost data files can be restored. Backups should be created on a regular, periodic basis such as daily. A common strategy is based on the 3-2-1 rule: you should have three copies of your data - the original and 2 backups; you should use 2 different types of media (such as a physical media (such as a hard drive or tape) and a cloud storage solution); and do not store the three copies of data in 1 plane (i.e. backups should be stored offsite). It is important to store backups for disaster recovery at an offsite location in order to insure they are not damaged by the same event that would damage the primary production location. However, additional onsite backups can be retained for resolving minor issues such as accidental file deletion or hard drive failure.
BCP (Business Continuity Planning) — A business management plan used to resolve issues that threaten core business tasks. (Also known as Business Continuity Management.) The goal of BCP is to prevent the failure of mission critical processes when they have be harmed by a breach or accident. Once core business tasks have been stabilized, BCP dictates the procedure to return the environment back to normal conditions. BCP is used when the normal security policy has failed to prevent harm from occurring, but before the harm has reached the level of fully interrupting mission critical processes, which would trigger the Disaster Recovery Process (DRP).
behavior monitoring — Recording the events and activities of a system and its users. The recorded events are compared against security policy and behavioral baselines to evaluate compliance and/or discover violations. Behavioral monitoring can include the tracking of trends, setting of thresholds and defining responses. Trend tracking can reveal when errors are increasing requiring technical support services, when abnormal load levels occur indicating the presence of malicious code, or when production work levels increase indicating a need to expand capacity. Thresholds are used to define the levels of activity or events above which are of concern and require a response. The levels below the threshold are recorded but do not trigger a response. Responses can be to resolve conflicts, handle violations, prevent downtime or improve capabilities.
blacklist — A security mechanism prohibiting the execution of those programs on a known malicious or undesired list of software. The blacklist is a list of specific files known to be malicious or otherwise are unwanted. Any program on the list is prohibited from executing while any other program, whether benign or malicious, is allowed to execute by default. (See whitelist.)
block cipher — A type of symmetric encryption algorithm that divides data into fixed length sections and then performs the encryption or decryption operation on each block. The action of dividing a data set into blocks enables the algorithm to encrypt data of any size.
botnet — A collection of innocent computers which have been compromised by malicious code in order to run a remote control agent granting an attacker the ability to remotely take advantage of the system's resources in order to perform illicit or criminal actions. These actions include DoS flooding attacks, hosting false Web services, spoofing DNS, transmitting SPAM, eavesdropping on network communications, recording VOIP communications and attempting to crack encryption or password hashes. Botnets can be comprised of dozens to over a million individual computers. The term botnet is a shortened form of robotic network.
bug — An error or mistake in software coding or hardware design or construction. A bug represents a flaw or vulnerability in a system discoverable by attackers and used as point of compromise. Attacks often use fuzzing technique (i.e. randomize testing tools) to locate previously unknown bugs in order to craft new exploits.
BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) — A company’s security policy dictating whether or not workers can bring in their own devices into the work environment, whether or not such devices can be connected to the company network and to what extent that connection allows interaction with company resources. A BYOD policy can range from complete prohibition of personal devices being brought into the facility to allowing any device to be connected to the company network with full access to all company resources. Generally, a BYOD policy puts reasonable security limitations on which devices can be used on company property and severely limits access to sensitive company network resources. BYOD should address concerns such as data ownership, asset tracking, geo location, patching and upgrades, security applications (such as malware scanners, firewalls and IDS), storage segmentation, appropriate vs inappropriate applications, on-boarding, off-boarding, repair/replacement due to damage, legal concerns, internal investigations and law enforcement investigations and forensics.
C Top
ciphertext — The unintelligible and seeming random form of data that is produced by the cryptographic function of encryption. Ciphertext is produced by a symmetric algorithm when a data set is transformed by the encryption process using a selected key. Ciphertext can converted back into its original form (i.e. plain text) by performing the decryption process using the same symmetric encryption algorithm and the key used during the encryption process. (Also known as cryptogram.)
clickjacking — A malicious technique by which a victim is tricked into clicking on a URL, button or other screen object other than that intended by or perceived by the user. Clickjacking can be performed in many ways; one of which is to load a web page transparently behind another visible page in such a way that the obvious links and objects to click are facades, so clicking on an obvious link actually causes the hidden page's link to be selected.
cloud computing — A means to offer computing services to the public or for internal use through remote services. Most cloud computing systems are based on remote virtualization where the application or operating environment offered to customers is hosted on the cloud provider's computer hardware. There are a wide range of cloud solutions including software applications (examples include e-mail and document editing), custom code hosting (namely execution platforms and web services) as well as full system replacements (such as remote virtual services to host databases or file storage). (See SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS.) Most forms of cloud computing are considered public cloud as they are provided by a third party. However, private cloud (internally hosted), community cloud (a group of companies' privately hosted cloud), a hosted private cloud (the cloud servers are owned and managed by a third party but hosted in the facility of the customer) and hybrid cloud (a mixture of public and private) are also options.
CND (Computer Network Defense) — The establishment of a security perimeter and of internal security requirements with the goal of defending a network against cyberattacks, intrusions and other violations. A CND is defined by a security policy and can be stress tested using vulnerability assessment and penetration testing measures.
cracker — The proper term to refer to an unauthorized attacker of computers, networks and technology instead of the misused term “hacker.” However, this term is not as widely used in the media; thus, the term hacker has become more prominent in-spite of the terms misuse. (See hacker.)
critical infrastructure — The physical or virtual systems and assets that are vital to an organization or country. If these systems are compromised, the result would be catastrophic. If an organization's mission critical processes are interrupted, this could result in the organization ceasing to exist. If a country's critical infrastructure is destroyed, it will have severe negative impact on national security, economic stability, citizen safety and health, transportation and communications.
CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) — An online database of attacks, exploits and compromises operated by the MITRE organization for the benefit of the public. It includes any and all attacks and abuses known for any type of computer system or software product. Often new attacks and exploits are documented in a CVE long before a vendor admits to the issue or releases an update or patch to resolve the concern.
cryptography — The application of mathematical processes on data-at-rest and data-in-transit to provide the security benefits of confidentiality, authentication, integrity and non-repudiation. Cryptography includes three primary components: symmetric encryption, asymmetric encryption and hashing. Symmetric encryption is used to provide confidentiality. Asymmetric encryption is used to provide secure symmetric key generation, secure symmetric key exchange (via digital envelopes created through the use of the recipient's public key) verification of source, verification/control of recipient, digital signature (a combination of hashing and use of the sender's private key) and digital certificates (which provides third-party authentication services). Hashing is the cryptographic operation that produces a representational value from an input data set. A before and after hash can be compared in order to detect protection of or violation of integrity.
cyberattack — Any attempt to violate the security perimeter of a logical environment. An attack can focus on gathering information, damaging business processes, exploiting flaws, monitoring targets, interrupting business tasks, extracting value, causing damage to logical or physical assets or using system resources to support attacks against other targets. Cyberattacks can be initiated through exploitation of a vulnerability in a publicly exposed service, through tricking a user into opening an infectious attachment, or even causing automated installation of exploitation tools through innocent website visits. (Also known as drive-by download.)
cyber ecosystem — The collection of computers, networks, communication pathways, software, data and users that comprise either a local private network or the world-wide Internet. It is the digital environment within which software operates and data is manipulated and exchanged.
cyberespionage — The unethical act of violating the privacy and security of an organization in order to leak data or disclose internal/private/confidential information. Cyberespionage can be performed by individuals, organization or governments for the direct purpose of causing harm to the violated entity to benefit individuals, organizations or governments.
cybersecurity — The efforts to design, implement, and maintain security for an organization's network, which is connected to the Internet. It is a combination of logical/technical-, physical- and personnel-focused countermeasures, safeguards and security controls. An organization's cybersecurity should be defined in a security policy, verified through evaluation techniques (such as vulnerability assessment and penetration testing) and revised, updated and improved over time as the organization evolves and as new threats are discovered.
cyber teams — Groups of professional or amateur penetration testing specialists who are tasked with evaluating and potentially improving the security stance of an organization. Common cyber teams include the red, blue and purple/white teams. A red team is often used as part of a multi-team penetration test (i.e. security evaluation), which is responsible for attacking the target which is being defended by the blue team. A purple team or white team is either used as a reference between the attack/red and defense/blue teams; or this team can be used as an interpreter of the results and activities of the red and blue teams in order to maximize their effectiveness in the final results.
D Top
data breach — The occurrence of disclosure of confidential information, access to confidential information, destruction of data assets or abusive use of a private IT environment. Generally, a data breach results in internal data being made accessible to external entities without authorization.
data integrity — A security benefit that verifies data is unmodified and therefore original, complete and intact. Integrity is verified through the use of cryptographic hashing. A hashing algorithm generates a fixed length output known as a hash value, fingerprint or MAC (Message Authenticating Code), which is derived from the input data but which does not contain the input data. This makes hashing a one-way operation. A hash is calculated before an event, and another hash is calculated after the event (an event can be a time frame of storage (i.e. data-at-rest) or an occurrence of transmission (i.e. data-in-transit); the two hashes are then compared using an XOR Boolean operation. If the two hashes exactly match (i.e. the XOR result is zero), then the data has retained its integrity. However, if the two hashes do not match exactly (i.e. the XOR result is a non-zero value), then something about the data changed during the event.
data mining — The activity of analyzing and/or searching through data in order to find items of relevance, significance or value. The results of data mining are known as meta-data. Data mining can be a discovery of individual important data items, a summary or overview of numerous data items or a consolidation or clarification of a collection of data items.
data theft — The act of intentionally stealing data. Data theft can occur via data loss (physical theft) or data leakage (logical theft) event. Data loss occurs when a storage device is lost or stolen. Data leakage occurs when copies of data is possessed by unauthorized entities.
DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) Attack — An attack which attempts to block access to and use of a resource. It is a violation of availability. DDOS (or DDoS) is a variation of the DoS attack (see DOS) and can include flooding attacks, connection exhaustion, and resource demand. The distinction of DDOS from DOS is that the attack traffic may originate from numerous sources or is reflected or bounced off of numerous intermediary systems. The purpose of a DDoS attack is to significantly amplify the level of the attack beyond that which can be generated by a single attack system in order to overload larger and more protected victims. DDoS attacks are often waged using botnets. (See botnet.)
decrypt — The act which transforms ciphertext (i.e. the unintelligible and seeming random form of data that is produced by the cryptographic function of encryption) back into its original plaintext or cleartext form. Ciphertext is produced by a symmetric encryption algorithm when a data set is transformed by the encryption process using a selected key. Ciphertext can converted back into its original form (i.e. plaintext) by performing the decryption process using the same symmetric encryption algorithm and the same key used during the encryption process.
digital certificate — A means by which to prove identity or provide authentication commonly by means of a trusted third-party |
that used hellomail1@yandex[.]com in a manner consistent with how Billy Rinehart was targeted prior to content from his personal Gmail being posted to DCLeaks.
By analyzing the email headers provided by Bellingcat, we identified domains and corresponding IP addresses that the attackers leveraged as part of the spearphishing operation. The table below also shows the registrant for the domain, the creation date for the WHOIS record, and the name server the domain used during the attack timeframe.
Spearphishing Domain Mailserver IP Domain Registrant Domain Create Date Name Server During Attack mxx.evrosatory[.]com
46.22.208.204
andre_roy@mail.com
2/13/14
Carbon2u.com
accounts.servicegoogle[.]com
155.254.36.155
theforeignnews@gmail.com
5/22/15
Cata501836.earth.orderbox-dns.com
mxx.us-westmail-undeliversystem[.]com
46.22.208.204
andre_roy@mail.com
2/28/14
Carbon2u.com
mx1.servicetransfermail[.]com
95.153.32.53
theforeignnews@gmail.com
6/3/15
Cata501836.earth.orderbox-dns.com
accounts.google.com.rnil[.]am
198.105.122.187
Private
7/7/14
Carbon2u.com
mx6.set132[.]com
198.105.122.187
emmer.brown@mail.com
9/30/14
Carbon2u.com
server.mx4.set132[.]com
46.22.208.204
emmer.brown@mail.com
9/30/14
Carbon2u.com
The domains evrosatory[.]com,us-westmail-undeliversystem[.]com have been previously identified by Pricewaterhouse Coopers as FANCY BEAR, and the domain servicetransfermail[.]com closely resembles the servicetransferemail[.]com infrastructure that German Intelligence (BvF) established as FANCY BEAR within Cyber Brief Nr. 01/2016.
FANCY BEAR also previously used both the Cata501836 and Carbon2u name servers to host infrastructure and email addresses from 1&1’s mail.com to register domains. We were able to identify further overlaps with other FANCY BEAR infrastructure by pivoting off of these indicators, which we will describe in a later blog post. Based on these consistencies, we assess FANCY BEAR almost certainly is behind the spearphishing and credential harvesting campaign targeting Eliot Higgins and other Bellingcat researchers.
CyberBerkut Activity
CyberBerkut describes itself as a group of pro-Russian Ukrainian hacktivists. They borrow the “Berkut” name from the now disbanded Ukrainian riot police who responded brutally to the 2014 EuroMaidan demonstrations in Kiev. CyberBerkut runs a digitally-fueled, aggressive, active measures campaign directed against a pro-western government in Kiev and points of western influence — such as NATO — in eastern Europe.
CyberBerkut has conducted attacks across a spectrum of technical sophistication including distributed denial of service attacks (DDOS), disrupting and degrading the networks of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission during the 2014 election, hacking Ukrainian billboards and displaying pro-Russian messages, conducting computer network exploitation and strategic leaks of emails and documents, and leaking intercepted phone calls between high ranking Ukrainian officials. This range suggests highly capable actors are behind CyberBerkut and they employ a high degree of operational planning when considering the offensive use of information and their effects.
CyberBerkut defaced the Bellingcat webpage on February 10, 2016, claiming credit for the attack and singling out Ruslan Leviev, a Russian opposition blogger and Bellingcat contributor.
Leviev published a compelling piece of citizen journalism on May 22, 2015 exploring the fate of Russian Spetsnaz soldiers believed to have been killed in combat operations within Ukraine earlier that month. According to Bellingcat founder Higgins, Leviev’s contributor account was compromised and used to post the CyberBerkut message. In an email interview, Leviev makes the following statement regarding the events that led to the compromise of his credentials and the defacement.
In my case, my old email account, which was located on Yandex servers, was hacked. The email account had a long, difficult password, not a word, from various letters, numbers, and special symbols. Plus there was a telephone number bound to the account for second factor authentication.
Exactly how it was hacked — I don’t know.
Either they as employees, or with their active assistance, intercepted the SMS authentication code. Or they, again, as an officer from the authorities or with their active assistance, gained direct access to the Yandex Mail servers where they seized the email from my old inbox. Or they know about a vulnerability in Yandex email that nearly nobody else knows about.
Having seized the old email inbox, they used the password recovery mechanism for LiveJournal. My LiveJournal account (which I have not used for a long time) was connected to my old email address, but LiveJournal does not provide second factor authentication. Via password recovery of my LiveJournal from my stolen email, they took over my LiveJournal account and made a post.
In the same stolen email account, they found my username and password for my account at Bellingcat (I had once published an investigation directly on the Bellingcat website) and they published a post there in my name.
At the same time, my icloud account was not setup for second factor authentication, and was connected only to my old email address for password recovery, it was also taken over. They performed a password recovery via my stolen email address for icloud, logged in, but I received a notification on my iPhone about it, and I quickly cut off their access, but they were able to download some photos.
They also tried to hack my Facebook and Twitter. They were unable to crack Facebook, because I had second factor authentication and always need to enter the code generated by the Facebook app. They were able to login to Twitter and change the password but nothing was deleted and they didn’t tweet anything. I restored the password.
Based on all the data, I assume that, as in the case of Alburovym, Kozlovsky, Parkhomenko, this was the activity of security services who intercepted the SMS containing the access code. So they got access to my old email account and they also gained access to my Twitter account (which was also under two-factor, but code is sent via SMS rather than generated in an app).
Of my social networks where two-factor codes are generated via an application, they were unable to crack. Of my social networks where the two-factor code was sent via SMS, they were able to crack.
Leviev suggests the attackers had direct access to Yandex mail servers or were able to intercept the SMS message used for two factor authentication to compromise his old Yandex email account. Leviev goes on to describe that the actors then used emails from that old account to compromise his iCloud account and access pictures and other information saved from Leviev’s phone to iCloud. Some of this information was ultimately put in a February 24, 2016 post on CyberBerkut’s website that contained sensitive details of Leviev’s personal life, such as his pictures, phone number, address, passport scan, girlfriend’s name, and dating and sexual preferences.
These attacks were an overt attempt to discredit Bellingcat research and Leviev, but also carried a message to others who publicly voice positions critical of Moscow that this form of journalism does not go unnoticed. We also found it interesting how much effort was expended and the degree of sources and methods exposed to achieve a simple defacement. We do not know whether the attackers intercepted Leviev’s SMS-based two-factor authentication or had direct access to Yandex mail servers, but either tactic is more suggestive of a state-backed actor as opposed to independent hacktivists.
CyberBerkut and FANCY BEAR: Not the Same, But Showing Up to the Same Party
Throughout our research, we have focused on FANCY BEAR, an advanced persistent threat (APT) group assessed to be Russian government. CyberBerkut, on the other hand, was a referential data point when we looked at precedence for pro-Russian proxies interfering with elections. CrowdStrike assessed in its 2015 Global Threat Report “there are indications that CyberBerkut has ties to Russian state security,” but the degree of Russian government control over the group is disputed.
The timing of the FANCY BEAR spearphishing campaigns and the CyberBerkut attack against Leviev are interesting. The concerted FANCY BEAR spearphishing efforts over a six month timeframe in 2015 shows Moscow’s clear intent to compromise Bellingcat, most likely due to their posts on key current events involving Russia. This activity was followed by a hard stop and then additional targeted efforts by CyberBerkut in early 2016, which was in-turn followed by additional FANCY BEAR spearphishing from May to July 2016. A key assumption underlying any assessment about how these activities are related stems from how an analyst assesses the motives for targeting Leviev.
We came up with two scenarios:
Stronger/Closer Coordination Between FANCY BEAR and CyberBerkut. In this scenario, the activities against Bellingcat are coordinated with these two entities handing off operations. The timing suggests that the state actors, looking to compromise Bellingcat, pivoted to a more aggressive attack against Leviev when the initial spearphishing campaign failed to yield the desired results. Leviev is targeted more aggressively as a means to get at Bellingcat and since he lives in Russia, state actors would have additional tools in their kit to intercept his SMS two-factor authentication messages or gain direct access to Yandex’s mail servers. In this scenario, CyberBerkut functions as much as a strategic messaging outlet as the actual attacker and is subject to a much greater degree of direction and control from Moscow than previously assessed.
The Common Enemies Approach: Weaker/Less Coordination Between FANCY BEAR and CyberBerkut. In this scenario, the spearphishing campaigns conducted by FANCY BEAR are distinct in purpose and perpetrator from the CyberBerkut attack against Leviev. The spearphishing campaigns are more focused on Bellingcat’s coverage of the MH17 shootdown and involvement in the JIT investigation. CyberBerkut targets Leviev separately after his coverage of Russian military involvement in eastern Ukraine with some assistance from supportive friends in Moscow to compromise his Yandex account. Targeting Leviev is less about a broader compromise of Bellingcat and more about harassing one journalist. In this scenario, CyberBerkut is advancing Moscow’s interests and can call on the Russian intelligence services, but is still a distinct group.
Leak Sites Leaking Over
We looked to see if we could identify other overlaps between FANCY BEAR and CyberBerkut that would help us assess which of these two scenarios was more likely. Through our research into the Bellingcat activity, we found some surprising content overlaps with DCLeaks — another assessed Russian influence outlet — and a CyberBerkut pattern of registering infrastructure that FANCY BEAR also uses. These developments move the needle slightly towards a more coordinated relationship between the two groups, but not decisively.
Comparing DCLeaks and CyberBerkut
In our previous post, we identified a website called DCLeaks as a Russian-backed influence outlet. Information shared with ThreatConnect indicates that there is an association of some kind between the Guccifer 2.0 persona and the DCLeaks website. Shortly after publication, we became aware of a cache of documents leaked on the DCLeaks site. The files were allegedly obtained via a compromise of an organization affiliated with George Soros. It is interesting to note that earlier in 2016 CyberBerkut also published files purportedly associated with Soros.
Analysis conducted by Anton Cherepanov, a security researcher who works for ESET, suggests that the content of the two leaks are similar with at least three of the Soros documents being found on both sites. The acquisition and publication of documents belonging to, or in some way associated with, the same individual is of interest as overlaps in targeting and potential similarities in stolen content could be indicative of a connection between DCLeaks and CyberBerkut. Further, as we have identified that there is a connection from DCLeaks to Guccifer 2.0 and from Guccifer 2.0 to FANCY BEAR, the overlap in leaked documents may suggest that both leak sites obtained their data from the same collection source, FANCY BEAR.
While this alone isn’t enough to verify a relationship between the sites, there are some other interesting similarities. Despite their statuses as a U.S.-focused whistleblower and hacktivist group respectively, the websites of both DCLeaks and CyberBerkut primarily host content that is critical of individuals and governments perceived to oppose Russian foreign and domestic policies. Both sites attempt to appeal to civilian masses in the U.S. and Ukraine respectively by calling attention to purported in the political systems.
Aleksandr Panchenko
CyberBerkut’s main domain, cyber-berkut[.]org, was registered using privacy protection through the registrar Internet.bs and shortly thereafter hosted using CloudFlare infrastructure. Several other CyberBerkut-related domains redirect to this website. Most of these domains were also registered using privacy protection, but one domain, cyber-berkut[.]net was registered by “Aleksandr Panchenko” using the email address alex_panchenko@mail[.]com. The same day the domain was registered through Reg.ru, it was later routed to CloudFlare infrastructure, suggesting that this domain was not opportunistically procured by a domain registrant in hopes they could sell it to the CyberBerkut actors.
Additional research into this name and email address identifies six other CyberBerkut-related domains, none of which are active currently, registered by this individual:
Cyber-berkut[.]su
Cyber-berkut[.]tk
Cyber-berkut[.]us
Cyber-berkut[.]me
Cyber-berkut[.]cz
Cyber-berkut[.]im
While certainly not definitive, the use of a mail.com email address to register domains is consistent with recently identified FANCY BEAR registration activity against the DCCC, WADA, and CAS.
Tracing out FB Infrastructure Based on Bellingcat Input
The activity that Bellingcat alerted us to provided a plethora of domains, IP addresses, email addresses, and other registration and hosting information for us to pivot off of to identify other pertinent infrastructure. In an upcoming blog post, we’ll seek to identify as much FANCY BEAR infrastructure and aliases as possible using the ThreatConnect platform and capabilities from some of our industry partners.
Reviewing the CATA501836 and Carbon2u name servers, we were able to identify dozens of active domains that fit the FANCY BEAR mold and likely spoof organizations that Moscow would seek to compromise.
Pivoting off of Bellingcat’s email headers we were able to identify hundreds of domains and IPs, and dozens of email addresses and aliases most likely used by FANCY BEAR, some of which were not previously identified. This review primarily identified historical FANCY BEAR information, but the conclusions from it help verify FANCY BEAR TTP assessments, provide additional targeting context, and may be useful in retrospective reviews of malicious activity.
Conclusion
The campaign against Bellingcat provides yet another example of sustained targeting against an organization that shines a light on Russian perfidy. The spearphishing campaign is classic FANCY BEAR activity while CyberBerkut’s role raises yet more questions about the group’s ties to Moscow. These end-to-end cyber operations begin with targeting and exploitation and end with strategic leaks and other active measures employed against those with whom they disagree.
These efforts go above and beyond traditional intelligence requirements such as gaining insight into a sensitive project or sources. Vilifying the messenger and dumping their personal data is part of the game, intended to intimidate and embarrass those that speak ill of Moscow. If Russia is willing to go to these lengths to compromise a small journalist organization and its contributors, consider what they are willing to do to major news and media outlets that publish similar articles. While many organizations remain reticent to share information, this knowledge is the prerequisite to establishing how widespread such efforts are and the adversary’s modus operandi.
The BEARs win if their active measures campaigns push, scare, or intimidate their targets into doing what they want. If you encounter a BEAR, you’re doing something right. Don’t back down. And turn on two-factor authentication for everything.
On October 5 2016, probable FANCY BEAR actors again sent a spearphishing message to a Bellingcat contributor. This spearphishing message spoofed Google security services, similar to those previously used to target Bellingcat.
FANCY BEAR used a shortening service to mask the malicious link, similar to the previous messages, but it appears the actors attempted to obfuscate their activity by using two separate shortening services to hide the final malicious link. The tiny.cc link that is in the spearphishing message actually points to a TinyURL shortened URL.
The TinyURL in turn points to the below URL:
hxxp://myaccount.google.com-changepassword-securitypagesettingmyaccountgooglepagelogin.id833[.]ga
This URL is appended with a target-specific base64 encoded string as was seen in the previous spearphishing messages targeting Bellingcat and others.
The id833[.]ga domain is hosted at the 89.40.181[.]119 IP (Bucharest, RO) which also hosts the domain id834[.]ga. There is a subdomain for the id834[.]ga similar to the URL above that is also hosted at the same IP. This suggests that the id834[.]ga domain has also been operationalized, though we have no information indicating who has been targeted with it. The WHOIS records for these domains did not contain any additional information on the registrants or other domains they may have registered.
Using ThreatConnect’s Email Import feature, we identified that the spearphishing message was sent through Yandex mail servers using the email address g.mail2017@yandex[.]com.
This was the first identified spearphish against Bellingcat since July 2016 and suggests that FANCY BEAR activity against them is ongoing. Other organizations involved in the MH17 investigation that would draw Moscow’s ire should be on the lookout for similar activity.We’re pleased to bring you the premiere of After The Burial‘s new song “Collapse” (listen below). The track is taken from the band’s forthcoming album Dig Deep, out February 19th through Sumerian Records.
Purchase Dig Deep here: Physical | iTunes | Google Play
In the midst of recording their fifth full-length album Dig Deep [Sumerian Records], After The Burial faced the shocking suicide of guitarist and founding member Justin Lowe in July 2015. The Minneapolis metal band—Anthony Notarmaso [vocals], Trent Hafdahl [lead guitar, clean vocals], Lerichard “Lee” Foral [bass], Dan Carle [drums]—felt understandably shaken to the core almost to the point of breaking.
“We coped as well as we could have—we still are,” admits Anthony. “Losing someone isn’t easy, and we all dealt with it in our own way. I was angry and sad at the same time. I didn’t know how to feel, and it took time to accept that he really was gone. After the dust settled, we got on the phone to see where we stood. To be honest, we thought about giving up. We asked ourselves if it was right to go on without him, or maybe if it was time to start a new band together. In the end, we felt like we couldn’t let what beat him beat us. That would’ve been even more tragic, and we felt like he wouldn’t have wanted us to stop. I know I wouldn’t have.”
As always, the quartet speaks the loudest through their music. Dig Deep reflects their dedication not only to the band, but their fallen brother. The album’s nine songs fuse together a framework of mind-numbing eight-string guitar riffs fortified by polyrhythmic percussion and a dynamic vocal palette, encompassing hissing screams and growling melodies. The title encapsulates their mindset.
“When you think you don’t have anything left in you, you have to rely on that inner strength,” continues Trent. “That’s where we are as a band. So many things beyond our control went wrong, but we started to dig deep as brothers.”
“We went through hell to finish this record, and the music translates that,” Anthony agrees. “Trent worked his ass off, and it shows. It’s crazy because I think it brought us closer as band. Justin wrote some riffs that made the record, but after a couple of days in the studio he left. He obviously wasn’t okay, and we wanted him to get well. I arrived a few days after the guys had gotten there. I never got to see him.”
Alongside producer Will Putney [The Amity Affliction, Upon A Burning Body], the band recorded Dig Deep at Graphic Nature Audio in New Jersey. Self-producing their work in the past, it marked their first collaboration with a producer behind the board for the entire process.
“We hadn’t tried it before,” Trent says. “It felt like a fresh idea to do something new. We were still running the show obviously, but he brought a good ear for tone and melody. He encouraged us to explore more. To have that perspective was helpful.”
The group’s patented assault comes to life on the first single “Lost In The Static.” An eerie guitar squeal cuts through a machine gun-style percussive onslaught before Anthony’s primal vocals kick in. Meanwhile, the opener “Collapse” ignites an “angry breakdown that can incite movement in the pit,” adds the guitarist.
“Laurentian Ghosts” showcases their progression. Commencing on a clean intro, the track spirals from a buzz-saw groove into a hauntingly gorgeous refrain punctuated by a harmonic lead.
“The Laurential Divide is a place here in Minnesota,” explains Trent. “It’s a point where the water starts flowing a different way. It’s a very emotional moment on Dig Deep, and it pays homage to where we’re from. You can listen to it and feel a few metaphors.”
After The Burial maintain a commitment to evolution. Following three full-length albums and countless miles on the road, 2013’s Wolves Within bowed at #2 on Billboard’s Heatseekers Chart and #9 on the Hard Rock Chart upon release. Along the way, the group shared stages with everyone from Suicide Silence to Veil of Maya and The Faceless, carving out an intensely dedicated hardcore fan base. That audience showed immense support upon the news of Justin’s death.
“It was absolutely beautiful,” smiles Anthony. “It helped us so much. When we were having those conversations about our next move, our fans did help us hold sway. It’s like that meme, ‘Faith in humanity restored.’ I felt it; we all did. We didn’t want to give up after seeing so much love pour in from people all over. There were a lot of bands who sent kind words our way too. I think people sometimes forget how much of a community we really are. There is strength in numbers.”
That’s why in many ways After The Burial dug deep to make this music for those same supporters.
“I just want people to know how much heart and soul was poured into this thing,” Trent leaves off. “We do this because we love it, and that passion flows through our veins. Even if it’s only one song that speaks to them, I hope they can take something from this record.”
After The Burial / Sumerian 10 Year Tour:
February 19 Minneapolis, MN Skyway Theatre
February 20 Chicago, IL The Bottom Lounge
February 21 Millvale, PA Mr. Small’s Theatre
February 22 Indianapolis, IN The Emerson Theater
February 23 Pontiac, MI The Crofoot Ballroom
February 24 Cleveland, OH Agora Theatre
February 25 Philadelphia, PA Union Transfer
February 26 Worcester, MA The Palladium
February 27 New York, NY The Gramercy Theatre
February 28 Baltimore, MD Baltimore Sound Stage
February 29 Greensboro, NC Greene Street Club
March 2 Tampa, FL The Orpheum
March 4 San Antonio, TX Korova
March 5 Houston, TX Walters Downtown
March 6 Austin, TX Dirty Dog Bar
March 7 El Paso, TX Tricky Falls
March 8 Mesa, AZ Nile Theater
March 9 Hollywood, CA The Roxy Theatre
March 10 Sacramento, CA Ace of Spades
March 12 San Diego, CA Soma
March 13 Pomona, CA The Glasshouse
March 16 Denver, CO The Summit Music Hall
March 17 Lawrence, KS Granada Theater
March 18 St. Louis, MO Fubar
Purchase tickets here.Normally when we show a comparison video like this, it's comparing the same game across platforms. But this one's different. It's two games across two platforms, which may sound pointless, but remember, these are driving games we're talking about. We can get away with it.
Moto Games TV found that both GT6 and PC graphics showcase Project CARS both have the same track (Monza) and the same car (Pagani Huayra) available. So they took both for a spin and recorded the results.
You should probably watch it in 1080p for the best results.
While it's easiest to say "Oh, Project CARS looks better, especially inside the car", that's missing the point. That game is running on a modern PC. Gran Turismo 6 is running on hardware released in 2006.
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Gran Turismo 6 vs Project CARS Build 623 - Pagani Huayra at Monza [Moto Games TV]Image via YouTube
Some nicknames lose more in translation than others. Zhou Qi, who was one of the best players in the Chinese Basketball Association as a 19-year-old rookie, is lucky—his nickname is The Big Devil, or da mowang, which is pretty badass in any language. He's also lucky to be 7'2", fleet of foot, and blessed with hand speed. The only bit of misfortune, here, is that Zhou is still at least three years away from the NBA.
This has less to do with the NBA readiness of his game than it does with the fact that this is how things get done in China. Even for the player that led the Chinese Basketball Association in blocks at 19—the first time a Chinese player had achieved the feat since Yao Ming did it 13 years ago—rules are rules.
Read More: Andray Blatche Has Found His Home In China
The deafening hype that now surrounds Zhou in his homeland first began to gather in 2011, after he posted a 41 point, 28 rebound, 13 block triple-double during an international tournament in Turkey as a member of China's U-16 team. A year or so later, Zhou guided his provincial team to a national youth title, leading all players in points, rebounds, and blocks along the way. In 2014, the Xinjiang Tigers signed Zhou to his first multi-year contract—a deal that would make Zhou the third best-paid local player in the CBA before he had even played a professional game.
In China, high-level prospects don't come out of nowhere; they take very clear steps from the youth level, putting up big numbers at local and international schoolboy tournaments before making a similar kind of impact at the CBA level. Zhou has passed all those tests with flying colors and very recently undertook another of the traditional milestones for a Chinese player looking to be drafted in the NBA by taking part in the Nike Hoops Summit.
The big man would have a mixed weekend, as Corbin Smith noted in this space. Zhou looked extremely green and generally floundered offensively, but impressed on defense. "I don't think he really showed enough in Portland to say definitively that he's an NBA player," CBS Sports' NBA Draft expert Sam Vecenie explained via email, "but I think he'll still be a first round pick eventually. Nobody wants to miss out on taking the next Rudy Gobert and anyone who measures at 7'2" with a 7-6 wingspan is going to be picked, period."
While Vecenie remains cautiously optimistic on Zhou, China's basketball media pushed all its chips into the middle of the table a long time ago. Many of these same journalists can remember back to the 2004 Hoop Summit when a teenage Josh Smith hung 28 points on Yi Jianlian, only for the latter to be picked seventh in the NBA draft three years later. There is a feeling of destiny surrounding Zhou and when Draft Express recently made the big man the tenth pick in its 2016 Mock Draft, both of China's biggest sports sites ran it as their lead story. Here, as most everywhere else, Yi's NBA tenure is forgotten.
Whatever its fate, Zhou's inevitable shot at the NBA won't happen for a while. The working rule in Chin is that a player can enter the NBA draft once he turns 22, which means Zhou still has to complete one final part of his basketball apprenticeship. Should he come through it, Zhou is going to be even richer than he is now; if he fails, the CBA will have yet another wasted big man to its credit. It's a credit to Zhou, and a fact of how Chinese basketball works, that both are about equally easy to imagine.
Professional basketball in China is decades behind that in America, and even most of Europe. Zhou will have to develop within a professional setting in which teams don't care if their players smoke cigarettes off the court and for whom diet and nutrition remain an afterthought. Several promising Chinese players have lost their way within this working environment; the most famous being 7'1", 310 lb center Han Dejun, whom Western audiences might recognize from his monster dunk on Stephon Marbury in this season's CBA playoffs. Regarded as a legitimate NBA prospect when he debuted in 2007, Han was allowed to get so out of shape in such a short period of time that his nickname around the league changed from Baby Shaq to, among others, The Flying Pig.
Zhou will also have to avoid the temptation to coast when playing alongside his team's foreign players. In China, few front offices build rosters with any real strategy and instead look to make the playoffs every year by signing the best American free agents on offer. The inevitable problem with this approach is that those same imports, who are brought in to score and make up for the weaknesses of the locals, often end up weakening the team in the long run. This creates a J.R. Smith- or Metta World Peace-sized safety blanket for young Chinese players, who no longer have to develop weaker aspects of their game, and can instead focus on chasing long offensive rebounds and high-fiving.
In 2012, Wang Zhelin was in the same spot that Zhou is in now; a young, huge, highly regarded center who was surrounded by NBA talk. Three years later, Wang's NBA prospects look to be in real trouble because he has failed to build on his hard-working but predictable back-to-the-basket style of play. A large reason for this is because Wang's team, the Fujian Sturgeons, decided against working on their big man's mid-range game. Instead, they surrounded him for years with American stretch-fours who helped create the room needed for Wang to go one-on-one in the low post. In the seasons that followed, Wang has showed little progress, and is no longer seen as an NBA prospect.
But perhaps the biggest hurdle for Zhou will be how he copes with being China's consensus Next Big Thing. Zhou's countrymen passionately consume the NBA, and in the void that followed Yao Ming's retirement, there remains a nationwide obsession with seeing a Chinese player back at the highest level of basketball. For the next couple of years, Zhou is going to have to live with every good performance being proof that he belongs in the NBA, and every off night becoming a cause for widespread concern. The pressure to be as good as a billion people want him to be will weigh on Zhou, as of course it would.
The question now is not about Zhou Qi being good enough to make it to the NBA; he's awfully good, and will get better. The question is, instead, whether Zhou can survive the rest of his CBA apprenticeship. If he does, the skinny kid from Henan province will have earned every cent of his signing bonus.Did CIA Kill Reporter Investigating John Brennan?
Above Photo: CIA Director John O. Brennan
Emails leaked in 2012 by Wikileaks paint a portrait of CIA Director John Brennan as a fierce partisan for the Obama administration who was behind “witch hunts of investigative journalists” while he was a White House national security advisor during Obama’s first term. The CIA is the primary agency now suggesting that Russia hacked the US election, without ever addressing evidence that the 2016 Democratic primary nomination was hacked by supporters of Hillary Clinton. Brennan was to be the subject of an article by Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings, before Hastings was killed in a freak single car accident which former national counter-terrorism director Richard Clarke called “consistent with a car cyber attack.”
The Wikileaks emails were from a private intelligence contractor with strong ties to the US intelligence community.
The leaked email communication from an executive of Stratfor says that, as Deputy National Security Advisor in 2010 to Obama, Brennan and the White House were determined to:
“go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda.”
Stratfor has been dubbed the “Shadow CIA.” It is part of what observers of the national security decision-making process call the “military-intelligence complex.”
In an email written by Stratfor President Fred Burton to work colleagues, Burton wrote on November 21, 2010:
“Brennan is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources. Note — There is specific tasker from the WH to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda (oh my.) Even the FBI is shocked. The Wonder Boys must be in meltdown mode…”
Brennan’s previous experience in the CIA includes station chief of Saudi Arabia. He advised President Obama on intelligence issues during the 2008 presidential campaign and transition. When he was tapped for CIA director in 2013, his Senate confirmation was filibustered for 13 hours by Republican Senator Rand Paul over his role in planning drone strikes abroad, and the administration’s refusal to rule out drone strikes on Americans on US soil.
Was to Be Subject of Exposé by Rolling Stone Reporter Michael Hastings Before Hastings Mysteriously Killed in Crash
2013 marked the death of well-known Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings, in a fiery one-car accident which puzzled crash experts and Hastings’ friends. Hastings’ new leased Mercedes C250 SUV went up in a fireball as it hit a tree in central Los Angeles after speeding at four in the morning. The Los Angeles Times reported that at the time of his death, Hastings was working on a story about CIA director Brennan.
After the crash, former Bush national counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke told the Huffington Post:
“…in the case of Michael Hastings, what evidence is available publicly is consistent with a car cyber attack.”
Speculation became rampant that the CIA had something to do with Hastings’ death. It did not help that Brennan was well-known as being one of the prime movers and shapers of what has become known as the Executive Branch “Disposition Matrix,” a list of alleged terrorists targets instituted by the Obama administration who are slated for summary execution, wherever they are found, without trial.
The final selection of targets has become a weekly ritual at the White House which became known as “Terror Tuesdays.”
In October of 2012 The Washington Post reported:
“To many in the international legal community and among human rights and civil liberties activists, Brennan runs a policy so secret that it is impossible for outsiders to judge whether it complies with the laws of war or U.S. values — or even determine the total number of people killed.”
Michael Hastings’ death was investigated in-depth by San Diego 6 reporter Kim Dvorak, who labeled the death “suspicious.”By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for the Five Towns Jewish Times
“What? It’s for sure HaAdama!”
“What are you talking about? It’s Mezonos!”
“Well, my Rabbi says that whatever you say is okay.”
The issue of course, is granola bars – particularly General Mills Nature Valley Granola Bars – now in some 25 different versions (not all of them kosher).
BRIEF HISTORY
Before we discuss the halachic aspects of these bars, let’s embark upon a brief history of the granola product.
Dr. James Caleb Jackson (1811-1895), from upstate New York, was the inventor of the first modern breakfast cereal. He called it “Granula” from the word, “granule.” Dr. Jackson was originally a newspaper publisher, but took ill and was forced into early retirement. He eventually became a believer in mineral spring healing and took over the Our Home Hygienic Institute in Dansville. Aside from mineral water healing, Dr. Jackson believe that proper diet was the key to improving health. He fed his patients a diet that emphasized fruits, vegetables and unprocessed grains – particularly Graham flour.
Graham flour is slightly different than whole wheat flower. Whole wheat keeps the endosperm, the brush, the germ and the bran as does Graham flour. Graham flour doesn’t sift it at all in the milling process and leaves it course. Unlike whole wheat flour.
Doc Jackson developed “Granula” from Graham flour. Granula consisted of heavy nuggets or granules of bran-rich Graham flour. The cereal was manufactured from a dough of Graham flour rolled into sheets and then baked. The dried sheets were then broken into pieces, baked again, and broken into smaller pieces. The granules were so dense that they had to be soaked overnight in milk before serving.
But then came the competition.
Dr. John Kellogg, was a Seventh-Day Adventist. His medical career was sponsored by Ellen G. White, the founder of the Seventh-Day Adventist religion. She was a client of Doc Jackson and apparently had Dr. Kellog create a similar product with the same name but substituting oats for the graham flour clusters. He used a rolling process to flake the grain.
Shades of Hasagas Gvul.
Doc Jackson sued and Dr. Kellogg changed the name to Granola.
THE ORIGINAL GRANOLA BAR
So what was the bracha on the original granola? Since he flaked the grain in the rolling process and baked it afterward while having added water, it would appear that the bracha would have |
public information officers.
“FOIA, to me, is a fundamental, bedrock way that people who believe in democracy think about transparency and its role in government”
—John Wonderlich,
Sunlight Foundation
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Congressman John Moss, a California Democrat, first proposed legislation that would become FOIA in the 1950s, amid the secretive climate of Washington during the Cold War. In 1955, Moss became chairman of the Special Subcommittee on Government Information. He used that perch to shame and cajole other politicians into supporting FOIA. The committee—as well as the American Society of Newspaper Editors, educators, scientists, and others—conducted a public campaign for the bill. In 1966, as Democrats faced a tough midterm election over Vietnam and deteriorating race relations, President Lyndon B. Johnson reluctantly signed FOIA into law rather than allow Republicans to paint his party as against open government.
Congress has since amended FOIA every 10 years or so. In 1974, after the Watergate scandal, lawmakers set up mechanisms like requiring agencies to respond to requests in a timely manner—the limit is now 20 days—disciplinary procedures for wrongly withholding information as judged by administrative appeals or court rulings, and waiving fees for journalists and public interest groups. Other major changes include extending FOIA to electronic records like e-mail in 1996 and creating the Office of Government Information Services to serve as FOIA ombudsman in 2007.
Court decisions have also modified the law. Under FOIA, if the government denies a request for records, requesters have few options. They can sometimes appeal, depending on the agency. They can request mediation through the Office of Government Information Services. Or they can file a lawsuit charging that the government is unfairly withholding information. According to the Associated Press, officials in fiscal year 2014 admitted they were wrong to withhold documents in around one in three instances when requesters appealed, the highest reversal rate in at least five years. Litigation remains by far the most frequent option for requesters who feel they’ve been treated unfairly.
“The vast majority of requesters who don’t have the resources or the wherewithal to challenge agencies in court proceed at a real disadvantage,” says David Sobel, senior counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “It’s unfortunate that if you want the law to work in a reasonably effective way, you often need to have the ability to get a court to intervene.”
Court cases come in response to officials rejecting FOIA requests, and those decisions reflect how administration attitudes haven’t changed much since Moss’s time.
On his first full day in office in 2009, President Barack Obama issued a memorandum on FOIA with the goal of leading the most transparent administration in history. “In the face of doubt, openness prevails,” the memo read, ordering agencies to presume records were declassified unless there was a clear reason to exempt them from the law. Coming in the wake of President George W. Bush’s administration and the tight security atmosphere following the September 11th terror attacks, many journalists were hopeful that Obama would change how the federal government released records. That didn’t happen.
“The Obama administration even now continues to portray itself as responsible and transparent when it comes to government records requests,” says AP investigative team news editor Ted Bridis, who published an extensive analysis of FOIA statistics in March. “It has become inarguable over the last seven years that they are doing a lousy job. They had said all the right things, but when it comes into practice, when the rubber meets the road, it’s just a horrible situation.”
Of the record 714,000 FOIA requests filed with the federal government in the 2014 fiscal year—that includes journalists, citizens, and companies—officials responded to around 650,000 requests, a 4 percent decrease compared to the year before, Bridis wrote, citing government statistics. The government rejected requests or redacted documents in almost 251,000 cases, or 39 percent of the time, citing exemptions in a record 555,000 instances. In around 216,000 requests, officials determined the inquiry was inappropriate, they couldn’t find records, or requesters refused to pay copying fees and other costs.
Melanie Ann Pustay, director of the Justice Department’s Office of Information Policy, defends the government’s performance. “I’m always perplexed by those sorts of criticisms,” she says, adding that agencies have outright rejected only 9 percent of FOIA requests since she became director of the office in 2007—a figure that does not include denials based on requesters refusing to pay fees, inquiries that are still pending, and a host of other rejections and delays. “Certainly, yes, there are backlogs of FOIA requests at many agencies. Certainly the numbers of incoming requests have increased. But when you look at how agencies have responded to those realities, year after year agencies are able to improve the average number of days it takes to process requests, and they also have maintained a really high release rate.”
But requesters also brought more FOIA lawsuits against the federal government in fiscal year 2014 than anytime since at least 2001, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). The clearinghouse found that a total of 422 FOIA lawsuits were filed in federal district court compared to 387 in fiscal 2005, the next highest year in the period researchers examined. Media organizations were a small part of those cases, too, a sign that journalists aren’t the only ones frustrated by the government’s handling of FOIA. Newspapers and other media outlets filed 22 FOIA lawsuits in the last four years of President George W. Bush’s administration and 18 in the first four years Obama has been in office.
Frequent FOIA request filer Jason Leopold: “Sometimes a document will hold an entire story”
J
ournalists and others who frequently challenge the government’s FOIA denials in court blame low-level bureaucrats, who are usually the first to receive FOIA applications. FOIA officers have little or no incentive to give the media or anyone else information that might anger their superiors, they argue. In his story about FOIA cases, for example, Bridis notes that the AP obtained e-mails from the National Archives and Records Administration about who pays for first lady Michelle Obama’s dresses. Officials had redacted text in one sentence but on a subsequent page had failed to censor the same sentence: “We live in constant fear of upsetting the WH,” a reference to the White House, suggesting the motivation for blacking out the sentence was related to anxiety about possible political blowback rather than protecting privacy under the law.
Susan Long, co-founder and co-director of TRAC, views government intransigency as more than just psychological, however. In 2013, TRAC requested reams of info from the Department of Homeland Security’s customs, immigration, and border units. Even though the department on previous occasions had classified TRAC as an educational or media organization that need only pay duplicating costs, not search and processing fees, for this request the department opted to consider TRAC a commercial entity. In defending the fees, the department argued that TRAC was seeking too much information, though officials didn’t cite an exemption and reject their request. TRAC sued and a judge sided with the group in June. The department has since refused to process the request, calling it “burdensome.”
John Tran, who litigates FOIA cases at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, sees an inverse relationship between how citizens and the government value information. The more people don’t care about privacy, he says, the more the government values it. “Because they know so much about what can be gleaned from information, they don’t want to give it out,” he says. “They say, ‘Everybody is oversharing these days. A lot of things are happening with that. We should take the opposite tack.’ It makes total sense that they would be much more careful in this age of sharing and disclosing information.”
Journalists and others have responded to the government’s stance by doubling down on FOIA: carpet-bombing agencies with requests, learning deeply about bureaucracies to fine-tune inquiries, and inventing novel approaches to FOIA to circumvent bureaucratic obstacles.
VICE News reporter Jason Leopold is among a wave of journalists who have made careers out of FOIA. (Disclosure: I freelance for VICE News.) With around 1,500 FOIA requests outstanding, he conducts much of his work solely through the law and its state counterparts, viewing himself as a crusader in the vein of I.F. Stone. “We’re in a time right now when people want to see what I call primary source material,” says Leopold. “Sometimes, a document will hold an entire story where you don’t need anything else.”
Using little more than documents obtained through public records requests, Leopold quoted a Department of Justice white paper that provided a legal justification for the CIA to kill an American abroad and uncovered how BP lobbied the U.S. government to keep its federal contracts after the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. He recently reported that, before a judge sent her to jail for five days for refusing to grant a marriage license to a homosexual couple, Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis in Kentucky sought to deny everyone—including same-sex couples—the right to marry. Davis’s goal, Leopold reported, was “to not only refuse licenses to same-sex couples, but to refuse them to ‘all parties, as to not discriminate anyone.’” And he debunked claims floated by the Baltimore Police Department that gangs had formed an alliance to shoot police officers in that city this past year.
Part of Leopold’s approach is filing FOIA requests as soon as the news happens. He requested state documents related to Davis, for example, as she grabbed headlines for her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Amid breaking news, the media often presents a version of events skewed by deadline pressures, lack of information, and the government’s often tight control of the story, he says. FOIA helps him get into the heads of newsmakers as they make decisions. “I’m doing this aggressively as I have been doing because the sources that I deal with absolutely do not want to speak with me on the record or off the record about any issues I am talking about,” says Leopold. “They fear they will be investigated, they will be prosecuted, and they will be jailed. I have to look at ways that I can continue to do my job.”
Leopold also pays fees that other reporters would find outrageous, and he’s not shy about filing lawsuits. In 2014, VICE News paid more than $1,200, for example, for seven e-mails related to the civil unrest that erupted after a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, in Ferguson, Missouri. City officials said the money would pay for a consultant to search for the correspondence. Other news organizations complained to the state’s attorney general about the fees, saying they violated Missouri’s Sunshine Law. But Vice News went ahead and paid it. Leopold viewed it as calling their bluff. The story that emerged painted a picture of a venal city government—officials complained to each other about the media making it tough for the cops, while the outside firm hired to search archives never found an e-mail containing Brown’s name in a two-month period after he died.
Fees are themselves a matter of controversy in FOIA. Nate Jones of the National Security Archive at George Washington University notes that FOIA cost the government $441 million in fiscal 2014. Fees in that period were of $4.2 million, covering less than 1 percent of that cost.
When a fee isn’t possible, Leopold doesn’t mind going to court. One of the most controversial aspects of FOIA when it was adopted 50 years ago was giving citizens the right to sue the government if they felt officials wrongly rejected their FOIA requests. Today, Leopold considers litigation a routine part of his reporting. He files a handful of cases annually. “It’s like I have two full-time jobs,” he says. “One is to be a reporter. One is to handle requests, file court papers and to understand the law.”
Among his highest profile litigation, Leopold, along with other news organizations and activist groups, filed lawsuits against the State Department to gain access to Clinton’s e-mails. Those cases resulted in a federal judge ordering the department to release Clinton’s e-mails on a rolling basis. More recently, in June a judge ordered the Department of Defense to give Leopold reports prepared by the Office of Net Assessment, the Pentagon’s in-house think tank which looks at possible future geopolitical scenarios. The decision came after officials rejected requests for an index of the reports, their title pages and summaries, and, finally, the reports themselves.
A FOIA request about drone flights led to a scoop about the high frequency of crashes
R
eporters often must understand what occurs in government bureaucracies if they expect to obtain obscure correspondence that can lead to big stories. A few years ago, Craig Whitlock and other reporters at The Washington Post—as part of a Pulitzer-nominated series on secret American bases abroad —were trying to figure out where U.S. military drones were flying around the world. In the course of writing the series, Whitlock and his colleagues used aircraft accident investigation reports that the Air Force files when a vehicle is involved in a significant crash. Initially, they were less concerned about where the drones were crashing than about what those accidents said about where they were taking off and landing.
Later, however, Whitlock realized he had overlooked a key takeaway in the accident reports. “It kind of dawned on me—‘Gosh, these drones crash a lot,’” he says.
The accident reports were required under an Air Force regulation designed to keep taxpayers informed about the status of high-priced equipment in the field. There was well-established precedent for the Air Force to release them. So Whitlock started filing FOIA requests.
The topic was timely. Following intense corporate lobbying, Congress had recently allowed commercial drones to fly in American airspace. In the policy debates surrounding that move, drone opponents tended to focus on privacy and concerns about civil liberties. Nobody had looked deeply at whether drones were safe.
“More than 400 large U.S. military drones have crashed in major accidents around the world since 2001, a record of calamity that exposes the potential dangers of throwing open American skies to drone traffic, according to a year-long Washington Post investigation,” wrote Whitlock in the June 2014 story “When Drones Fall from the Sky.” “Since the outbreak of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, military drones have malfunctioned in myriad ways, plummeting from the sky because of mechanical breakdowns, human error, bad weather and other reasons, according to more than 50,000 pages of accident investigation reports and other records obtained by The Post under the Freedom of Information Act.”
If “When Drones Fall from the Sky” exemplifies the potential of FOIA, it illustrates the pitfalls, too. Even though Whitlock is a top defense reporter and the Pentagon was willing to divulge the accident reports, he faced a long, uphill battle to obtain them. Every branch of the military has aircraft. Each classifies them in different ways. Nobody has a central clearinghouse for them. Consequently, triangulation—searching multiple sources to pinpoint information—has become de rigueur among journalists seeking public records.
“You need to know the processes, the bureaucratic quirks of a place, where power flows. If you are not familiar with that, then you don’t know what documents to look for”
—Shawn Boburg,
The (Bergen County, N.J.) Record
Shawn Boburg, who recently left The (Bergen County, N.J.) Record for a job at The Washington Post, knows well how government officials can play games when it comes to public records. As neither a state nor federal agency, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey isn’t obligated to follow FOIA. New Jersey and New York’s open records laws didn’t apply to the authority, either, until this past summer, when officials in both states agreed they would. But Boburg had been covering the Port Authority long enough to know that its employees belonged to the New York State pension system. In 2011 he used New York’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) to uncover how authority executives were receiving big payouts that inflated their compensation far beyond the Port Authority’s publicly posted payroll.
Two years later, when the mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, accused Governor Chris Christie of closing lanes on the George Washington Bridge—one of the nation’s busiest spans—Boburg hit a wall again when he asked the authority for documents related to officials’ claims that the lanes were closed due to a traffic study. Knowing an indirect path was more likely to yield something, he used New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act (OPRA) to acquire correspondence between Fort Lee and authority officials. Their one-sided communications confirmed that something suspicious was happening. The mayor of Fort Lee was desperately writing to the governor’s office and other state officials, but they weren’t answering.
“That silence told a story. Here is someone really sounding an alarm. And there’s nothing,” says Boburg, who describes FOIA as a tool that can be devastating in the right hands. “You need to know the processes, the bureaucratic quirks of a place, where power flows. Documents usually follow those processes. If you are not familiar with it, then you don’t know what documents to look for. It goes back to beat reporting.”
Whitlock and Boburg concluded that the difficulty in obtaining public records for their exposés suggested that FOIA and other public record laws were, in a sense, broken. It shouldn’t be so hard, they say. Journalists shouldn’t have to cover an agency for years to learn how to obtain information that any citizen has the right to access. “People have no chance of getting anything if they are just curious about the way the government operates,” says Whitlock. “If you are just targeting it with these potshots asking for generic things, it just gets routed to the wrong place or the bureaucrat doesn’t want to help. They send it off to some file cabinet to die.”
Many agencies find it difficult to follow the law, in part because the volume of information is overwhelming outdated collection and cataloging methodologies. James Holzer, who was a senior FOIA officer at Homeland Security before he became director of the Office of Government Information Services, the federal government’s FOIA ombudsman’s job, in August, says he was horrified when he first came to the department, for the same reasons journalists are often frustrated with FOIA.
The Department of Homeland Security received almost 300,000 FOIA requests last year. Half of those were from people asking for their immigrant records for citizenship applications and other needs, he says. FOIA officers routinely redact information in those records that’s related to attorney-client privilege. “I walked into an office and was handed a Sharpie and some tape and told, ‘OK, get ready to redact,’” he says. “It was a ridiculous process.” Before him were piles of boxes and tens of thousands of pages of records. Officials would print out the records if they were electronic, box them up and ship them to his office, where he would scan them, upload them, print them out again, make redactions, and upload them again.
Slowly, the government is adopting 21st-century technology. The FBI, for example, is testing eFOIA, which allows users to request documents via a Web portal and then, if the request is accepted, view and download the documents.
But critics have slammed the program because requesters need to provide a scan of a government ID before submitting requests, “so the FBI is confident in the identity of the requester.” The program is in marked contrast to states like Florida, where the appeals court last year ruled that presenting an ID to obtain records wasn’t necessary because it would have a “chilling effect” on access under the state’s Public Records Act.
Officials could likely learn from journalists using technology to streamline FOIA and other public records laws. TRAC compiles decades’ worth of data ranging from Justice Department cases to wealth statistics based on income tax returns. Funded in part through subscriptions, the organization has waged long legal battles with government entities to collect information that it compiles into easy-to-read statistics.
TRAC’s databases, like those of the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets, provide context for stories. But TRAC’s proprietary information is much deeper and more detailed. Currently, journalists can go to online databases like Pacer to find individual cases, but TRAC’s system categorizes cases in ways that journalists can use, like how many specific charges were brought in which district. The government offers no equivalent service. Reporters can see how many drug convictions a particular U.S. attorney might have won in a given year and whom he or she prosecuted, for example, versus how many white-collar crimes the same official pursued or declined to pursue.
Whereas Leopold’s impulse is to expose, TRAC co-founder and co-director David Burnham, a former New York Times reporter, views the clearinghouse and its mission in classic watchdog terms. “The point of FOIA is not to bring lawsuits. FOIA is to improve governance. It’s to get hard information. The real purpose is to get concrete documentation so you can get good governance,” Burnham says.
“We need to make access to information a constitutional right in this country”
—David Cuillier,
University of Arizona
Redacted government documents provided in response to a FOIA request Jason Leopold filed
L
aunched in 2010, MuckRock helps requesters write and file requests—providing sample letters for requesters, contact info for public records officers at all levels of government and, most importantly, tracking the responses, the mounds of data, the rejection letters, and other correspondence that arise in FOIA requests, at prices that start at $20 for four requests. “It’s not so much the problem of filing,” says MuckRock editor J. Patrick Brown. “It’s a matter of keeping track of what happens after you file it. We try to keep front and center how we keep track of everything.”
The website has worked with The Marshall Project, The Boston Globe, and other news outlets as well as countless individuals who have filed FOIA requests through the site to accumulate nearly 700,000 pages of government data. All of those documents are posted for the public.
MuckRock also crowdfunds projects, raising $1,200, for example, to help No Boston 2024, a local activist group that helped sink the city’s Olympics bid. With the help of crowdfunding, the group used MuckRock to dig up documents that culminated with Boston Magazine reporter Kyle Clauss obtaining a copy of the Olympics bid book that showed billions in costs, including that of a 60,000-seat stadium, that organizers and public officials weren’t disclosing to the public, as well as the Olympics planners’ intention of seeking tax increment financing to cover some costs.
Clauss argues against reporters who insist that familiarity with a beat is essential to capitalizing on public records laws. “I didn’t have the sourcing that a lot of my colleagues and competitors did,” says Clauss, who moved to the magazine from The Lowell Sun, a small daily, a few months before the Olympics controversy. “I would not have been able to cozy up to folks or get sources that quickly. New developments were happening every day. I just wanted to get straight to the info. I knew there was so much spin going on, if we could just get some primary information, that would set some truth to it.”
Despite his success, Clauss, like most other journalists, was more cynical about open public records laws after his experience covering the Boston story. FOIA doesn’t apply to Congress. In Massachusetts, the legislature as well as the governor’s office claim to be exempt from state sunshine laws. A bill to improve the state’s law—including adopting the federal practice of forcing state and local governments to pay for requesters’ legal fees if a court finds that they unlawfully withheld info—is now pending in the legislature.
Few FOIA experts expect much to change soon. Sobel, the attorney, thinks special courts devoted to FOIA, like housing or probate courts, might expedite disputes. Holzer at the Office of Government Information Services recommends more technology, like online FOIA request applications. Department of Justice officials this summer announced the launch of a series of pilot programs called Release to One, Release to All, that would make public the result of almost any FOIA request. The idea is to disseminate information that’s public to a wide audience, but scoop-conscious journalists have panned the idea.
University of Arizona’s Cuillier recommends codifying in law the presumption of openness that Obama championed at the beginning of his tenure, giving the Office of Government Information Services more resources—currently it only has 10 staffers —and imposing time limits for agencies to cite exemptions. Those measures probably won’t overcome the bureaucratic culture that naturally veers to resisting disclosure, he admits. But it would make it easier for citizens who must resort to suing the government to challenge denials. “We need to make access to information a constitutional right in this country,” Cuillier says. “We need to make it a human right, like it is in Europe, like having clean water and not being tortured.”Randall Woodfin Wants to Revitalize Birmingham Communities
Posted 07-13-2017 by Sherrel Stewart.
1456588513 1499925696
Sherrel Wheeler Stewart,WBHM 90.3 FM
Birmingham lawyer Randall Woodfin grew up in different parts of Birmingham. The 36-year-old is now running for mayor. He says he’s connected to communities from North Birmingham to Southtown. And if elected, he says he would revitalize those neighborhoods outside of downtown.
Who is Randall Woodfin?
I am a son of the city of Birmingham. Birmingham is home — born and raised here. My family literally lives all over the city — not just growing up but still today. With that I feel connected to the entire city.
You talk of a need for revitalization. Why is that needed?
It’s good to see Birmingham as part of a national trend of people wanting to be in the city center. There’s growth in our downtown like a lot of other cities in the South. But what I like to tell people is that there is real life in people and resonance west of 65, north of Uptown, east of Carrigan’s and over the First Avenue bridge where there are real issues around people not feeling safe on their porch or in their front yard. Their property values are either going down or staying the same versus going up.
If we don’t focus on neighborhood revitalization for all of the neighborhoods, what we see is only aesthetic, cosmetic. We really have to invest in and support all of our neighborhoods.
So is there a plan that you can share with us at this time?
There is much I can do as mayor. When you’re over a budget that’s close to a half a billion dollars– 426 million in your general fund, $75 million in your capital — you can do a lot to be intentional about improving people’s quality of life.
When it comes down to neighborhood revitalization, it’s going to start with basic services. I’m defining that as street paving, walkable curbs and sidewalks, lights, parks. Is anything about that necessarily sexy? Absolutely not. That is the job of a city. A new mayor has to address that.
You’re saying that people don’t feel safe on their porches. What can the mayor do about that?
I think there are a couple of things. Now I will say that we don’t have enough beat officers actually in the field, in the street to respond to crime. Our response time is not where it needs to be. And I think there’s too much of a criminal element that knows our response time is not where it needs to be. Is that the same as not having enough total number of police officers on the force? Maybe not. Many will tell you it’s not a matter of not having enough police. It’s how the police are being used.
What I’m finding out when I’m in the criminal courtroom, looking at who’s committing crime — the 16, 17, 18 year olds that are picking up guns — we’ve got to replace that with some form of employment.
We need to make sure young people actually finish high school. If they don’t want to go to college, if they don’t want to go to the military. They have the option to finish high school with some form of workforce certification.
Sherrel Stewart,WBHM 90.3 FM
You talk about jobs and jobs are part of the economic development. How then do we develop our economy in a way that’s equitable?
Birmingham is the largest in the state of Alabama, but it’s also the fourth largest populated city of blacks. There is an overwhelming amount of concentrated poverty in our city. That’s an issue.
My concern is industry, job placement, job recruitment and workforce training. There is no intentionality around any of the things I’ve just named.
Some cities provide more funds from the city budget for schools than we do. What do you think?
I compare us to Huntsville in how we spend money. The current administration has zero priorities on how they spend money. They just burn through tax dollars. All you have to do is look at a neighboring city within our state, similar in size etc.
The city of Huntsville has 189,000 residents; we have 211,000. They have a $311 million budget. Our budget is $426 million. Size up those two cities. Huntsville gives its school system $20 million. Birmingham with the $426 million gives our school system $1.8 million.
Education is not a priority to this current administration. With all the issues in Birmingham, with poverty, crime, lack of jobs, it’s all rooted in making education a priority.FILE- In this Dec. 16, 2004 artist rendering released by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the Memorial Hall looking at the South Footprint is shown. Faced with hefty operating costs, the foundation building the underground 9/11 museum at the World Trade Center has decided to charge a mandatory admission fee of $20 to $25 when the site opens in 2014. (AP Photo/Lower Manhattan Development Corp., File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Faced with hefty operating costs, the foundation building the 9/11 museum at the World Trade Center has decided to charge an admission fee of $20 to $25 when the site opens next year.
The exact cost of the mandatory fee has not yet been decided.
Entry to the memorial plaza with its twin reflecting pools will still be free.
The decision to charge for the underground museum housing relics of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks has been greeted with dismay by some relatives of 9/11 victims.
"People are coming to pay their respects and for different reasons," said Janice Testa of Valley Stream, whose firefighter brother Henry Miller Jr. died at the twin towers. "It shouldn't be a place where you go and see works of art. It should more be like a memorial place like a church that there's no entry fee."
Testa was visiting the memorial Saturday with relatives from Florida.
The memorial plaza opened in 2011 on the 10th anniversary of the terror attacks, but disputes over funding have pushed the museum's opening back to spring of 2014.
With the cost of operating the memorial and museum projected to be $60 million a year, the memorial foundation voted at its board meeting last week to charge a mandatory admission fee for the museum.
"This is something that is going to be important and is going to be worth the expenditure," Joseph Daniels, president of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, said Saturday.
Daniels said the museum will be free during certain hours every week and will offer student and senior discounts.
Foundation officials had considered an optional donation but rejected the idea.
"We decided that it's more fiscally prudent to have a straight ticket charge," Daniels said.
Debra Burlingame, a foundation board member whose brother was the pilot of one of the hijacked planes, said the trade center site is expensive to build on and to protect.
"The World Trade Center site remains a target of interest among terrorists, so the security has to be robust and relentless," Burlingame said in a phone interview. "There's a big price tag on that.
"Would we like to be able to say this is free? Absolutely," Burlingame added. But she called it "irresponsible to hope that year after year we have donations that will cover an expense like security."
Some visitors to the memorial were divided about charging admission to the museum.
Retired school psychologist Valerie Cericola of Lavalette, N.J., said the entry fee sounded fair.
"You need to keep it open, you need to keep it running," she said. "It's an expense.
But Jennifer Reyes, a friend of Cericola's daughter who has a connection to the trade center site because she was born on Sept. 11, 2001, said the museum should ask for an optional donation.
"I think a donation like $10 would be good," Jennifer said.
___
AP radio correspondent Julie Walker contributed to this report.CASTRILLO MATAJUDIOS, Spain, April 14 (UPI) -- Families in a Spanish village who have been living with the name Castrillo Matajudios (Kill Jews) since the Spanish Inquisition may finally be changing their town’s name back to what it was originally, Castrillo Mota de Judios (Jews Hill).
The 60 resident families will meet at a town hall meeting to discuss the proposed name change next week.
According to Haaretz, area residents often say “killing Jews” when they are referring to “the traditional drinking of lemonade spiked with alcohol at festivals held in city squares at Easter, or drinking in general.”
Organizers of a Good Friday fiesta estimate that 40,000 gallons of lemonade will be sold during the event.
"Frankly it doesn't surprise me that there's a village called Kill the Jews, though it's pretty disgusting that it's taken them till now to think it might be a good idea to change it,” a Jewish American living in Spain told the Guardian. “There's a casual racism in Spain that no one here seems to notice but which is quite shocking to an outsider. People say 'he's a bit of a Jew' and stuff like that and no one seems to notice. Plus Spain is in complete denial about its Jewish and Muslim history."
Spain is home to about 12,000 Jews, compared with 290,000 in the U.K. and 478,000 in France.
[Haaretz] [The Guardian]The AAU National Freestyle Judo Championships are March 30 in Kansas City, Missouri A-Two major reasons. First, the general public has a much better understanding of who is winning a judo match if they look at the scoreboard and see that Red has 7 points and that White has 3 points. Freestyle judo retains the Ippon for the purposes of scoring and ends the match much like a knockout is scored in boxing or a fall is scored in wrestling, but the numerical scores provide a clear and simple way to follow who is winning or who is losing in a match. The second reason is that the numerical scores provide a more objective approach to scoring a judo match. One of the major weaknesses in the rules of judo through the years has been that the referee and judges have too much subjective and arbitrary control over the match. In freestyle judo, we provide clear-cut criteria for the scoring of all aspects of judo action that take place in the match. This not only includes scores for throws and for the time in hold-downs but also for what is best described as "effective aggression" in groundfighting where a point is awarded for breaking an opponent down onto his or her back from a stable to an unstable position (breakdowns) and a point for getting past the opponent's leg or legs (guard passes) and a point for turning or rolling the opponent over from the bottom (guard sweeps). By providing a clear and objective point structure for these skills, there is less chance of a match going to a flag decision where the referee and judges may or may not take into account what took place in the match.A-When formulating the rules for freestyle judo, one of the major things we wanted to maintain was (and continues to be) the value of an Ippon. An Ippon is scored when the thrower throws his opponent with control and force, landing the opponent on the back or back/side. This is exactly what the criteria for an Ippon has been in Kodokan Judo since its inception and was the case up until about 2000 to 2004. Gradually, the Ippon was reduced to the soft or rolling Ippon that become so prevalent. For those younger judo coaches and athletes, this soft or rolling Ippon is about all that they know since they do not have as much experience as some of the rest of us. However, from what I have seen and from has been told to me by some IJF people, the IJF is again making an effort to get away from their soft and rolling Ippons in the new rules that are out. However, this is one of the few improvements in the new IJF rules and simply is an effort to get back to what we have been doing in AAU Judo and especially freeestyle judo for a long time.A-For the purposes of scoring, one athlete wears a white belt corresponding to the white side of the scoreboard and the other athlete wears a red belt to correspond to the red side of the scoreboard. Actually, any two colors may be used as long as they correspond to the colors on the scoreboard. In AAU Judo, we don't care what rank you are or what organization you belong to. There are numerous judo, jujitsu and martial arts organizations issuing belts and rank and AAU Judo does not endorse any group or organization for the purposes of belts or ranks.A-Do not confuse the name "freestyle" to mean that anything goes or everything is legal. Freestyle judo is very much judo. You can use your wrestling, BJJ or any skill that is allowed within the rules of AAU Judo and freestyle judo. We developed the rules of freestyle judo to provide a fair, objective and safe set or criteria for the conduct of a judo match.A-The answer is an emphatic no. Freestyle judo is, as said before, very much judo and as my good friend John Saylor said' "Judo the way it ought to be done." In other words, the rules of freestyle judo were written and have developed so that as many technical, tactical and functional skills of judo can be used in a judo match. However, we are finding that the people who are attracted to and engage in freestyle judo are the people who prefer functional, effective, hard-nosed and performance-based judo.A-When developing the rules of freestyle judo, we wanted to get |
five minutes and serve them with a drizzle of olive oil or a ladleful of brown butter, with some Parmesan cheese to top.
Yeah, you'll be feeling pretty good about yourself right about now.
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A Moscow company, SAV Entertainments, arranged for three jets to streak over the pregnant skies, dumping vast quantities of dry ice, or frozen carbon dioxide, as they went. By doing so, they hoped to "lock" the rain into the clouds, ensuring a dry spell over the city.
According to McCartney's spokesman, Geoff Baker, who was at the concert, the £20,000 plan worked a treat. "It was pissing down beforehand and then it became so sunny that Brian Ray, the guitarist, had to get one of his roadies to fetch his shades," he says.
The idea of cloud seeding, as the technique is known, is simple and dates back to the 1940s when some believed that to control the weather would be to control the world. In theory, dumping dry ice into clouds can do one of two things. Use a little, and water droplets in the cloud will freeze, grow and then fall as ice particles, lessening the chance of rain later on. Use a lot, however, and the ice particles that form will be so tiny and light, they won't fall, effectively locking them into the cloud. That's the theory, at least.
In practice, scientists are sceptical that such simple measures could take charge of the weather. One problem that has dogged research into cloud seeding for decades is that it's so difficult to prove. "You can't know what would have happened, whether it would have rained or not, if you hadn't done anything," says a Met Office spokesman.
Anthony Illingworth, a meteorologist at Reading University, agrees: "Some people have made a lot of money out of it, but because it's so hard to prove it's worked, we tend to view it with considerable jaundice."I am fortunate to have relatives in both Canada and the USA. It's always nice having the luxury of visiting those countries and experiencing a culture, which isn't to dissimilar to ours in the United Kingdom, but still has some kind of novelty to it.
In my opinion, nothing encapsulates the nuances between British and North American culture quite like the sports fan experience in both regions.
My cousin, Richard, was born and raised in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada - just east of Toronto. Born to two Brits, he was exposed to British culture and football from an early age, watching matches from the motherland across the pond.
Last month, Richard experienced his first taste of English football in the flesh. I have been to a Toronto FC game with him before (with TFC beating Bolton Wanderers on penalties), but this is the moment he had been waiting for.
Typically, the first Saints game he attended resulted in a 0-1 home loss to Swansea, but here is Richard's take on his virginal Premier League experience.
St. Mary's Musings: Growing up in Canada, did you have much exposure to football?
Richard: In Canada, soccer is something you play as a kid in certain neighbourhoods. The "soccer mom" is a thing and speaks to a very middle class pastime. As a kid, we did play soccer, although the climate is not very conducive to this. I remember playing "snow soccer" which involved lots of falling about and giving "snow jobs" to people (ramming someone's face into the snow).
SMM: What do you think of football?
R: I like the English Premier League the most. I have tried to watch MLS but cannot really get into it. I think the culture around the English Premier League is the biggest strength. There is a camaraderie and a tribalism which are very fun. In terms of the game itself, I think it's a great spectator sport. Canadians will always bemoan the diving though. It is a real problem.
SMM: I know your parents have split loyalties. Your dad being a Newcastle fan and your mum a Saint. What club are you more drawn to and why?
R: I would used to say that I was a Spurs fan just to underline how random a lot of North American football allegiances are. I like to take the piss out of football mania—like in the Simpson's when Homer becomes a fanatical Isotopes fan in the space of five seconds. I would also say I was a Tottenham fan to try and antagonize my family, as there are none. But, truthfully, I am most drawn to Southampton as it is my mum's team. I think my dad is also a bit of Saints supporter deep down.
SMM: How do you assess the state of soccer in Canada?
R: It is getting bigger. You see a lot of the matches on cable. My parents are watching it now more than ever. I will tune in as well even when it's just myself at home. Obviously, everyone is a fan during World Cup. And there is a trickling down effect into the European league seasons. But the English Premier League definitely gets the most mainstream attention. Even more so than Major League Soccer.
SMM: What did you think a Premier League match would be like? How does watching a football match in England differ to the sports fan experience in North America?
R: I knew I would enjoy a Premier League match. I have always wanted to go. I thought it would be quite rowdy. I was even expecting some hooliganism. Some fights and that. But, in reality, it was a genuinely good atmosphere. You talk to people quite easily and everyone is having a good time, even though we lost. I liked the chanting and the swearing. Lots of "facking ‘ell!"; "facking Tadic!"; "for fack's sake!"
Toronto FC definitely tries to imitate the enthusiasm you see in Britain. But, the lack of history of the club takes something away from it. It's a little less convincing.
SMM: Would you go again?
R: Yes, I would definitely go again. Especially now that I am living in the UK. I want to take advantage of being here. Football is one of the best sports to see live. I feel like am slowly becoming indoctrinated...Manufacturing in the U.S. continues to remain in the slow lane on the road to recovery.
IW U.S. manufacturers saw revenues creep downward less than 1% to $6.07 trillion in 2013, as 32% of the companies comprising this year’s IW 500 – IndustryWeek’s annual list of the largest publicly-held U.S. manufacturers based on revenue – reported a contraction in revenue.
The total revenues of the top 500 manufacturers fell just shy -- $3.45 billion -- of the record figures recorded on the 2013 IW U.S. 500.
However, while overall revenues slipped downward, total profits climbed 10.87% to $561 billion. Apple Inc. (IW 500/4) (AAPL) led the pack, generating $37 billion in profit, which, while still $4.5 billion higher than the next closest company on the list, was 11.25% less than the Cupertino, Ca.-based electronics company raked in the previous year.
Only 12% of the IW U.S. 500 companies didn’t turn a profit in 2013, with Alcoa Inc. (IW 500/53) (AA) suffering a $2.3 billion net loss – a 1,296% decline from a profitable 2012.
These ups and downs on the financial front are indicative of the languorous nature of the overall domestic manufacturing recovery, a recovery plagued by wins and losses.
Through June 2014, the Institute for Supply Management reported 13 consecutive months of expansion in the manufacturing sector.
Yet, despite the growth, Cliff Waldman, senior economist for the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation, predicts that growth in the sector will remain moderate through 2015.
"It remains clear that factory sector activity is being impeded by the persistent questions and difficulties of a sluggish U.S. economy and the numerous region-specific issues in the global business picture," Waldman said.
The inconsistency in the sector is further evidenced by the volatile moves companies made among the ranks.
Greatest Gains
ARRIS Group Inc. (IW 500/258) (ARRS)
2014 rank: 258
2013 rank: 467
Change: 209
ARRIS, a telecommunications equipment provider, doubled in size with its April 2013 acquisition of the Motorola Home business from General Instrument Holdings, a Google subsidiary.
Through the $2.4 billion acquisition, ARRIS increased its sales 167% in 2013 to $3.6 billion and brought its number of employees to 6,500 -- nearly tripling its workforce.
"As a result of our successful acquisition and integration of Motorola Home, we are a larger, stronger and much more relevant supplier to a growing worldwide customer community. Moreover, 2014 is looking to be our best year ever," said Bob Stanzione, ARRIS Chairman and CEO.
The acquisition moved the company into the set-top box business and diversified its customer base from primarily cable television multiple system operators to include telephone companies and programmers, and retail distribution channels.
That move allowed ARRIS to propel up the IW U.S. 500 list, climbing more than 200 spots on the annual ranking.
Regency Energy Partners LP (IW 500/329) (RGP)
2014 rank: 329
2013 rank: 469
Change: 140
The Dallas-based midstream natural gas company was aggressive in 2013, announcing plans to snatch up two companies – SUGS and Eagle Rock -- and merge with another -- PVR.
The $1.5 billion SUGS deal expanded the Regency's presence in the Permian Basin in Texas, while the PVR merger, which closed March 21 this year, moved the company into the Marcellus and Utica shales in the Appalachian Basin and the Granite Wash in the Mid-Continent region.
The $1.3 billion acquisition of Eagle Rock's midstream business closed July 1.
“The acquisition will complement Regency’s core gathering and processing business, and when combined with the recent acquisition of PVR Partners, will strengthen our existing positions in the Texas Panhandle and East Texas,” Mike Bradley, Regency president and CEO, said of the Eagle Rock deal.
In 2013, Regency's revenues climbed 88% to $2.5 billion.
Farthest Falls
Murphy Oil Corp. (IW 500/190) (MUR)
2014 rank: 190
2013 rank: 45
Change: (145)
Murphy Oil took the biggest dive on the IW U.S. 500, plummeting 145 spots down the list.
However, the Arkansas-based oil exploration and production company's fall was not the result of a financial hardship. In fact, the company recorded its second consecutive year of record production in 2013, a feat it is on track to repeat in 2014, according to President and CEO Roger W. Jenkins, who took the reins of the company in late 2013.
Rather Murphy Oil spun off its U.S. retail marketing business, creating an independent company, Murphy USA Inc. Excluding the Murphy USA business from the balance sheet, Murphy Oil's earnings in 2013 actually increased 17% from the previous year.
"We expect another year of strong production growth in 2014 with continued increases coming from the Eagle Ford Shale, a full year of production from our new Malaysia developments, and the start up of the Dalmatian field in the Gulf of Mexico," Jenkins said.
Newfield Exploration Co. (IW 500/410) (NFX)
2014 rank: 410
2013 rank: 317
Change: (93) Texas-based Newfield's decision to focus on North American operations, strangely enough, caused the crude oil and natural gas exploration and production company to fall 93 spots on the list.
That's because in February 2013 Newfield put its businesses in Malaysia and China up for sale, in effect moving the revenues from those operations off of its balance sheet. For that reason, the company's revenue decreased 30%.
The good news for Newfield, however, is that in comparing its continuing operations – those in North America – revenues last year climbed 32%, driven by higher liquids production and commodity prices.
"Our focus today is very clear – profitably grow our oil and liquids production in our key U.S. operating areas," said Lee K. Boothby, Chairman, Newfield President and CEO.
The company this February closed on the $898 million sale of its Malaysia business, but has yet to offload its China business.A Northwestern University student alleges in a federal lawsuit that the school mishandled her complaint that a professor sexually attacked her after getting her drunk in 2012.
The student, who was a freshman and underage at the time, tried to kill herself two days after the alleged attack, according to her lawsuit. She alleges that the university ignored requests to remove the professor and that she repeatedly bumped into him on campus, triggering panic attacks and worsening her mental state.
Her accusations shine a light on the sometimes tricky issues for universities facing sex crime allegations.
The Obama administration has stepped up efforts to hold schools accountable and to draw greater awareness of campus sex assault in the wake of several high-profile cases, including allegations that a Notre Dame University football player in 2010 attacked a student who later committed suicide and the Jerry Sandusky child molestation case at Penn State University. Nearly 1 in 5 women will be a victim of an attempted or actual sexual assault in college, according to the Justice Department.
The Northwestern student alleges that philosophy professor Peter Ludlow drove her to an art show in Chicago in February 2012 and then insisted she drink wine and beer over the next several hours at a restaurant and a few bars. According to the suit, she became so intoxicated that she fell "in and out of consciousness" but recalled Ludlow groping her despite her pleas to stop.
Her suit, filed Monday, alleges Ludlow ignored her requests to be driven home and instead took her to his apartment, where she passed out and woke up in the professor's bed. The suit alleges a sexual attack.
According to the suit, the director of the university's Office of Sexual Harassment Prevention found that Ludlow engaged in "unwelcome and inappropriate sexual advances" and that Ludlow had bought the student so much alcohol that she was unable to give "meaningful consent to this physical touching." But the university did not find that Ludlow groped the student inappropriately, according to the lawsuit.
The suit said university officials have refused to share any information with the student about whether the school took any disciplinary action against Ludlow, stating the matter was "private" and the university did "everything" it could.
Northwestern declined to answer a series of questions submitted Tuesday by the Tribune, including whether it notified police of the alleged attack.
"We don't comment on pending litigation, but the university has policies and procedures in place to protect our students and to address any such reported concerns," university spokesman Bob Rowley said in an email.
Ludlow, a Northwestern professor since 2008, referred questions to his lawyer, Kristin Case, who denied the accusations and noted that the suit was filed against Northwestern and not Ludlow. She declined to comment further.
The student, now a junior, wants the university to pay her medical bills, her tuition and her lawyer fees, and to compensate her for emotional distress.
The suit was filed using the woman's name, but the Tribune does not typically name victims of alleged sex crimes.
The student's lawyer, Kevin O'Connor, said Tuesday he could not comment on the case until he had spoken to her.
Northwestern has previously been criticized for its response to accusations of campus sex assaults. An undergraduate sued the school in 2008, alleging top administrators failed to discipline a student who raped her.
A philosophy blog, Leiter Reports, reported in November that Ludlow had accepted an offer to join the philosophy department at Rutgers University, where he also would serve as director of the Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science.
Ludlow posted a link to the blog on his Facebook page and wrote, "I read this on Leiter, so it must be true."
A Rutgers official declined Tuesday to discuss any job offer but said that the university was unaware of the student's allegations against Ludlow.
"This was not brought to our attention by either the candidate or his employer," said Rutgers spokesman Greg Trevor. "We are looking into this matter thoroughly, including requesting all relevant information to fully evaluate his candidacy."
nrajwani@tribune.com
tlighty@tribune.com
Twitter @naheedrajwani
Twitter @tlightyThe U.S. Military Academy, which used to focus only on books, training and discipline, hosted its annual “Transgender Day of Remembrance” for cadets.
The event complements other cultural initiatives in U.S. military colleges: the Virginia Military Institute is combating stress with coloring books and therapy dogs while Annapolis midshipman enroll in a “Transgender 101” seminar.
West Point celebrated the special remembrance day on Nov. 30 — the fourth time it has done so.
Though the event is promoted on its website, the commemoration passed without any notice by the establishment media, with coverage limited to the Academy’s newspaper, Pointer View, and sparse Facebook sharing.
The transgender day is described by its founder, Gwendolyn Smith, as an “international day of action” and was originally envisioned by the graphic designer to memorialize the murder of Rita Hester, a transgender woman who died in Massachusetts in 1998.
Neither the West Point website nor an accompanying article detailing this year’s event makes any connection between that event and the mandate of West Point to educate and train young men and women to be officers in the U.S. Army. Neither was there any suggestion that discrimination against transgendered people is an issue at the Academy.
Event organizers were assisted in their efforts to mark the day of remembrance by Spectrum, a Gay/Straight Alliance Club at West Point, as well as the college’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Equal Opportunity.
Class of 2017 cadet Riley Dosh opened the event this year by noting, “Over the past year, innocent transgender people worldwide have lost their lives due to hate crimes. Many more died due to bias and hatred based on gender identity and expression. They were killed for coming out to friends and family, for being who they are. Their lives were cut too short unnecessarily.”
Dosh insisted, “Our society, our police forces, our governments and the media largely ignore transgender hate crimes.”
Cadet Dosh was joined at the podium by the keynote speaker Amanda Simpson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for operational energy. Simpson said that she “did not want to here because we are going to read some of the names of the hundreds of transgender men and women who died of violent means in the past 12 months…But any way you count it, the fact remains; transgender men and women — especially transgender women of color — continue to experience violence at alarmingly high rates and are often targets for fatal hate violence.”
Critics of the ceremony say it is another example of how politicians have “forgotten the mission of the military is to defend the country.”
Ray Starmann, editor-in-chief of U.S. Defense Watch, told The Daily Caller the transgender remembrance is caused by “social engineers who are cultural Marxists and guys at the top who won’t put their foot down” resulting in “more political correctness.”
Said Starmann: “Thank God General [James] Mattis is coming [as defense secretary].”
Follow David on TwitterIn parallel computing, an embarrassingly parallel workload or problem (also called perfectly parallel or pleasingly parallel) is one where little or no effort is needed to separate the problem into a number of parallel tasks.[1] This is often the case where there is little or no dependency or need for communication between those parallel tasks, or for results between them.[2]
Thus, these are different from distributed computing problems that need communication between tasks, especially communication of intermediate results. They are easy to perform on server farms which lack the special infrastructure used in a true supercomputer cluster. They are thus well suited to large, Internet-based distributed platforms such as BOINC, and do not suffer from parallel slowdown. The opposite of embarrassingly parallel problems are inherently serial problems, which cannot be parallelized at all.
A common example of an embarrassingly parallel problem is 3D video rendering handled by a graphics processing unit, where each frame (forward method) or pixel (ray tracing method) can be handled with no interdependency. Password cracking is another embarrassingly parallel task that is easily distributed on central processing units, CPU cores, or clusters.
Etymology [ edit ]
"Embarrassingly" is used here in the same sense as in the phrase "an embarrassment of riches", meaning an overabundance—here referring to parallelization problems which are "embarrassingly easy".[3] The term may also imply embarrassment on the part of developers or compilers: "Because so many important problems remain unsolved mainly due to their intrinsic computational complexity, it would be embarrassing not to develop parallel implementations of polynomial homotopy continuation methods."[4] The term is first found in the literature in a 1986 book on multiprocessors by MATLAB's creator Cleve Moler,[5] who claims to have invented the term.[6]
An alternative term, pleasingly parallel, has gained some use, perhaps to avoid the negative connotations of embarrassment in favor of a positive reflection on the parallelizability of the problems: "Of course, there is nothing embarrassing about these programs at all."[7]
Examples [ edit ]
Some examples of embarrassingly parallel problems include:
Implementations [ edit ]
In R (programming language) – The Simple Network of Workstations (SNOW) package implements a simple mechanism for using a set of workstations or a Beowulf cluster for embarrassingly parallel computations.[11]
See also [ edit ]Please reactivate your Everything’s OK alarms. After a short hiatus we’re back with some news from the past month.
Linux kernel 4.4-rc2 released
The next major release of the Linux kernel has reached its second release candidate as of a couple of days ago. 4.4 will be a “longterm” release with an end of life scheduled for February 2018. Some of the highlights of the kernel release due early next year include:
Journaling for (software) RAID 5
Low-level host access to “Open-Channel” SSDs through the LightNVM project
New hardware support for dozens of sensors, controllers, and input devices, including the Corsair Vengeance K90 keyboard (with Cherry MX Red switches!)
You can read through a much more thorough list of user and developer-facing changes on LWN.
Ubuntu Online Summit
The latest Ubuntu Online Summit kicked off way back on November 3. Sessions were held on everything from the LXD container hypervisor to a look at writing scopes in JavaScript. Have a gander at the full list of sessions to find any recorded streams that pique your interest.
Dropping Python 2 from Default 16.04 Install
The upcoming 16.04 LTS release is set to drop Python 2 from default images and installs. The goal was originally set for the current 14.04 LTS release, but all signs point to good progress on removing or porting the remaining packages.
You can look through the UOS notes from the related session to track everyone’s progress (and help out!). If you’re using one of our favourite distros, Lubuntu, there’s a meta bug tracking their progress too.
And, of course, none of this means Python 2 is disappearing from the repos. Popular projects still struggling to update won’t need PPAs or manually compiled packages, but it’s worth keeping in mind if you need Python 2.7 after a fresh install of 16.04.
Removing Brasero and Empathy from Default 16.04 Install
Speaking of dropping packages, the Ubuntu desktop team is looking to drop Brasero and Empathy from default 16.04 installs and images as well – citing the shift towards USB drives for the former, the dwindling number of available chat services for the latter, and the lack of maintenance in both projects. Gnome Calendar was also slated to appear as a new default, but this now looks to be on hold.
New Kubuntu Release Managers
Kubuntu contributors Philip Muškovac and Scarlett Clark are the new Kubuntu release managers following Jonathan Riddell’s departure at the end of last month.
Ubuntu SDK Update
An update to the Ubuntu SDK tools has been released for all Ubuntu versions from 14.04 LTS. The update introduces new packages that make it possible to work with “the most recent UITK and Qt used on the phone images” even when your current release’s packages lag behind the phone’s, as is already the case with 14.04 LTS. The caveat is that the SDK team had to include their own Qt package in a PPA. To get the update, follow the instructions over on the Ubuntu developer blog.
Get the New Ubuntu SDK Tools
For those of you in the states, have a great Thanksgiving and an extra slice of pumpkin pie for us!After the shooting tragedy at Pulse in Orlando, claims came out that a fellow furry named “Kodakoda Coyote” was among the victims. I thought, how sad… people need to hear. I did basic checking and saw a FurAffinity account for that name. There was no content but the name was 4 years old and not obviously recent. It was filling with comments of sympathy from other furs.
The original claims came from two places at the same time. (1) A tweet from “SebastianLoFR” and (2) a Reddit comment from “Deg The Wolf“. Both seemed to be established accounts from separate people.
I took the bait like a dummy. The “Kodakoda” story went out in record time for this site. It got a lot of sharing. I doggedly repeated the two-source thing for a bit. The sympathy came before I posted, but my article spread the hoax a little – thanks for taking me to school, all of you.
SebastianLoFR was called out for being shifty. He put out an incredibly stupid cover story that he got “trolled” from a 4-hour-old account “EOStudlover”. (Hmm, who made that?) After a while, tweets and accounts were deleted.
.@SebastianLoFR I cried when I heard a furry died. I have friends in Orlando; it could have been them. At least be an adult and say sorry. — bluepanda@snouts.online (@MoguBlu) June 13, 2016
So apparently Kodakoda dying is made up. Some douche decided to spread lies for their own enjoyment and for attention. Makes me angry. — Artemis Bobcat (@ArtemisBobcat) June 13, 2016
So it appears the Kodakoda Coyote story was not correct. It in no way reduces the tragedy of what happened at #Pulse pic.twitter.com/isI5Y9osJQ — Spottacus Cheetah → GC2 (@Spottacus) June 13, 2016
SMH. we try to verify everything. In the aftermath yesterday we retweeted/furry killed in Orlando. Apparently faked. https://t.co/k2ZxmXpPFt — Furry News Network @ FWA (@furrynewsntwk) June 13, 2016
That turned attention to Deg The Wolf on Reddit. See here – his most-upvoted comment about losing his friend is deleted now, but there’s a lot of others that gave him “hugs” for it. (Look suspiciously at u/popprocks and u/What_Is_EET.)
I sent hugs and asked for his comments to help add to the story and honor his “friend”. Next day came private messages.
Trolling
[–]From Patch to DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
I’m getting many people saying this is fake based on Sebastian on Twitter acting like a moron. Your account doesn’t strike me as a troll, at all. Would it be too much to ask you for a little verification, if only to make sure your friend is honored? I hope you’re OK.
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
I can try to find something I guess. Someone asked me if it was koda but it wasn’t him. So i’ll try and find something if that helps…kinda not cool that people wanna say my dead friend doesn’t exist. He never had much fan art comissioned. But i’ll look.
[–]From Patch to DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
Thanks! I’m glad that some fucking asshole on Twitter isn’t going to get to dishonor your friend. Let’s prove those people wrong so you don’t have to deal with your loss this way. I’ll check in with you tomorrow if I don’t hear from you first.
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
“The Freedom Family has a tradition of coming together in times of adversity. Orlando has fallen victim to a terrible tragedy, a senseless shooting, and an act that left us with an unprecedented amount of casualties. It is with great sorrow to inform everyone that one of Freedom’s own has lost his life in this terrible attack. We remember him for his Honor, and Excellence; with our Tradition.
RIP Juan Ramon Guerrero – 22 years old”
http://imgur.com/qlbG7hyhttp://imgur.com/YA2VCsL
Once I got past crying from seeing his pic, I uploaded screenshots from our old highschool’s facebook page as proof.
[–]From Patch to DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
God I’m so sorry – makes me want to cry too 🙁 Can you help me write up a more detailed rememberance of Juan? What was his regular fur name?
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
I have to look it up again. Also, does I have to give his fur name? I would rather people know him by his real name. I will look for the fur name. I just know he wasn’t super open about being a furry. Not out of shame or anything, just wasn’t. So i don’t think he has it on social media.
[–]From Patch to DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
Yup, it’s essential for a furry story! I’ll make sure his real name isn’t fully given and won’t use his real picture, only the furry ones you send – that’s how I typically post about people. I’m so happy to honor him and not let him be forgotten, and I hope this makes you feel a little less sad. -hugs-
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
It does. I haven’t done much research on where he’s known on the internet. But his fur name was Johnny FluffyTail. I’ll keep looking, again he wasn’t very open about it. I met him/knew him irl so I didn’t have him added on like furaffinity, etc. I asked a friend who told me his fur name.
[–]From Patch to DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
This is very helpful, I did find his FA but it seems like his friends don’t know yet 🙁 Poor guy. I’ll make an extra nice post with the info to let them know. I’ll be careful not to add too many details that might reveal fur stuff to his RL friends. What was he like in high school?
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
Oh man. Nicest guy you’ll ever meet. A bit shy, but once he opened up to you he was a whole different person. Always had a smile on his face, always brought happiness to his friends. There was never a dull moment with the guy. Straight A student. Gamer at heart.
[–]From Patch to DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
Thanks so much for this, and I will actually put in a link so people can send flowers to his family as they are asking on Facebook with his name. I’ll just ask that they not reveal it’s coming from furs. Are you going to be part of the vigil?
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
Yes, i’ll be there with a few other alumni from my class.
[–]From Patch to DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
Oh man, are you going tonight or tomorrow? Reason I ask is if you go tonight, please send me pics and I’ll hold the post so I can put it out as breaking news. Or if you go tomorrow, I’ll put it out right away so I can put in the info about sending flowers, then you can get pics of the flowers with the family for the senders to see. Or will you go to both?
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
I’ll be going tonight. I can’t do both. I don’t think I have strength to do it again. I’m shaky now just thinking about it. But I have friends who are picking me up. I’ll try to take pics, if not, i’ll get them from other people. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do much other than cry and pray that he’s having fun in heaven. (My apologies if you aren’t religious)
[–]From Patch to DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
It’s OK. Stay strong. All right then if you’re going tonight, can I paypal you to cover some flowers for them right away?
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
It’s fine, you don’t have to pay, I’ve already paid for some for their family. I’m honestly glad my friends are taking me, as much as I wanna go, I wouldn’t be able to drive with the state i’m in. Too shaky/teary to drive ya know? Thank you for the offer though.
[–]From Patch to DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
I’m glad, what kind did you get for them? That’s so sweet, I hope it makes you feel better. I’ll hold the post until you send the pics later tonight.
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
A Bouquet of Roses, because he loved the phrase “A rose by any other name is just as sweet.” Damn I miss that guy. If it were anyone else he would’ve had me smiling and laughing even if I was crying. He always found a way.
[–]From Patch to DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
That is super sweet. Please make sure to send a pic of you with the roses at the vigil, I don’t think there’s anything that could better show how much he should mean to everyone. You’re a true friend.
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 1 day ago
I’ll do my best and ask if his family will bring them.
[–]From Patch to DegTheWolf sent 22 hours ago
Hey, please send the pics! People are waiting for this post, and I’m holding it so you can contribute the last part it needs. Hope the vigil went OK, it must have been a very trying experience.
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 21 hours ago
Waiting on my friend to send me any pics he took. I honestly couldn’t take any pictures.
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 20 hours ago
Soooo…this happened..http://m.imgur.com/Ffidv06 :c He later said they just didn’t want any pics of the of the family. Nothing i can really do…
[–]From Patch to DegTheWolf sent 18 hours ago
OMG that must have been awkward, but whose vigil were you at?
[–]From Patch to DegTheWolf sent 15 hours ago
Sorry, had the dates messed up, the vigil is tomorrow. Whose did you go to? And are you going to the actual one?
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 13 hours ago
I went to a mini vigil with the family themselves. I can’t make it to anything else.
[–]From Patch to DegTheWolf sent 12 hours ago
Wow, they must really like you to invite you to their private event. I’m glad you touched their lives that much. How did his boyfriend take it? Sorry to be a pest, since there’s no pics I just wanted to add a different detail to wrap up the story for tomorrow.
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 12 hours ago
Hey it’s alright. Giving more details is the least I can do. His boyfriend…was confirmed dead from what I heard. I believe his name was drew…I didn’t know drew as well, but was a good kid. Loved Juan more than anything.
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 11 hours ago
http://m.imgur.com/gg6vsxi
Here’s a screenshot.
[–]From Patch to DegTheWolf sent 11 hours ago
That is so sad… sorry to hear. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to lose two people at the same time. Was juan’s rememberance all you could handle or will you go to drew’s funeral too?
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 11 hours ago
I’ll see if I can make it to drew’s. Due to financial troubles, I can’t take too many days off of work…Also, i’m fine now. The vigil was hard, but i’m okay. I know Juan would want me to cheer up and remember the good times. Not his death.
[–]From Patch to DegTheWolf sent 10 hours ago
Wow so Drew must have been very special to get two funerals. The news says his service is with Juan. Well thanks for letting me interview you seb and do cheer up. The article about this is going out soon.
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 10 hours ago
Ah, well, his family, like Juan’s, wants a seperate small one. But I can’t make it. I sent them flowers too though. But you’re very welcome.
[–]from DegTheWolf sent 10 hours ago
Seb? I’m Deg or Daniel. Whichever you prefer. Deg Ookami or Daniel.
[–]From Patch to DegTheWolf sent 10 hours ago
So seb, when this article about you goes out, are you going to delete this account and |
industry leader and soon-to-be'sharemarket' pioneer, we play a critical role in continuing to educate the market while providing investors access to an exciting, high-growth industry sector through a profitable investment vehicle.” Bold stuff.
Bitcoin itself was invented as a payment system in 2008 and released as open source software in 2009, Bitcoin mining was designed as an incentive for ‘Miners’ to secure the Bitcoin Network by validating transactions, which in turn gives Miners such as Bitcoin Group access to newly minted Bitcoins.
While Bitcoin today currently trades at around $267 per Bitcoin (BTC) - down some 37.5% from its 52-week high of $427.24 reached on 12 November 2014. But earlier this month (6 October) the price of Bitcoin on the Coindesk USD Bitcoin Price Index rose to $247.57, which was its highest level since 18 August 2015.
Of course if the price of Bitcoin picks up further between now and the first half of 2016 an investment in the fund and this IPO could well make sense. Shares in Bitcoin Group are expected to start off at A$0.20 on the ASX, with just over 60% of the company owned by the market and around 8.6% owned by directors Lee, Guo and Xu. But predicting the future is anything but easy. Carpe diem.An eye-opening experiment conducted by ABC news shows how relatively ineffective gun safety education can be for children.
The experiment selected a group of children who come from gun owning homes. The parents of the children insist they have thoroughly educated their children on gun safety. In addition to their home education, the children were shown the NRA’s child gun safety video. The video features the cartoon character “Eddie the Eagle” and tries to teach kids all the vital aspects of gun safety using songs and relatable examples.
The children are seen on camera with the songs from the NRA’s video memorized – seemingly indicating that the message stuck. Then, just for good measure, a police officer visited the children and gave them a lecture on gun safety. The message from both the NRA video and the police officer was the same: if you see a gun, don’t touch it. Leave the room immediately and tell an adult.
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Then the testing began. Just day after the children’s safety lessons, researchers placed two real, unloaded guns in the classroom. The results are chilling.
Rather than not touching the guns and reporting them to an adult, the children were seen touching, holding, and pointing the guns around after discovering them. One student is seen looking down the barrel as he holds it and jokingly says “I’m touching it, I’m touching it.”
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As the video notes, a child is injured by a firearm every hour in the United States.
Here is video footage of the experiment:
Source: ABC News
undefinedIt's no secret that today's aggressive agricultural techniques can take a heavy toll on the environment, both on the land used for crops and livestock, and in the surrounding atmosphere.
But a new vision of a more sustainable 'integrated neighbourhood' community is being implemented in the Netherlands, with the first of a series of high-tech farm villages set to be completed next year. The project, being built just outside of Amsterdam, is the brainchild of California-based developer ReGen Villages, and after its pilot community is finished in 2017, the company plans to bring the concept to Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Germany.
Of course, communal farms aren't exactly a new idea, with communities like the Amish people and more recent kinds of farming collectives having long lived off the grid. But we're not talking about another attempt to recreate simple, pastoral living here.
ReGen Villages wants to harness the power of today's technology to create "off-grid capable neighbourhoods" that provide the comforts of a regular modern lifestyle, but which are entirely self-reliant and sustainable: growing their own food, generating their own energy, managing waste locally, and recycling water.
Architectural drawing of pilot project. Credit: Effekt
"We're really looking at starting off as the Tesla of eco-villages," ReGen Villages CEO James Ehrlich told Adele Peters at Fast Company. "We are redefining residential real-estate development by creating these regenerative neighbourhoods, looking at first these greenfield pieces of farmland where we can produce more organic food, more clean water, more clean energy, and mitigate more waste than if we just left that land to grow organic food or do permaculture there."
The idea is that by combining sustainable farming and land management with an independently run tech infrastructure, ReGen Villages will be "power positive", effectively generating surplus energy that can be fed back into surrounding electricity grids, and growing about half of all the food the inhabitants eat.
Architectural drawing of pilot project. Credit: Effekt
"We anticipate literally tonnes of abundant organic food every year – from vegetables, fruit, nuts, legumes, fish, eggs, chicken, small animal dairy and protein – that can continually grow and yield in the vertical garden systems all year long as supplement to the seasonal gardens and farming adjacent," Ehrlich told Fast Company.
While it certainly sounds fantastic, there's still a way to go to make the vision into reality. The project has just been presented at the Venice Biennale, with the design work handled by Danish architecture firm Effekt. The initial project, to be constructed in Almere, 20 minutes from Amsterdam, will initially host 25 pilot homes, with a view to 100 in total upon completion.
Architectural drawing of pilot project. Credit: Effekt
If the Dutch village is a success, Ehrlich expects to roll the sustainable communities across the cool climates of Northern Europe, and then expand into the Middle East.
"We tackle the first two hardest climate areas," he said. "Then from there we have global scale – rural India, sub-Saharan Africa, where we know that the population is going to increase and also be moving to the middle class. If everybody in India and Africa wants the same kind of suburbs that we've been building so far, the planet's not going to make it."
It's an awesome idea, and we can't wait to see how the pilot village in Amsterdam goes. Who knows, maybe a ReGen Village could turn up in your local area soon?This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We are just back from Cannon Ball, North Dakota, where thousands of people have flocked from across the United States, Latin America and Canada over the months to join the resistance camps opposing the construction of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline. Most are Native Americans representing hundreds of tribes and First Nations from across the Americas. The ongoing encampment is considered to be one of the largest gatherings of Native Americans in decades.
In the camps, people have set up multiple kitchens, a school that teaches Lakota languages and other subjects, medical services to care for the people who have come to resist the pipeline. And now it looks like there will be at least one more person to be taught and cared for at the camp. Just yesterday, a group of indigenous midwives posted online that the first baby was born in the camp.
Well, on Saturday at the main resistance camp in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, I spoke with women and midwives about the importance of reproductive healthcare at the resistance camps and on the reservation.
MELISSA ROSE: Melissa Rose.
CAROLINA REYES: Carolina Reyes.
YUWITA WIN: Yuwita Win.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about what you have set up here at the resistance camp?
CAROLINA REYES: Yes. We’ve come with a group of women to be able to support women’s health here at the encampment. Sovereignty for indigenous people is only going to come about through the support of women and women’s health, in the same way that we defend and protect Mother Earth is the same way that we need to defend and protect women and the next generations of children being born. And that’s why not only is there a fully staffed and run, volunteer-run clinic here, that runs 24 hours, seven days a week, at the camp, but there’s also now going to be a women’s space, where traditional midwifery is going to be promoted and utilized to support the women here.
AMY GOODMAN: You’re a midwife?
CAROLINA REYES: I am.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Yuwita Win, you’re from Cheyenne River.
YUWITA WIN: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: How far is the reservation from here?
YUWITA WIN: I don’t know exactly the reservation line, but where I live is about two, two-and-a-half hours from here, because, you know, Standing Rock and Cheyenne River are connected, so—there’s a highway. I’m not sure what it is, but—
AMY GOODMAN: So talk about what it means to you that there is this women’s health clinic, this midwifery clinic right on site.
YUWITA WIN: I believe—well, first of all, I want to say I’m speaking on behalf of the Wanbli Gleska Wiya Okolakichiye. And what we do is help in the community in healing the bonds between women and children, because, you know, the women are the backbone of the communities and the families. So, it’s very important to us that these healings take place, because it has an effect on our children. And having the midwives come back and us performing the ceremonies that needed to be performed, from the point of conception until birth and even after birth, is very important for the spiritual connectedness of our children with our families. And because we’re not doing that, we see so many of our children that are lost to drugs and alcohol and violence and suicide. So, by making these healing connections and performing these ceremonies and having the families involved in the births, I think that is very important for our people, not only mentally, but spiritually. And having that here at the camp is, I think, really going to be powerful for the women that are here.
AMY GOODMAN: What happens to women who give birth in Cheyenne River?
YUWITA WIN: Right now we have one doctor that comes from Pierre, and he schedules the women’s births based on his schedule and induces them. So, I would say like at least 90 percent of the women in Cheyenne River who have babies are scheduled on his schedule. And that’s not—it’s not right for our children to be born that way.
AMY GOODMAN: How did that happen? So they don’t go into labor at home and then, when they’re ready, come to the clinic or the hospital?
YUWITA WIN: If they—if they do not have their baby based on whatever due date he gives them, then he’s—and I’ve even had other personal family members that I have who said, “OK, well, it’s my due date, but he wants to have me come in early to schedule a birth.” So then, you know, based on his schedule, he schedules them. They go in, they get induced, and then they’re out the door. So it’s almost like they’re running cattle through, you know, the IHS. And it’s not right.
AMY GOODMAN: Melissa, what does it mean to be a Native midwife?
MELISSA ROSE: We were discussing this earlier. And it is—there are ties, traditional ties, to the women who take care of women in the tribe and that take care of the children, and they have a lifetime tie to those children. And it’s very important that they grow up with those ties and that they are always connected to their home and their home place and their family. And that’s what it means.
AMY GOODMAN: And where do you live?
MELISSA ROSE: I live in Colorado Springs now.
AMY GOODMAN: And what has it meant for you to come to this camp? And why did you come here?
MELISSA ROSE: My family is here. My relatives are here. They’re fighting a really hard fight, and I have skills to offer them that’s very much needed here. And we found out, even after I got here, how much more it was needed than we even knew.
AMY GOODMAN: And what nation are you with?
MELISSA ROSE: Akwesasne Mohawk.
AMY GOODMAN: The battle against the pipeline, why is that a battle that matters to you in Colorado Springs?
MELISSA ROSE: I’m downriver. We’re all downriver at some point. We’re all ground zero. Everyone on the planet is on ground zero somewhere. And our first home is water. And I’m very intimately connected with that. And I think that’s why we’re all connected here.
AMY GOODMAN: So, the clinic you’re setting up here goes beyond midwifery.
CAROLINA REYES: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: It is a women’s space.
CAROLINA REYES: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: And explain what your plans are.
CAROLINA REYES: Yes. Well, Amy, the roots of this is—actually goes back to, you know, the recent history of healthcare for birth for indigenous women in North America, in this country, in particular, where, for instance, Indian Health Services had a policy of forcibly sterilizing indigenous women. From 1973 to 1976, more than 3,000 women were forcibly sterilized, even women under the age of 21. And so, that decreased in—between the 1970s and 1980s, that decreased the birth rate for Native population in the United States of America from 3.8 percent to 1.8 percent. So that is genocide. And that cannot continue to happen. That is genocide of indigenous women, and just the same way that this pipeline is the genocide of our Mother Earth, and it’s the genocide of the river and the water that feeds us all, that nourishes us all, just as it did in the womb.
So, that is why we’re doing this here to support the women, to come back from that colonization. You know, right now Native women—this space, in particular, creates the potential, the possibility, that women—that we can decolonize, not just through birth, but really come back to a place of matriarchy and respecting women in a way that we can also respect Mother Earth and not lay pipelines in her, not dig out her liver, her coal, just as they’re doing in Black Mesa, Big Mountain, Sovereign Dine Nation, just as they’re doing all across the world and across the globe.
And right now we’re here, but everywhere people are, in your home communities, find out who the Native folks are there that are living there. Find out what they’re battling. Find out what the battles are and how you can support them, because they are doing it for all of us, for all future generations, for all the babies to come. We need this water. We need this Earth to be healthy, to be beautiful for them to live in. I come from occupied Tohono O’odham land in so-called Tucson now, and there is a copper mine that’s trying to take away—to take a sacred land from the Apache there called Oak Flat. So I’ve been involved in that issue, as well. I mean, everywhere we come from, those battles are there. So I want to make that connection for folks at home to look around you and to find the Native people around you and the battles that they’re fighting for. If you can’t come here, support them there.
AMY GOODMAN: Midwives Carolina Reyes and Melissa Rose, as well as Yuwita Win from Cheyenne River Reservation.Overview
The USB Type-C to HDMI Adapter connects a USB Type-C plug to an HDMI receptacle. It enables users of any Chrome device that implements USB-Type C to connect to an HDMI display.
Hardware Capabilities
This adapter is an implementation of a USB Type-C DFP_D to HDMI Protocol Converter. It follows the requirements of section 4.3.1 of the VESA DisplayPort Alt Mode for USB Type-C Standard. I n the VESA standard, refer to Figure 4-13: Scenario 3a.
It provides the following features:
DisplayPort protocol conversion to support HDMI
automatic enabling of video out
video output with resolutions of up to 4K @ 60 Hz (depending on system and monitor capabilities)
For schematics, click here or see the attached file.
Firmware Source Code
The firmware is located In the Chromium Embedded Controller repository under board/hoho/ : https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform/ec/+/master/board/hoho/
Building Firmware
Within your Chromium OS chroot, the syntax is:
cd ~/trunk/src/platform/ec make BOARD=hoho
Flashing Firmware
The firmware is normally flashed via the kernel, as part of the Chrome OS Auto-Update process. Payloads are located in /lib/firmware/cros-pd.
When the adapter is connected to a Chrome device, you can manually flash the read-write firmware as follows:
ectool --cros_pd flashpd 4 <port> /tmp/hoho.ec.RW.bin
The device must be in developer mode to run the ectool command. After running this command, the firmware is located in ~/trunk/src/platform/ec/build/hoho/ec.bin.
Connecting to the Adapter
Developers of devices based on this design may need to install an initial image by putting the STM32F072 into DFU mode. This can be done by asserting PD_BOOOT0 (TP11 in the schematic) and resetting the MCU. It can be helpful to attach a switch for this purpose on prototype devices.
Installing an image requires the dfu-util tools package on the Chrome device where the adapter is connected. To deploy dfu-util and copy the chromeos-ec image from within your Chromium OS chroot, the syntax is:
BOARD=board-name IP=host-IP-address emerge-${BOARD} dfu-util chromeos-ec cros deploy $IP dfu-util chromeos-ec scp ~/trunk/src/platform/ec/build/hoho/ec.bin root@${IP}:/tmp/.
where board-name is the name of the Chrome device, for example peppy, and host-IP-address is its IP address on the network.
The next step is to connect the adapter to the Chrome device in DFU mode and write a full image (RO + RW). On the Chrome device, the syntax is:A Nigerian university has been closed because of violent protests about the lynching of four students accused of stealing laptops and mobile phones.
A horrific video of the killings near Nigeria's oil capital was posted on the YouTube video-sharing website.
Students say the four were mistaken for thieves in the village of Aluu.
University of Port Harcourt (Uniport) told students to go home after the demonstrations turned violent with houses, shops and cars burned.
Correspondents say anti-riot police and soldiers have been deployed to the campus, which the authorities say will remain shut until normality returns.
Thirteen arrested
The students blocked a major motorway near the university for hours on Tuesday, blocking traffic in and out of Port Harcourt.
The focus on the demonstration then turned to Aluu, where the lynchings happened on Friday.
The houses targeted by students allegedly belonged to some of those behind the killings.
The video, which was posted to YouTube over the weekend, shows four men stripped naked, with tyres around their necks, being beaten by a mob with wooden sticks, before being set on fire.
One of their classmates, Paul Irabor, told the BBC that the four had left the university campus to collect some money they were owed, when they were mistaken for thieves.
There are reports that the students took a laptop and mobile phones in lieu of the money owed.
Thirteen people, including the traditional leader of Aluu village - which neighbours the campus in an area called Choba - have been arrested over the killings.
Many residents of Aluu began fleeing on Monday, fearing revenge attacks.
The BBC's Bashir Sa'ad Abdullahi says that Nigerians, disillusioned with their police force, sometimes take justice into their own hands and lynch suspected robbers but the brutality - and the fact this incident was filmed and published on the internet - has shocked the country.The past calendar year has been a long, painful one for Toronto Blue Jays’ faithful.
Coming off consecutive playoff appearances for the first time in more than two decades, expectations were rightfully high heading into 2017, but a lacklustre winter improving the roster led into the Jays getting old in a hurry when the games began and a 76-win season followed.
With the calendar about to flip into a new year, let’s take a look at 17 things (we think) we learned in 2017:
1. Troy Tulowitzki’s past-prime days might be darker than we thought.
No stranger to the disabled list over the course of his brilliant 12-year career, Tulowitzki hit the DL with a hamstring injury in late April, returned at the end of May for two months, and then saw his season end in late July with a severe right ankle injury.
The most concerning part, however, was how below average Tulowitzki was in every aspect even when he was healthy.
His.249/.300/.378 slash line was ugly, his 78 Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+) was even worse, while his usually stellar defensive reputation also took a hit.
Expected to be healthy for spring training, Tulowitzki is motivated to silence doubters at the age of 33, but we’ll see if his body can back up that mindset.
2. Devon Travis confirmed he was injury prone.
Most of you are saying, ‘Yeah, we already knew that,’ but many were ready to give him one last chance to prove that wasn’t true, including the Jays’ front office, who, with apologies to now-ex-Jays Ryan Goins and Darwin Barney, didn’t exactly have an everyday fallback plan ready and paid the price.
Adding dual right knee surgeries over the past 14 months to his dual left shoulder surgeries has Travis’ career at a crossroads.
But his May performance —.364/.373/.646 slash line with 16 doubles and four homers in 26 games — also confirmed exactly why the soon-to-be 27-year-old is worth so many chances.
3. Ross Atkins & Co. were right about Justin Smoak’s breakout.
As everyone was pointing and screaming at the first base hole last winter (me included), the Jays were quietly confident in Smoak’s ability to have a breakout season at the age of 30.
Nailed it.
Smoak steamed out of the gates to his first all-star appearance on the strength of 23 home runs, and he was by far the feel-good story of an otherwise dismal year.
While his second-half numbers didn’t match the start, the Jays attributed some of the drop off to a leg injury that Smoak kept quiet, as well as the grind of playing a career-high 158 games.
Standing pat at first base was about the only thing that the Jays did right last off-season.
4. Josh Donaldson is still an MVP-level player capable of carrying an offence.
Not that anyone was really questioning he wasn’t, but there is a faction of the fan base looking at Donaldson’s age (just turned 32) and seeing what’s happening with Tulowitzki, and starting to worry about the viability of a long-term contract extension.
While the contract is another story altogether, Donaldson did miss 49 games, but he was still worth 5.0 WAR and posted a 149 wRC+, right in line with his 154 and 155 marks from 2015 and 2016, respectively.
In the second half, Donaldson was the hottest player in baseball not named Giancarlo Stanton, crushing 23 homers from July 31 on for a 1.121 OPS in 51 games.
5. Kevin Pillar can still play sensational defence, but that might not be enough.
The first six weeks of the 2017 season was an exciting time to be a Pillar supporter.
Backed by Gold Glove leather, the bat seemed to be rounding into form in his third full major league season, as he hit.303 with seven home runs through May 24.
Pillar was more selective, had more power, and was looking like a complete player.
Then he slashed.200/.255/.316 with five homers through his next 272 plate appearances, before rebounding over the final six weeks to finish around his career norms.
Pillar’s defence will continue to make him a valuable piece, but it was much easier to carry his dormant bat when the offence was one of the best in baseball.
6. Father Time is still undefeated and Jose Bautista was the latest victim.
The low-risk signing last January made complete sense at the time.
Sure, part of it had to do with Atkins not finding a way to acquire a better solution when the off-season started, but Bautista’s track record and the fact nagging injuries limited him to 116 games during the 2016 campaign made it feel like there was a bit of upside on a one-year, $18-million deal.
Even at his advanced age, a motivated and healthy Bautista would surely be at least a slightly above average bat in John Gibbons’ lineup, right?
Not so much.
At the age of 36, Bautista ended up setting new single-season Blue Jays records for lowest batting average (.203) and most strikeouts (170) in his final go-round in Toronto.
7. The team that captured hearts in 2015 and 2016 got old in a hurry.
This was essentially the story of the season.
Just about everything that could’ve gone wrong did, but age-related decline hit the Jays hard and they looked like a shell of the vaunted offensive lineup that they had been.
The core of the teams that went to back-to-back post-seasons was MIA, and we don’t mean in Miami for the All-Star Game.
Edwin Encarnacion was in Cleveland.
Bautista was awful.
Tulowitzki alternated between injured and awful.
Marco Estrada got hit hard for about two straight months when it mattered most.
Russell Martin hit the disabled list twice.
Even Atkins and president Mark Shapiro admitted they were shocked by the defensive regression, something that clearly had a lot to do with aging legs all over the field.
8. Russell Martin’s presence is important.
By the numbers, his third season in Blue Jays’ colours was his worst, but we got a good look at what the veteran catcher means outside of the many metrics players are judged on thanks to two stints on the DL.
In the 87 games Martin started last season, the Jays went 45-42.
In the games he sat out entirely, 30-41.
9. Finding a quality backup catcher isn’t easy.
It was a worry heading into last season and the only solution Atkins could find was was no-bat, no-glove Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who ended up being released a month into the season after striking out 16 times in 26 trips to the plate and watched nine successful steal attempts on him in nine tries.
Things went from bad to worse when Martin went on the DL in May with a nerve issue in his left shoulder and again in August with a strained left oblique.
From there, it was a revolving door as, including Salty, the Jays used five different catchers behind Martin — Luke Maile, Mike Ohlman, Miguel Montero and Raffy Lopez — and the results were ugly.
Only Martin and Maile remain on the depth chart heading into 2018, but at least prospect Danny Jansen authored a breakout year in the minors to provide some hope.
10. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is as close to can’t-miss as it gets.
Everyone knew he was a bluechip prospect heading into the year, but as an 18-year-old who had all of 62 games on his resume in pro ball, the baseball world was still taking a wait-and-see approach with Guerrero.
Consider everyone all-in now.Vladdy Jr. was not nice to opposing pitchers in his first full minor league season, and definitely started the process of living up to his dad’s name, slashing.323/.425/.485 across two levels to position himself to have a slim chance at a major league debut as a teenager this summer if he tears up Double-A.
11. The organization had a severe lack of starting pitching depth.
In 2016, the Jays used just seven starters.
That helped mask what couldn’t be hidden this past season, as injuries to Aaron Sanchez, J.A. Happ and Francisco Liriano early on forced Atkins to dig into his depth.
He dug in and came up empty-handed on almost every occasion.
In total, 14 starters took the ball for the Jays, including names like Mat Latos, Nick Tepesch, Casey Lawrence, Mike Bolsinger, Cesar Valdez and Brett Anderson, all of them posting ERAs north of 5.00.
To make matters worse, the pitching prospects closing in on the big leagues at Double-A — Sean Reid-Foley, Conner Greene and Jon Harris — regressed, with lefty Ryan Borucki’s rise from A-ball to Triple-A the notable exception.
12. Joe Biagini could be a starter but probably won’t be in the end.
As of today, the plan for Biagini is to prepare for a starter’s workload coming into spring training, but that could change in an instant if Atkins can reel in a new fifth starter.
Forced into a starting role last May, Biagini went 2-12 with a 5.73 ERA in 18 starts.
At times it wasn’t pretty and he never seemed quite comfortable as a starter, but at times he dazzled, including three outings of seven-plus innings and two or less runs allowed.
If the Jays were in a complete rebuild, they could afford the ups and downs Biagini, the starter, will bring, but the fallback of being a multi-inning weapon of the bullpen might be too tantalizing in the end.
13. Teoscar Hernandez has some serious power, and some serious swing-and-miss.
Acquired at the trade deadline from the Houston Astros for Liriano, the deal was an immediate win for Atkins, who wasn’t going to re-sign the veteran lefty and was aided by the Astros’ plethora of outfield prospects.
Hernandez is an interesting piece, but the Jays aren’t ready to commit to the 25-year-old as an everyday option just yet, and with good reason.
The eight home runs he smashed in 95 September plate appearances were exciting and many of them were tape-measure shots, but he also struck out 36 times.
Successful major leaguers don’t strike out 37.9 per cent of the time, and that’s a problem Hernandez will have to rectify in order to fulfill his potential.
14. Aaron Sanchez’s injury was the reason the Jays couldn’t get to the.500 mark.
Eight starts and 36 innings was all the Jays got out of the 2016 American League ERA champion last season, and it killed them.
His blister troubles, which started in spring training, ended up being a microcosm of their entire season.
There were issues all over the roster, but a healthy Sanchez and around 200 quality innings would’ve come close to the five-win difference between a 76-86 record and an 81-81 mark, which, as sad as it sounds, would’ve had the Jays only two games back of the Minnesota Twins’ 83 wins and the second wild-card spot.
15. Anthony Alford is not getting enough attention.
Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette stole all the prospect headlines in 2017, but Alford is quietly starting to add some polish to all the baseball tools the two-sport high school pick from the 2012 draft possesses.
His MLB debut was made of necessity in May — he was already on the 40-man roster — but it didn’t last long thanks to a broken hamate bone.
In between that setback, Alford slashed.310/.406/.429 with five homers and 18 steals in Double-A, showing improved plate discipline and above-average centre field defence.
There reason he’s not getting more attention? He keeps getting hurt, and that seemed to continue when he rolled an ankle recently in winter ball in Mexico.
If his health cooperates, don’t be surprised if Alford is pushing for call-up from down the road in Buffalo by June.
16. The Kendrys Morales signing is a failure.
Signed to a three-year, $33-million contract in the early days of free agency, Morales did hit 28 home runs, the third-best mark of his career.
But that was about all the plodding, 34-year-old DH did.
Over the past three years, Morales’ walks have dipped, his strikeouts have gone up, and his offensive production as whole has plummeted.
Add it all up and you have a player who doesn’t play defence, can’t run, and is now below league average with the bat as his 97 wRC+ will attest to.
Morales has been worth just 0.2 WAR over the past two seasons, including a minus-0.6 mark in his first season in Toronto.
Both Atkins and Gibbons believe a year of getting used to AL East pitching will help Morales, but that seems like wishful thinking at this stage of his career.
Not to mention he’s owed $23 million over the next two seasons and plugs a DH spot that could be used to rest all of the aging stars.
17. Marcus Stroman is one of the best pitchers in the American League.
Aside from Smoak and a couple bullpen arms, Stroman’s second-straight 200-plus-inning season was one of the lone bright spots.
His impressive consistency was needed.
Stroman’s worst ERA in any one month was 3.69 as he essentially kept the Jays from hitting rock bottom every fifth day.
Approaching the age of 27, Stroman was eighth in Cy Young balloting, finishing eighth in WAR amongst qualified AL starters (3.4), fourth in ERA (3.09), seventh in innings (201), and first in groundball rate (62.1 per cent).
The “ace” label is subjective as it gets, but Stroman could reach that rarefied air with a bump in his strikeout rate, which at 7.3 per nine innings was good for 15th in the AL.2.05.2017
Enjoy the #SuperBowl and then we continue: MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2017
Day 36, continued. The subject promotes the Super Bowl, perhaps as a way of indirectly promoting his interview, which airs beforehand. Subject ends his communication with the all-caps version of his campaign slogan. Study continues.
I have instructed Homeland Security to check people coming into our country VERY CAREFULLY. The courts are making the job very difficult! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2017
Day 36, continued. The subject again lashes out at the Judicial Branch, one of the three branches of government. As this is the only branch of the three that the subject's party does not control, it is not unexpected that the subject would be in opposition. However, the obsessive nature of the subject's tweets on said judge's ruling suggests that the previous reports of his inability to let even the smallest perceived insults go may be accurate. Study continues.
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
Day 36. Subject continues to complain about the judge that upheld the temporary stay of his selective Muslim ban, a judge known as a "mainstream Republican" who was appointed by George W. Bush. The fact that the subject's last tweet of the previous day and first tweet of the current day relates to said judge, it is clear that the subject is bothered by having his authority constrained. Such behavior is in lines with traits of authoritarianism. Study continues.
2.04.2017
The judge opens up our country to potential terrorists and others that do not have our best interests at heart. Bad people are very happy! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2017
Day 35, continued. The subject is back to fuming about the judge that overruled his selective Muslim ban. He attempts to portray the situation as the judge allowing "bad people", "potential terrorists", and those that "do not have our best interests at heart" into the country when, in actuality, the people he is trying to ban have not committed a terrorist attack in the U.S. in at least 15 years. Study continues.
Interview with @oreillyfactor on Fox Network - 4:00 P.M. (prior to Super Bowl). Enjoy! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2017
Day 35, continued. The subject expresses excitement at being featured in a television interview. Previous behavior indicates the subject is particularly sensitive about TV ratings, a trait which would be consistent with narcissistic personality disorder. Study continues.
What is our country coming to when a judge can halt a Homeland Security travel ban and anyone, even with bad intentions, can come into U.S.? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017
Because the ban was lifted by a judge, many very bad and dangerous people may be pouring into our country. A terrible decision — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017
Why aren't the lawyers looking at and using the Federal Court decision in Boston, which is at conflict with ridiculous lift ban decision? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017
Day 35, continued. The subject again appears shocked that the executive branch does not hold 100% of the power in the government. The subject also appears significantly bothered by the fact that his order was not immediately upheld, which may be observed by his use of three tweets, and is a behavior consistent with narcisistic personality disorder.However, it is still not clear whether the subject is truly surprised or whether he is feigning surprise in order to manipulate others into believing that the judicial branch is doing something wrong. Study continues.
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017
Day 35, continued. In a concerning turn of events, the subject appears to use the online equivalent of shouting to reiterate his campaign slogan. Could this represent a psychological break or an organic disorder affecting temporal awareness? Indeed, recent concerning video of the subject failing to recognize his own advisor sitting across from him has been brought to the authors' attention. Study continues.
After being forced to apologize for its bad and inaccurate coverage of me after |
ie parece darse cuenta. Aquí mismo, ahora, los únicos morenos en este local son tú y aquel mesero. En los puestos de decisión académica los funcionarios, por su fisonomía, podrían ser igual españoles o italianos y sólo entrando al Metro puedes darte cuenta que los morenos como tú son mayoría”.
Lo que decía mi amigo es cierto. El racismo mexicano es omnipresente pero tendemos —quizá justo por eso o porque nuestra ignorancia, individualismo y desinterés nos orilla a aceptarlo sin cuestionarlo porque “siempre ha sido así”— a ignorarlo para vivir tranquilos con nuestra conciencia, y porque está fundido con otra forma de discriminación, clasista, que se acepta con menos rubor aunque se disfrace. Hay quien dice, por ejemplo, que no condena a los pobres sino a los nacos y que son cosas muy diferentes, aun cuando es claro para quien quiera verlo que la naquitud —por decirlo de algún modo— fue originalmente un conglomerado de comportamientos de clase que casualmente pueden identificarse mayoritariamente con rasgos raciales. No es gratuito que “prieto” siga funcionando como insulto.
Por unas y otras razones, hay un sinfín de hechos violentos en función de una estética determinada por el color de piel asociado a un status económico y eso es simplemente inaceptable.
Que quede constancia de una denuncia más de esta realidad.
.
TE RECOMENDAMOS:
•On February 13, 1997, 20 miles off the coast of Cornwall, UK, the container ship Tokio Express was hit with a massive wave. Sixty-two of the containers it was carrying were knocked overboard. The contents of 61 of those containers are either not known or too uninteresting to be publicized—but one of them held 4.8 million LEGO pieces, which have been washing up on Cornish beaches ever since.
An issue of Beachcombers' Alert from later that same year details the breakdown (by item) of the different LEGO pieces lost; in a weird coincidence, many of them happened to be nautically themed. There were, for example, 26,600 life preservers; 418,000 diver flippers in pairs of black, blue or red; 13,000 red or yellow spear guns; and 4200 black octopuses.
Seventeen yeas after the initial spill, beach goers are still finding these now well-worn LEGO pieces, but these days they have to hunt for them. "There's stories of kids in the late 1990s having buckets of dragons on the beach, selling them," Tracey Williams told the BBC earlier this year. She runs a Facebook group that documents the discoveries of these formerly lost-at-sea LEGOs by dedicated beachcombers. Because of their initial rarity, the octopus pieces have become a prize find amongst these treasure hunters; a recent post on the Facebook page depicts the visible, visceral excitement of the most recent discovery of one of the 4200.
American oceanographer and fellow beachcomber Curtis Ebbesmeyer estimates that since the spill, pieces could have floated some 62,000 miles—several times greater than the circumference of the equator, 24,000 miles. This means that ostensibly they could be anywhere, but thus far only finds in Cromwell have been confirmed.
"I go to beachcombing events in Florida and they show me Lego—but it's the wrong kind," he told the BBC. "It's all local stuff kids have left behind."
The pieces that are still being found look perhaps a little bit worse for the wear but have held up remarkably well after all these years at sea. The resilience of plastic is bad news for the environment—and along with treasure hunters, rogue LEGO pieces are sought after by beach clean-up groups—but it also means there will be collectors combing the sands for tiny octopuses and dragons until all 4,756,940 pieces are accounted for.
All photos courtesy of Tracey Williams/Lego Lost At Sea.PHILADELPHIA -- After Eagles defensive end Steven Means felt the ball graze his wrist during the second quarter of a 31-3 win over the Bears on Sunday, he raised both hands in the air, jumped and pointed to the sky.
Means knew he altered the trajectory of the punt. And that moment, it hit home that he had carved a tangible imprint on a game after sitting on the sideline as a healthy inactive player each week since Oct. 12. A rush of elation followed, leaving the fifth-year defensive end waving his arms and, he said, pointing to the sky to thank God for the accomplishment.
The punt wound up sputtering 44 yards after Means placed a hand on it -- and returner Kenjon Barner pulled Jaylen Watkins away from danger -- to give the Eagles possession at the Bears' 45-yard line. That set up a Jake Elliott field goal and kept Philadelphia rolling to its ninth straight win.
For Means, the play carried significance. A crowded roster boxed him out of the lineup in the previous four games, and he was itching to make a play that caught the attention of his coaches and teammates against Chicago.
Means pressured Bears punter Pat O'Donnell into a shabby kick after the Bears' first drive of the game, and finally got his hands on the kick inside Chicago's end zone on that play early in the second quarter.
Means said he didn't even expect to have a chance to block that one. The Eagles initially planned to set up a return rather than have rushers try to bulldoze their way toward O'Donnell, Means said, but a few seconds before the punt team trotted onto the field, special teams coach Dave Fipp walked over to No. 51.
According to Means, Fipp told him that with the Bears punting from their own end zone, he wanted to tweak the strategy.
"I wasn't even supposed to be inside," Means said. "Right before the play, coach Fipp was like, 'Hey, I want you to go inside, beat the guy and get a block.' After that, God just put me in the right position. I didn't even beat the guy really. I just got my hand up and got a piece."
Means made the play by penetrating the Bears' line and reaching his massive arm over Chicago inside linebacker Christian Jones. It worked out for Philadelphia.
In a sense, defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz foreshadowed the performance last week. Schwartz discussed Means' intense practice habits Tuesday, noting that teammates and coaches have long lauded him for pushing others with relentless energy.
"The way he prepares, he's not doing that to help [right tackle] Lane Johnson prepare. He's doing it to get himself ready," Schwartz said. "And you know, there's going to come a time when he's going to have go out there.... Steven's a reliable player, he's trusted in the locker room, he works extremely hard and he'll perform well when his time comes."
Philadelphia Eagles report card: Grading the 31-3 win over the Chicago Bears
Means had a small slice of opportunity Sunday. With injuries to defensive tackle Beau Allen and tight end Trey Burton, an extra spot on the 46-man active roster opened, and Philadelphia decided to have Means suit up for the first time since a win over the Panthers in mid-October.
With four healthy defensive ends in front him, Means only played six defensive snaps, mostly in garbage time. But he was on the field for 15 special teams plays, and he made them count by constantly pressuring O'Donnell.
"I was happy Steven Means got out there and got his job done," defensive end Brandon Graham said. "He gave me the energy today. We feed off each other."
Those type of comments regarding Means are common. Offensive linemen praise the pass rusher for the challenge he provides each week in practice, fellow defensive lineman admire his toughness and Schwartz points to him as an example of a player who earns respect even without regular playing time.
Means said he isn't sure whether he plays harder on special teams snaps than anyone else, but he does know this: Surefire playing time isn't waiting for him next week or anytime after that, so he doesn't want to let any play go to waste.
"I take them as serious as I possibly can," Means said. "Even in practice, I take them very, very seriously, because I know my next rep isn't promised."
-- @AaronKazreportsWith phone calls and meetings beginning informing some ESPN employees that they have been laid off, word will slowly trickle out all day long about who they are. There will be plenty of names you have heard of, as ESPN reorients their daily lineup of shows, and their online video and stories to match.
As ESPNers announce their layoffs, or they are reported, we will keep a running list here.
NBA Insider Chad Ford
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College Football & Indy 500 Play-By-Play Announcer Allen Bestwick
NBA Reporter Marc Stein
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NBA Digital Deputy Director Henry Abbott
Investigations Unit Writer Shaun Assael
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College Football Analyst Mark May
Via Awful Announcing
Soccer Writer Doug McIntyre
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Reporter Britt McHenry
ESPN 710 Host Jeff Biggs
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Outside the Lines Reporter Steve Delsohn
College Football Reporter David Lombardi
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College Basketball Reporter Andy Katz
Columnist Jim Caple
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College Football Analyst Charles Arbuckle
MLB Analysts Dallas Braden And Raul Ibanez
MLB Analyst Doug Glanville
ESPNU Producer Josh Parcell
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Soccer Writer David Hirshey
SportsCenter Anchor Darren Haynes
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NFL Contributor Jarrett Bell
SportsCenter Anchor Jade McCarthy
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Auto Racing and College Football Commentator Jerry Punch
Enterprise Reporter Tom Farrey
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Sports Gambling Writer Dave Tuley
Premier Boxing Champions Host Marysol Castro
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Correspondent Reese Waters
SEC Reporter Greg Ostendorf
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Golf Commentator Dottie Pepper
Legal Analyst Roger Cossack
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SportsCenter Anchor Jaymee Sire
SportsCenter Anchor Chris Hassel
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Predictive Analytics Expert Rufus Peabody
College Sports Reporter Chantel Jennings
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New Orleans Pelicans Reporter Justin Verrier
Radio Host Robin Lundberg
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NFL Analyst Ashley Fox
College Basketball Analyst Len Elmore
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Houston Rockets Reporter Calvin Watkins
ESPNW and ESPN Chicago Columnist Melissa Isaacson
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SportsCenter Anchor Jay Crawford
NBA Reporter Ethan Sherwood Strauss
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Pac 12 Reporter Ted Miller
NFL Analyst Trent Dilfer
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Big Ten Reporter Brian Bennett
MLB Writer Jayson Stark
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SEC Football Reporter David Ching
ESPNW Reporter Jane McManus
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Big 12 Reporter Max Olson
Dodgers Reporter Doug Padilla
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Columnist Johnette Howard
Radio Host Danny Kanell
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College Basketball Reporter C.L. Brown
SEC Recruiting Analyst Derek Tyson
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ESPN Dallas Columnist Jean-Jacques Taylor
College Basketball Writer Eamonn Brennan
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College Football Recruiting Reporter Jeremy Crabtree
College Football Reporter Brett McMurphy
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Baseball Reporter Mark Saxon
MLB Analyst Jim Bowden
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Big Ten Football Reporter Austin Ward
Wisconsin and Big Ten Football Reporter Jesse Temple
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Soccer Writer Mike Goodman
ESPNU Anchor Brendan Fitzgerald
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College Basketball Reporter Dana O’Neil
NHL Columnist Pierre LeBrun
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Hockey Writer Joe McDonald
NHL Columnist Scott Burnside
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NFL Reporter Ed Werder
Titans Reporter Paul Kuharsky
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Additionally, The Hollywood Reporter reports that Karl Ravech, Ryen Russillo, and Hannah Storm will see their roles “significantly reduced.” THR originally reported that ESPN would allow SportsCenter anchor John Buccigross’s contract to expire, but has since walked that back.
Twenty of the 100 or so layoffs are of Bristol-based employees.Designed as a short range, ultra simple self defense pistol the Wiener Waffenfabrik “Little Tom” was the first double action semi-automatic pistol ever created. Made in.25ACP (6.35x16SR) and.32ACP (7.65×17 Browning SR) these were small pocket pistols such as were popular in much of Europe prior to the First World War.
Created by Czech firearms designer Alois Tomiska whilst he was living and working in Vienna, Austria, where he had learned his gun-smithing trade, Tomiska created this pistol around the year 1900.
The “Little Tom” gets its name from the name of its designer Tomiska. Typical of Austrian made firearms these handguns are well made and have a solid and well balanced feel about them. It took Alois Tomiska about eight years to complete the design of this pistol and obtain both British and Austrian patents for it. He started his own company to manufacture the pistols and called it Wiener Waffenfabrik which translates as Vienna Firearms Works in partnership with a man named Camillo Frank and began production of pistols in both.25ACP and.32ACP around 1909.
Sales were quite slow but Tomiska continued to work on refining his designs and obtaining additional patents, finally selling his business in 1919 and moving back to his native Czechoslovakia where he worked for Jihoceska Zbrojovka (South Czech Weapon Works) which later became a part of Ceska Zbrojovka (CZ). At Jihoceska Zbrojovka he worked on the designs for the Vz22, 24 and 27 pistols and also made his own licensed versions of his “Little Tom”. He passed away in 1946 having lived through the two great wars of the twentieth century.
About 40,000 to 50,000 of these Little Tom pistols were made, the majority being in.25ACP so the larger.32ACP is a rare bird indeed. For people who are familiar with modern pistols the Little Tom seems to have a peculiar way of managing the magazine although it is in fact very similar to the top loading pistols being produced by Austrian manufacturer Steyr at the time, which used top loading stripper clips to load their fixed internal magazines. The Little Tom has a removable magazine, usually made of brass, but it has to be pushed up through the top of the open pistol action to remove it. Some Little Tom pistols have been altered to facilitate the bottom loading most of us are familiar with though none were originally manufactured like that.
The video below provides a good look at the functioning of the Little Tom and includes shooting it and field stripping.
The Wiener Waffenfabrik “Little Tom” pistol we have featured in the pictures in this post is coming up for auction by Rock Island Auction on February 25 – 28, 2016.
You will find the Rock Island Auction page if you click here.
For more information about the Wiener Waffenfabrik “Little Tom” pistols there are interesting and informative pages to be found if you click here, here, and here.
These pistols make an excellent addition to a collection of early pistol designs. In fact being the first ever double action semi-automatic pistol ever produced they are an essential addition to such a collection.
Jon Branch is the founder and senior editor of Revivaler and has written a significant number of articles for various publications including official Buying Guides for eBay, classic car articles for Hagerty, magazine articles for both the Australian Shooters Journal and the Australian Shooter, and he’s a long time contributor to Silodrome. Jon has done radio, television, magazine and newspaper interviews on various issues, and has traveled extensively, having lived in Britain, Australia, China and Hong Kong. His travels have taken him to Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan and a number of other countries. He has studied the Japanese sword arts and has a long history of involvement in the shooting sports, which has included authoring submissions to government on various firearms related issues and assisting in the design and establishment of shooting ranges.It’s Game Week, finally, and that means projections for the division races.
(No offense to Stanford and Oregon State, which experienced Game Week last week, although the Beavers probably would have preferred more practice to their experience at Colorado State, which coach Gary Andersen deemed embarrassing.)
Anyhow, the North and South have clear favorites and obvious cellar dwellers, but the circumstances aren’t identical.
I’d be less surprised if Washington gets overtaken in the North than if USC gets bypassed in the South. No way USC doesn’t win the South.
The Trojans simply have too much margin for error: They don’t have as many threats in the South as UW does in the North, and the threats that exist are, well, less threatening. Get Pac-12 Conference news in your inbox. Sign up for the Pac-12 Hotline newsletter.
If you tracked the Hotline’s 12-part series, in which I picked the outcome of every game for every team, the projections below will look familiar. (Here’s the final installment, which includes links to the picks for all the teams.)
I haven’t change the outlooks, even with the somewhat surprising quarterback news out of Utah (Tyler Huntley to start) and the late roster addition for Oregon (DT Malik Young) and the season-ending injury to UCLA lineman Kenny Lacy and the abysmal performance by Oregon State. I picked the Beavers to win four games and am not quite prepared to drop that total to three.
Consider this the one-stop shopping version of that series.
*** North
1. Washington (projected record: 11-1/8-1): Best combination of quarterback, line play, skill talent, coaching and schedule — just about everything, really. Wake me in November.
2. Stanford (9-3/7-2): Pieces in place to challenge Washington so long as QB Keller Chryst doesn’t lose games and the defensive line is sturdy. Should know by the close of Week Four whether the Cardinal is a true contender.
3. Washington State (9-3/6-3): Cannot afford another slow start with so many road games in the second half. Could be WSU’s best team since the late-Price/early-Doba years.
4. Oregon (6-6/4-5): Veteran offensive line gives Ducks a chance to make the leap to the North’s top tier, but the defense is years away from being the backbone of a division winner. Expectations a bit ahead of reality.
5. Oregon State (4-8/2-7): Ominous start at Colorado State, and I expect more losses — many more losses — in coming months. After the progress in 2016 comes a season of stagnation.
6. Cal (4-8/2-7): Anything better than 3-9 would be a nice first step for Justin Wilcox, whose rebuild will take years. Bad as the Bears have been defensively, that might be their best unit this fall. Related Articles Pac-12 Networks: Media analysts grade the networks (part four of the Pac-12 Hotline series)
Fan poll: The Pac-12’s Offensive Player of the Year will be …?
*** South
1. USC (10-2/7-2): Loads of talent and quarterback Sam Darnold give the Trojans plenty of cushion. September is rugged, but if the offensive line coalesces quickly, then a playoff berth comes into focus.
2. UCLA (9-3/6-3): Expecting a bounce-back season with Josh Rosen healthy, the running game revived and enough returning defensive talent to counteract the attrition on the front seven.
3. Colorado (7-5/4-5): Everything broke right for the Buffs last year, and they were very good. (Both were true.) This fall, not as much goes right, and they’re not quite as good.
4. Arizona State (6-6/4-5): One of the Arizona schools will jump back into the middle of the South, and I’m leaning to the Sun Devils. Better defense, better options at quarterback.
5. Utah (5-7/3-6): The move to Tyler Huntley will benefit the program over the long haul, but now there’s a rookie QB playing behind a rebuilt line. Tough to see the Utes contending for the division’s upper half.
6. Arizona (4-8/1-8): Not sure the issues that surfaced last season are solvable in one recruiting cycle … and yes, that assumes the quarterback play is better. Better, but not good enough. For more Pac-12 coverage
follow Pac-12 Hotline on Flipboard.
*** Send suggestions, comments and tips (confidentiality guaranteed) to pac12hotline@bayareanewsgroup.com
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*** Pac-12 Hotline is not endorsed or sponsored by the Pac-12 Conference, and the views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of the Conference.There may not be a more charmingly ad hoc tradition than hockey’s emergency goaltender. If one of a team’s two goalies gets hurt or otherwise incapacitated before a game with not enough time to fly in a backup from the minors, the NHL maintains a list of potential goalies in each city—older guys with careers, probably played a little college hockey, have some connection to the team—who can report and sign at a moment’s notice, and, if things go well, get to sit on the bench and never ever get into a game.
The Coyotes’ Anders Lindback suffered an off-ice injury hours before Arizona hosted the Canadiens last night, so they went to the rolodex and found Nathan Schoenfeld, 31, whose most outstanding qualification might be that his father-in-law is the team’s equipment manager. Schoenfeld got the text message about an hour before puck drop, while he was in the middle of bathing his twin five-week-old boys.
He hopped in the car and made it to the arena in about a half-hour. Along the way he called his father, former Coyotes coach and current Rangers assistant GM Jim Schoenfeld, to ask if New York had any scouts in the stands.
“I said, ‘Well if you do, let them know to check out the backup goaltender tonight,” Schoenfeld said.
Schoenfeld, who works as a bank manager, has been around the team dating back to when his father was coach. Though he skates with the alumni, he hasn’t played in an actual competitive hockey game since he last played club hockey at Arizona State in 2006.
“I don’t think I’m game-ready but ready in case they need me to sit on the bench,” Schoenfeld said.
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He did indeed get to sit on the bench and watch starter Louis Domingue make 17 saves in a 6-2 win over Montreal. Head coach Dave Tippett said he wanted to see if Schoenfeld would chirp players from his perch, like a true backup, but “he was pretty quiet.”
In the locker room, Schoenfeld was awarded the Yotes’ championship belt, and Martin Hanzal, after a three-point night, declared him the team’s lucky charm. For what will officially go down as an amateur tryout, Schoenfeld will be paid $500 and get to keep his game jersey.As PresidentDonald Trumpspoke last week in Warsaw, Poland, cable news cameras panned across the raucous crowdbused inby the country’s right-wing government to cheer him on.
Amid the waving red-and-white Polish flags, a lone man ― over 4,000 miles from the U.S. South, from the land of Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan and slavery ― could be seen holding the Confederate flag.
Wait a sec, is that a confederate flag, at the Trump speech, in freakin#Poland? What?! Man, every day just gets more and more bizarrepic.twitter.com/0om5cBbim7 — DJ Z-TRIP (@ztrip) July 6, 2017
There was some frightening symbolism to it: a 150-year-old emblem of white supremacy at a seemingly all-white rally for a white U.S. president speaking in dire,white nationalist tonesabout defending “Western civilization.”
But how did a flag born out of the American Civil War end up at a political rally in Poland in 2017? Groups across Europe have embraced the flag for their respective causes for years, and experts say some of its European fans don’t understand what the rebel flag really represents in U.S. history.
A far-right activist in Warsaw, Poland, holds a Confederate flag and a White Pride flag while taking part in a July 2015 demonstration against accepting over 2,000 immigrants to the country. More
Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, says Europeans who use the flag can typically be divided into three groups.
First, he said, there are the out-and-proud racists.
“White supremacists in Europe will often use American hate symbols just as white supremacists here will use hate symbols derived from Europe,” he told HuffPost. “I’ve seen Swedish skinheads with Klan and Confederate tattoos.”
Neo-Nazis across Europe ― especially in Germany, where displaying the swastika in public is outlawed ― have been known to use the Confederate flag. And they well know what it means, Pitcavage said.
At an anti-immigrant rally in Poland in 2015, a protester could be seen waving both a White Pride flag and a Confederate flag. And here’s the flag at an anti-refugee rally in Germany that same year:
The second group of Confederate flag-wavers, Pitcavage said, are right-wingpolitical activists, many of whom have separatist inclinations.
The flag, for example, is a common sight at games of the Italian football team Napoli. That’s because many people in southern Italy see common cause with the Confederacy,The Washington Post reported. Both regions once were absorbed or defeated by a larger Northern power ― Rome, in the case of Italy.
During the Ukraine-Russia conflict, bothfar-right pro-Kiev groupsandpro-Moscow separatists have been seen using the flag, or an approximation of it.
And the Red Hand Defenders, a protestant paramilitary group in Northern Ireland, oftenmarchwith the Confederate flag. Theyclaimto do so because there were so many Northern Irish troops in the Confederate army.
And further south in County Cork, Ireland, soccer fans are known to wave the flag, seeing parallels between the Confederacy and Cork’s history as a “rebel county” in Ireland’s fight against British rule.
But the most common reason the Confederate flag flies across Europe, Pitcavage said, is ignorance.
“Even Americans are infamously ignorant of the culture and history of other places,” he said. “Many Europeans don’t have a detailed or nuanced understanding of the U.S. and they sometimes get a Confederate flag because it’s a symbol of Americana to them.”Epilepsy and autism are relatively common conditions that can have a big impact on a person's life. They often occur together, and researchers have been looking for a possible link between them.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that some degree of autism affects 1 in every 59 children, or 1.7 percent of all children in the United States.
In 2015, 1.2 percent of the population in the U.S. had active epilepsy, according to the CDC.
If scientists find a link, this could lead to a better understanding of both conditions and contribute to more effective diagnosis and treatment in the future.
This article will look at some of the evidence of a link between autism and epilepsy.
What is the link?
Autism and epilepsy often occur together. They are seen as different conditions, but they may have some features in common.
Epilepsy
Autism and epilepsy often happen together. Autism and epilepsy often happen together.
Epilepsy is a disorder of the brain. It is a neurologic condition that can lead to different sorts of seizures.
In a person with epilepsy, a seizure happens when certain brain nerves fire abnormally and cause effects that the person has no control over.
There are two main types of seizure.
Focal seizures: These affect just one part of the brain. Around 60 percent of people with epilepsy have this type.
During a focal seizure, a person may experience:
changes in consciousness
sensory changes, where they feel or sense something that appears not to be present
repetitious or unusual behaviors, such as blinking, twitching, or walking in circles
auras, or a sense that a seizure is going to happen
Generalized seizures: Abnormal activity affects both sides of the brain.
The following may occur:
Absence seizures: The person appears to stare at nothing, with slight muscle twitches.
Tonic seizures: The muscles become stiff, especially in the back, arms, and legs.
Clonic seizures: There are repeated jerking movements affect both sides of the body.
Atonic seizures: A loss of muscle tone causes the person to fall down or drop their head.
Tonic-clonic seizures: This can involve a combination of symptoms.
Autism
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a disorder of childhood development. Symptoms can vary widely in type and severity.
The main ways in which autism can impact a person's life are:
Social interaction: The person will find it hard to communicate or interact with others. They may respond less easily to conversation, compared with their peers. They may have difficulty understanding body language, making eye contact, interpreting or showing emotions, and in forming relationships.
Interests and activities: A person may show patterns of behavior that are narrow and repetitive, and they may have a lower tolerance for change than their peers. Changes to a routine can be very distressing for a person with autism.
Research: Is there a link?
Epilepsy results from a malfunction in the brain. Autism, too, probably stems from a problem with the brain. The conditions affect different brain structures and functions, but some features overlap.
This has raised the question of whether there might be a biological link.
Scientists and doctors have found that epilepsy is more common in people who also have autism, and that autism is more common in those who have epilepsy. All types of seizures have been observed in people with autism.
Up to 32 percent of people with epilepsy also meet the diagnostic criteria for autism, according to an article in Pediatric Research.
Around 20–30 percent of children who have autism develop epilepsy before becoming adults.
A number of factors and features may underlie this link.
Some research has found that electrical activity in the brains of people with autism displays epilepsy-type discharges more often than in people without the condition.
Risk factors for both epilepsy and autism
Factors that may affect the chance of a link include:
Level of cognitive ability and development: Those with autism and epilepsy are more likely to have learning difficulties and developmental delays. In addition, people with active epilepsy and learning difficulties are more likely to have autism.
Having another neurogenetic disorder or other medical condition: This increases the risk.
Age: Epilepsy appears to be most likely to appear in people with autism during early childhood and in adolescence and young adulthood
Sex: Some studies have found a higher incidence of epilepsy in females with autism, compared with males. Other results have not supported this finding, however.
Children and adults who have both autism and epilepsy tend to have more severe symptoms of autism, more hyperactivity, and a lower intelligence quotient (IQ) compared with those who do not have epilepsy.
Possible explanations
One review that focused on the link between autism and epilepsy looked at various findings about the brain's electrical activity, using EEG. The review appeared in the journal Pediatric Research.
EEG tests have shown similar brain activity in people with epilepsy and autism. EEG tests have shown similar brain activity in people with epilepsy and autism.
Doctors often use EEG to diagnose epilepsy. An EEG can record seizures, but it can also detect epileptiform activity. This is another electrical brain activity that is related to epilepsy.
The findings suggested that epileptiform activity is more common in people with autism, even if they have never had a seizure. It is not clear that treating these EEG abnormalities will help with the symptoms of autism.
According to the review, some studies have found high rates of epileptiform EEGs with autism, even when there was no diagnosis of epilepsy. Some scientists believe these abnormalities might have something to do with causing autism.
However, the review could not draw solid conclusions, and there is still no clear proof of a link.
One possibility is that autism and epilepsy have overlapping genetic factors. Research into a potential link is ongoing.
In an article published by ResearchGate in 2015, Dr. Sallyann Wakeford noted that people with epilepsy often show behaviors that are similar to those that feature in autism.
She pointed out that people with long-term epilepsy often have difficulty with social interaction, but questions whether, for some, this is a sign of autism or the result of living with a stigmatizing health condition.
Wakeford also found, however, that while people with epilepsy often have social traits that resemble those of autism, they often do not have the core cognitive features of autism, such as repetitive behaviors.
One reason for this could be that epilepsy and autism share some genetic features, but not all.
When to see a doctor
The website Autism speaks suggests that doctors and others who take care of people with autism should look for the following "red flags" as signs that epilepsy may be present:
If a person with autism shows certain signs, such as staring into space for a while or making involuntary movements, they should see a doctor for an assessment. If a person with autism shows certain signs, such as staring into space for a while or making involuntary movements, they should see a doctor for an assessment.
spells of unexplained staring
involuntary movements
confusion with no apparent cause
severe headaches
sleepiness and sleep disruption
changes in abilities or emotions without any clear reason
Some researchers have observed that children aged 18–24 months who have autism may lose skills they have already learned if epilepsy appears.
The appearance of epilepsy may affect a person's:
language and communication skills
thinking and reasoning skills
behavior
This loss of skills is called regression. However, this regression does not happen in every case, and the findings are controversial.
Anyone who has symptoms of epilepsy should see a neurologist. A correct diagnosis and treatment may help to control unusual brain activity and prevent seizures.
Epilepsy treatment and autism
Doctors prescribe different treatments for epilepsy and autism, but if there is a link this could have implications for future treatment options.
Scientists have also looked into whether treating epilepsy in children with autism could benefit both epilepsy and autism.
However, it remains unclear whether drugs for treating epilepsy would benefit people with autism who do not have epilepsy but whose EEG shows epilepsy-type activity.
According to the authors of the above-mentioned review, there is a need for more quality research into whether epilepsy drugs could have any overall benefit for people with autism.
Clinical trials would also need to show that such a treatment is safe and effective before doctors can prescribe it.
When a child with autism and epilepsy receives treatment for epilepsy, scientists say this does not appear to affect the diagnosis of autism. Some, however, have seen improvements in cognition, communication, and behavior when receiving this treatment.
A final word
Scientists agree that epilepsy and autism often occur together, but why and how that happens remains unclear.
In the future, a better understanding of both conditions and any possible link may lead to more effective diagnosis and treatment.With audiences seeing a new version of the original Power Rangers on the big screen this past month, it’s time to take a look back at all of the Power Rangers who came before them. Before Becky G played Trini Kwan, 19 different Yellow Rangers were brought to life on the small screen for the 24 seasons of the Power Rangers franchise.
What makes a good Yellow Ranger? Is it fighting skills, loyalty to their friends, a take charge attitude, or some combination of the three? (Hint: it's the latter option.) Beginning with the previous version of Trini in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and going all the way up to the most recent series, Power Rangers Ninja Steel, we’re ranking all 19 of the Yellow Rangers that are part of the continuity in the television series. Since Becky G’s portrayal rewrites the original Trini, she won’t be on the list, but if she was, she’d definitely deserve a top spot, as she was a standout amongst the new cast.
See where your favorites wind up in the list of Every Yellow Ranger, Ranked Worst to Best.
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19 Calvin Maxwell (Ninja Steel)
Confident in his mechanical abilities, Calvin (Nico Greetham) is introduced as the love interest of one of the other Power Rangers before he actually becomes the Yellow Ranger. He knows exactly what he’s doing when it comes to cars, but maybe not so much when it comes to his Ranger duties, but that’s okay, because he’s brand new.
Calvin is the first male Yellow Ranger in more than 10 years. The series usually elect to put a female character in the Yellow costume, so he’s one of only four men to take on the role of a Yellow Ranger. With Power Rangers Ninja Steel only having eight episodes broadcast for audiences so far, we haven’t had the chance to get to know Calvin very well yet. He might turn out to be one of the best Yellow Rangers of all time, but for the time being, he’s still a novice. We’ll have to wait and see.
18 Tideus (Alien Rangers)
The very first male Yellow Ranger for U.S. audiences, despite most of the Super Sentai in the various Japanese series being male, Tideus (Jim Gray) made his debut when the Power Rangers needed a little help from a surprising source. Zordon called on the Rangers of the planet Aquitar to come and bail the Mighty Morphin team out of trouble. While the Power Rangers the audience already knew couldn’t use their powers, the writers expanded the world to indicate that similar teams with abilities existed elsewhere in the universe, enriching the mythology of the franchise.
Physically speaking, Tideus was the strongest of his team, but that didn’t stop him from having the same anatomical liabilities that the Aquitians had -- a need for water. The entire team had a difficult time withstanding a fight that wasn’t on their home planet because they needed fresh water to energize them in extremely large quantities. While this led to a lot of Power Rangers episodes that featured the beach and lakes, it ultimately meant that Tideus and his team had an easy weakness to exploit. Plus, let's face it, that whole team was way too dorky looking to be taken seriously.
17 Ashley Hammond (Turbo/In Space)
Though Ashley (Tracy Lynn Cruz) proved herself in Power Rangers Turbo before she was actually given abilities, it was after becoming a Ranger that things went a little downhill for her. |
422 Colrain 1 of 1 200 544 Dalton 2 of 2 1,009 2,025 Greenfield 9 of 9 1,916 5,513 Hawley 1 of 1 46 132 Heath 1 of 1 109 235 Hinsdale 1 of 1 243 630 Leyden 1 of 1 103 309 Monroe 1 of 1 17 29 Northfield 1 of 1 427 995 Peru 1 of 1 74 310 Pittsfield 1 of 1 0 0 Rowe 1 of 1 51 140 Savoy 1 of 1 90 212 Windsor 1 of 1 144 292 Total 25 of 25 4,845 12,521 Updated 10:54 AM 1ST ESSEX & MIDDLESEX STATE SENATE City or town Precincts
reporting No Yes Boxford 3 of 3 1,844 2,751 Essex 1 of 1 519 1,173 Georgetown 3 of 3 1,411 2,916 Gloucester 10 of 10 4,431 8,778 Groveland 2 of 2 1,418 2,051 Hamilton 3 of 3 1,582 2,468 Ipswich 4 of 4 2,534 3,854 Manchester 1 of 1 1,053 2,063 Middleton 2 of 2 1,657 2,375 Newbury 2 of 2 1,412 2,708 North Andover 4 of 4 2,732 3,817 North Reading 4 of 4 3,134 4,329 Rockport 3 of 3 1,271 2,723 Rowley 1 of 1 753 2,356 Wenham 1 of 1 851 1,298 West Newbury 1 of 1 790 1,626 Wilmington 6 of 6 4,472 6,085 Total 51 of 51 31,864 53,371 Updated 10:54 AM 2ND MIDDLESEX STATE SENATE City or town Precincts
reporting No Yes Cambridge 9 of 9 3,089 9,993 Medford 16 of 16 7,134 15,695 Somerville 0 of 21 0 0 Winchester 4 of 4 2,057 3,532 Total 29 of 50 12,280 29,220 Updated 10:54 AM MIDDLESEX & SUFFOLK STATE SENATE City or town Precincts
reporting No Yes Boston 14 of 14 3,303 9,299 Cambridge 18 of 18 4,205 15,951 Chelsea 16 of 16 2,323 4,191 Everett 12 of 12 4,170 6,116 Total 60 of 60 14,001 35,557 Updated 10:54 AM Summary: Should the state representative from this district be instructed to vote for a resolution calling on Congress to repeal the federal prohibition of marijuana, so that states may regulate it as they choose? 8TH ESSEX STATE HOUSE City or town Precincts
reporting No Yes Lynn 0 of 2 0 0 Marblehead 6 of 6 3,581 7,128 Swampscott 6 of 6 2,321 4,500 Total 12 of 14 5,902 11,628 Updated 10:54 AM 22ND MIDDLESEX STATE HOUSE City or town Precincts
reporting No Yes Billerica 11 of 11 7,726 8,920 Total 11 of 11 7,726 8,920
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It was announced on RAW that Roman Reigns will face Kevin Owens next week. If Reigns wins, he is added to the match at Clash of Champions for the WWE Universal Championship. It seems like Reigns and Owens have already started the trash talking on their social media accounts.
Reigns started it off with a tweet:
Around the world in 5 days!. Then I’m going to kick @FightOwensFight ass! Ahhhh yessir!! — Roman Reigns (@WWERomanReigns) September 6, 2016
Owens responded, going after Reigns’ grammar:
Watch your language. And your punctuation…Why the period after the exclamation point? Get a grip, Roman. https://t.co/ZnqUDMROAM — Kevin Owens (@FightOwensFight) September 7, 2016
A little extra shot at Reigns’ fanbase:
This person liked their own terrible tweet. I think that sums up Roman’s fanbase perfectly. pic.twitter.com/J15mT1XmS4 — Kevin Owens (@FightOwensFight) September 7, 2016
[irp posts=”15555″ name=”What Happened After The September 5th RAW Went Off-Air (Video)”]
Owens also had some fun at the expense of a Reigns fan after this tweet:
Yo @FightOwensFight You Can’t @WWERomanReigns He Will Superman Punch You and SPEAR On you @FightOwensFight — John G Arana (@juangarana) September 7, 2016
Can always count on KO for some entertaining Tweets!Add another front to the Minnesota Republican Party's evolving campaign finance troubles.
Not only is it facing an investigation by the state Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board in St. Paul, but on Wednesday a watchdog group in Washington asked federal election officials to investigate the party's troubled bookkeeping under former state Chairman Tony Sutton.
The complaint filed by the Democratic-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) alleges that the GOP under Sutton deliberately hid the extent of its debt from investigators with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The group filed a federal complaint against the state party in 2007, which led to a $170,000 fine last summer and a settlement agreement. That agreement required the party to stop violating campaign finance laws and to fully disclose its debt. CREW alleges the financial troubles that surfaced last month after Sutton resigned shows that abuses continued.
"The Republican Party of Minnesota's FEC reports haven't reflected the party's actual financial condition for nearly a decade and make a mockery of the public's right to know," said the group's executive director, Melanie Sloan. "There appears to be ample evidence Mr. Sutton repeatedly lied to FEC investigators for years to achieve the party's political goals."
GOP officials have acknowledged that the party has financial problems and that some of the information they've uncovered since they began reviewing the books last month is "ugly." That process has found $2 million in debt, including $415,000 that had not previously been reported. Newly elected party Chairman Pat Shortridge said party leaders immediately reported the issues to election officials when they discovered the unreported debt.
"Following on that disclosure, we contacted the Federal Election Commission to self-report that debt and seek guidance on how we should proceed," he said in a statement issued Wednesday. "We are in the process of following those recommendations."
The complaint is the second filed against the party by an outside group within days: Last week, Common Cause Minnesota alleged widespread campaign finance violations against the party over its activities in the 2010 state elections and gubernatorial recount. The group asked the state Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board to audit the party's finances and received word this week the board will investigate.
Sutton maintains he did nothing wrong and accused Common Cause of being a liberal group seeking political advantage.
Staff writer Baird Helgeson contributed to this report. Brad Schrade • 612-673-4777In a unanimous ruling released Thursday, the California Supreme Court overturned the 1997 conviction of Bill Richards for the murder of his wife, Pamela, finding that false forensic testimony had impacted the outcome of his trial. “Needless to say, we are thrilled,” said Richards’s attorney Jan Stiglitz, a founder of the California Innocence Project, which has represented Richards for the last 15 years. “It’s been a long time coming.”
Richards’s controversial conviction for Pamela’s grisly 1993 murder has long been considered a clear case of wrongful conviction that was based on the discredited science of bite-mark analysis. Indeed, it took the state four attempts to convict Richards — two full trials ended in a hung jury and a third ended in a mistrial during jury selection — and prosecutors were successful only after putting on the stand a legendary forensic dentist who testified that Richards’s highly unique lower dentition was a match for a bite mark found on Pamela’s hand. The dentist, Norman “Skip” Sperber, told the jury that based on his 40-plus years in the field, he could say that out of 100 people, only “one or two or less” would have the same “unique feature” in their lower teeth.
In fact, however, Sperber was wrong. In 2008 he recanted his testimony, saying that he had cited statistics that lacked scientific support and never should have done so, “because it’s inappropriate to cite percentages or things resembling percentages unless there has been some prior scientific study” to back up the assertion. Based on Sperber’s recantation (and that of another dentist, Greg Golden, who testified for the defense, along with additional testimony about new DNA evidence that matched an unknown male), a district judge in 2009 said that the evidence now before the court pointed “unerringly” to Richards’s innocence.
The state appealed that decision and in 2012 the California Supreme Court agreed, knocking down the trial court’s ruling. The decision, which split the justices 4-3 in favor of upholding Richards’s conviction, was tortured: In a decision that was derided as the worst of the year by California Lawyer magazine, the court ruled that expert testimony was merely opinion and therefore could never be considered true or false.
In response, California lawmakers amended the state’s penal code with a measure known as the Bill Richards Bill. That law, which allowed Richards to again appeal his case, made clear that a conviction could be overturned based on an expert recantation or when the science underlying the original testimony had changed.
This time around, the entire court agreed that Sperber’s testimony was false, the bite-mark evidence was material to the case, and there was a reasonable probability that the evidence had impacted the outcome of Richards’s trial. The court noted that aside from the alleged bite mark, there was only circumstantial evidence to suggest Richards had killed his wife — and in its analysis the court seems to have concluded that none of it was particularly persuasive.
It was clear that Pamela had struggled violently with her attacker, for example, but Richards showed no sign of being injured on the night his wife was murdered. The court found that “unusual.” Investigators found no foreign footprints at the murder scene, but that was “not remarkable,” given the desert landscape of the couple’s rural San Bernardino County property. Police said they were immediately suspicious of Richards in part because he was able to identify for them a concrete block and a paving stone that were used to bludgeon his wife — but that too wasn’t exactly persuasive of guilt, since the bloody items were found near her body. “Accordingly, with the exception of the bite-mark evidence, the defense had a substantial response to much of the prosecution’s evidence against [Richards],” the court concluded. “Under these unique circumstances, it is reasonably probable that the false evidence presented by Dr. Sperber at petitioner’s 1997 jury trial affected the outcome of that proceeding.”
The ruling is not only a victory for Richards — though the state could still decide to retry him — but it is also a victory for lawyers who work to exonerate the wrongly convicted. The Richards case was the first test of California’s junk-science statute, which is only the second such law in the country (Texas’s came first). The court’s plain interpretation bodes well for the future of such laws, and for the wrongfully convicted, who face a particularly brutal legal climate in California.
Generally, in order to obtain relief, a wrongfully convicted inmate in California must present a state court with new evidence that “points unerringly to innocence” — an almost impossibly high standard. Not even DNA evidence from some unknown person collected from the murder weapons and from Pamela’s fingernails was enough to vacate Richards’s conviction. The new junk-science statute “makes for an easier path in any situation where the conviction was based on discredited science,” Stiglitz said in a brief interview shortly after the court’s ruling was released.
Experts say that Richards’s case is a prime example of the dangers of allowing junk science into evidence in the first place. Richards’s “wrongful conviction was preventable,” wrote Chris Fabricant, director of strategic litigation for the Innocence Project, in an email to The Intercept. “The bite-mark evidence should never have been introduced in the first instance.” Nationally, he said, Richards is the third bite-mark conviction overturned in the last eight months, “and demonstrates, once again, that any conviction resting on bite-mark evidence is inherently unreliable.”
Michael Bowers, a Ventura, California, lawyer and forensic dentist — and longtime critic of bite-mark evidence — noted that Richards’s case “emphasizes the dangers invalidated forensic examiners and bite-mark opinions create for innocent criminal defendants.” And he suspects that, in part, the case will serve as a potent example of why the “use of inadequately researched methods like bite marks” should cease in criminal prosecutions.
The California Supreme Court’s ruling kicks the case back to San Bernardino District Attorney Michael Ramos, who will now have 60 days to decide whether his office will seek to try Richards for the fifth time. A spokesperson for the office did not immediately reply to an email from The Intercept seeking comment. For now, Richards will be released from state prison and moved to the custody of local law enforcement in San Bernardino County pending the DA’s decision.
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2/28/2009 03:06:00 PM posted by Razib
GNXP Survey Results GNXP Survey Results
There are nearly 500 complete responses to the survey from last week. Here's a only read ScienceBlogs GNXP are way more liberal than those who do not.
Reads.... Only GNXP ScienceBlogs Only GNXP Classic Both No Answer 1.83 2.08 2.87 Far Left 13.76 4.17 2.87 Left 28.44 5.56 11.48 Center Left 16.51 10.42 15.31 Center 8.26 6.94 11.00 Center Right 2.75 10.42 11.00 Right 1.83 13.19 10.05 Far Right 0.92 9.03 5.74 Libertarian 20.18 31.94 19.62 Other 5.50 6.25 10.05
Full results below the fold.
Which weblogs do you read? Answer Count Percentage No answer 26 5.25% GNXP Scienceblogs 109 22.02% GNXP Classic 147 29.70% Both 213 43.03% How long have you been reading this/these weblogs(s)? Answer Count Percentage No answer 16 3.23% Less than 1 month 12 2.42% 1-6 months 62 12.53% 6-12 months 83 16.77% 1-2 years 150 30.30% 3-4 years 107 21.62% 5+ years 65 13.13% Sex Answer Count Percentage No answer 8 1.62% Male 434 87.68% Female 53 10.71% What are your politics? Answer Count Percentage No answer 18 3.64% Far Left 28 5.66% Left 66 13.33% Left of Center 68 13.74% Center 44 8.89% Right of Center 46 9.29% Right 46 9.29% Far Right 26 5.25% Libertarian 114 23.03% Other 39 7.88% Confidence in Existence of God Answer Count Percentage No answer 18 3.64% Does Not Exist 209 42.22% Skeptical of Existence 116 23.43% Doubtful of Existence 28 5.66% Believe Existence Possible 47 9.49% Believe Existence Probable 24 4.85% Know God Exists 30 6.06% No Opinion 23 4.65% Religious Orientation Answer Count Percentage No answer 12 2.42% Not Religious 332 67.07% Christian 93 18.79% Jewish 18 3.64% Muslim 9 1.82% Hindu 9 1.82% Buddhist 4 0.81% Other Beliefs 18 3.64% Where Do You Live? Answer Count Percentage No answer 8 1.62% USA & Canada 354 71.52% Latin America 6 1.21% Caribbean 0 0 Oceania (Australia, NZ + Pacific) 17 3.43% Southeast Asia (i.e., ASEAN) 2 0.40% East Asia 12 2.42% South Asia 2 0.40% Middle East + North Africa 3 0.61% Sub-Saharan Africa 1 0.20% Western Europe 84 16.97% Eastern Europe 5 1.01% Russia + CIS 1 0.20% Racial Identity Answer Count Percentage No answer 12 2.42% White/European 413 83.43% Black/African 3 0.61% East Asian 14 2.83% South Asian 28 5.66% Middle Eastern/North African 2 0.40% Southeast Asian 4 0.81% Mixed (Mestizo, multiracial, etc.) 19 3.84% Amerindian 0 0 Highest Educational Level Attained Answer Count Percentage No answer 11 2.22% Less Than Secondary 5 1.01% Secondary 12 2.42% Some Post-Secondary 43 8.69% University 187 37.78% Graduate 237 47.88% Socioeconomic Status Answer Count Percentage No answer 20 4.04% Lower Class 20 4.04% Lower Middle Class 69 13.94% Middle Class 214 43.23% Upper Middle Class 158 31.92% Upper Class 14 2.83% Age Answer Count Percentage No answer 6 1.21% Younger than 18 4 0.81% 18-25 99 20.00% 26-35 155 31.31% 36-45 90 18.18% 46-65 124 25.05% 65+ 17 3.43% Highest Level of Math Completed Answer Count Percentage No answer 27 5.45% Pre-Algebra 4 0.81% Algebra 9 1.82% Geometry 11 2.22% Algebra II 26 5.25% Pre-Calculus 36 7.27% Calculus 103 20.81% Differential Equations 49 9.90% Linear Algebra 46 9.29% Multivariable Calculus 56 11.31% Higher than Multivariable Calculus 83 16.77% Have Math Degree 45 9.09% Opinions On The Singularity Answer Count Percentage No answer 141 28.48% Will Happen 32 6.46% Might Happen 169 34.14% Unlikely 131 26.46% Impossible 22 4.44% How Many Children Do You Have? Answer Count Percentage No answer 7 1.41% 0 316 63.84% 1 61 12.32% 2 65 13.13% 3 32 6.46% 4 9 1.82% 5 3 0.61% 6 1 0.20% 7 0 0 8 0 0 9 0 0 10 0 0 Lots 1 0.20% How Did You Find This Weblog? Answer Count Percentage No answer 42 8.48% Google 58 11.72% Other Search Engine 1 0.20% Instapundit 9 1.82% Steve Sailer 83 16.77% Scienceblogs 82 16.57% Andrew Sullivan 7 1.41% Message Board 6 1.21% Word Of Mouth 19 3.84% Email 0 0 Blogroll 20 4.04% Pointer From Another Weblog 141 28.48% Other 27 5.45%
There are nearly 500 complete responses to the survey from last week. Here's a CSV file of the results. Below the fold are the frequencies as well as N's. I might report some trends in the data, but a lot of it is predictable. People whoread ScienceBlogs GNXP aremore liberal than those who do not.Full results below the fold. Haloscan CommentsMonday was quite the night for the Panthers.
Not only did Florida set the franchise mark with its 99th point this season, but also the Panthers came one step closer to the Atlantic Division title with a hard-fought 4-3 win over the Maple Leafs at Air Canada Centre.
With Tampa Bay losing in Brooklyn to the Islanders, Florida leads the Lightning by four points. Both teams have three games remaining.
If the Panthers take the division, they would get home-ice advantage in the first two rounds of the playoffs and open against the top wild card team next week. Metropolitan champ Washington opens with the final playoff qualifier.
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By winning Monday, the Panthers can finish no lower than second in the division.
“It’s a tap on the back, but we’ll move on to the next one,” said defenseman Brian Campbell, who tied the franchise record for consecutive games played as Monday was his 373rd since joining Florida in 2011.
“It’s a big outing for us to keep going, keep climbing and see where we can take this ride.”
After a coma-inducing opening period, the Panthers came out flying in a three-goal second that helped avenge last Tuesday’s loss to the Leafs in Sunrise.
Florida opened the scoring early when Nick Bjugstad followed up his own shot by jamming the puck past Jonathan Bernier.
Rocco Grimaldi, recalled by the Panthers last month when Vincent Trocheck got hurt, then scored twice in less than three minutes to give the Panthers a 3-0 lead.
“It is a good feeling,” said Grimaldi, who scored his first of the season back in November and got the “Spacey In Space” sweatshirt for the first time.
“Toronto was coming with some jump, and I’m definitely not happy with the way I finished. We have to play better in playoffs. I’m glad we got the two points but we have to do better.... [Goalie] Al Montoya definitely battled but we have to be better for him.”
Although the Leafs fought back in the third by scoring three times, the Panthers and Montoya (22 saves) ultimately held them off.
After Toronto scored to make it a 3-2 midway through the period, Sasha Barkov scored just 36 seconds later to give the Panthers a two-goal lead.
On Saturday, Florida battled back from a 3-0 deficit against Montreal but didn’t let Toronto return that favor.
“This is fun to be a part of,” Bjugstad said after saying Florida needs to tighten things up after its third period almost turned into disaster.
“This is a good group of guys and it has been a really fun year. We’re at Step One and we need to keep moving on. We cannot be satisfied.”
▪ Campbell, who hasn’t missed a game with the Panthers, tied Olli Jokinen (2000-08) for the franchise “Iron Man” mark in his 999th NHL game.
Campbell will pass Jokinen in his milestone 1,000th game Tuesday in Montreal.
“A thousand games is nice,” Campbell said. “I wasn’t given anything when I came in. It took me a while to get established, so it means a ton to me.”
▪ For the first time in months, Willie Mitchell traveled with the team and took part in Monday morning’s skate in Toronto. Gallant said nothing has changed with Mitchell’s status and the decision whether to return to the team remains up to him.
Mitchell has sustained a number of concussions in the latter part of his career, including one believed to be in January. Florida doctors have warned Mitchell —the Panthers’ captain the past two seasons — that returning and risking another hit to his head could be dangerous to his future well-being.
“He’s skating, working hard and feeling good,” Gallant said. “He’s going to make his own decision; I’m not saying anything. He’s still a team leader, still around the players a lot. We always talk about our veteran group being good for our young players and he’s a big part of that.”
▪ The Panthers didn’t have any wild celebrations when they learned they had clinched a playoff spot upon landing in Toronto on Sunday afternoon.
Bjugstad said everyone seemed to turn on their phones at the same time to check out how the Bruins-Blackhawks game. A Boston loss meant a spot in the postseason. Chicago won 6-4.
“We don’t have Internet on the plane so we all found out right when we landed,” Bjugstad said. “It was pretty cool. The boys were definitely excited. We weren’t spraying any Champagne, though, just because we clinched a spot in the playoffs. This is just a step for us. We’re excited, but not too excited.”If you've wandered the freezer aisle of your supermarket at all this year, there's a good chance you've noticed a few pints you've never heard of before. These brands don't advertise their names — or even their flavors — as boldly as they do their calorie counts, but they've developed quite the fan following, ushering in a trend of low-calorie, high-protein ice cream.
Now, Breyers is entering the market with its new Delights line. Like Halo Top, Enlightened, and Arctic Zero, it sells its ice cream by the pint, noting its calorie count front and center. Its vanilla bean flavor, for example, features the number 260 big and bold on the center of the pint — as in 260 calories for the entire pint.
Breyers
That's the big appeal of these low-cal ice creams; they pack as many calories into a pint of ice cream as some other brands cram into a single, 1/2-cup serving. That, and the fact that they're often packed with more protein than the typical sweet. Breyers' new line features 20 grams in every pint. Similarly, Halo Top averages about 20 to 24 grams per pint, and Enlightened has about 24-28.
Hearst Digital Media
Breyers' new line comes in four flavors: vanilla bean, chocolate, mint chip, and cookies & cream. They'll hit stores nationwide this August, though some pints have already been spotted at Stop & Shop.
As Junk Banter's Instagram post shows, this ice cream's sweetened with erythritol, a natural sugar alcohol that has 1/20th of the calories of regular sugar. (Enlightened and Halo Top also use it.) It's found naturally in fruits like watermelon and grapes, but it can be made by fermenting starches with yeast. Consuming too much of it, though — say, through a low-calorie-ice-cream-only diet, as some people have tried — could lead to diarrhea and headaches, the New York Post warns.
It falls in line with that old adage: Everything in moderation. Even (low-calorie) ice cream.
Follow Delish on Instagram, and download the Delish app today.Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina speaks during a national security forum on Tuesday in Charleston, S.C. (Charles Ommanney/The Washington Post)
It could have been a simple story of facts, exaggeration and fetal tissue. In the last Republican presidential debate, Carly Fiorina passionately challenged Hillary Clinton and President Obama to watch one of the undercover videos featuring a Planned Parenthood official talking about donating fetal tissue to researchers.
Describing the videos at last week's debate, Fiorina said, "Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain."
It was arguably her best moment of a very good debate performance, but fact-checkers pointed out quickly that none of the videos — by the Center for Medical Progress — actually showed this.
[Get caught up on what’s in the Planned Parenthood videos]
Other campaigns have climbed down from similar claims about the videos. Fiorina and her allies have done no such thing. Three days after the debate, CARLY for America — the PAC that legally has to keep its distance from Fiorina's actual campaign — put together a video that spliced the candidate's answer with different clips. The viewer, hearing about the controversy but unaware of the original videos, might think that Fiorina nailed it.
In this ad by the Carly for America super PAC, Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina fires back at the media for questioning the existence of a video showing an abortion she cited during the second Republican debate. (Editor's Note: This video contains graphic content.) (CARLY for America/YouTube)
Today, Planned Parenthood responded to the clip, faxing a takedown request to Fiorina's campaign office — not the PAC. The confusion was understandable, as CARLY for America skirted the kludgey rules around the naming of super PACs by turning the candidate's name into an acronym: Conservative, Authentic, Responsive Leadership for You. And the family-planning group's fact-check stands on its own. Planned Parenthood notes that one photo actually portrays "a Pennsylvania woman’s stillborn son, which was used without her permission and falsely passed off as an aborted fetus in an earlier video" by the Center for Medical Progress; the video of a kicking fetus comes from "the discredited Grantham Collection, an old anti-abortion archive based in Florida"; the audio splices together three different CMP stings.
"This fake video doesn’t show what you have claimed," Dawn Laguens, executive director of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, writes in the letter to Fiorina. "Simply put, the video you described at the debate does not exist, and the video you’re now asking people to watch is not what you claim it is. This fraudulent video is beneath a serious candidate for the presidency, and you should take it down immediately."
Laguens ends the letter by inviting Fiorina to "visit a Planned Parenthood health center, learn more about the full range of services it provides." Fiorina's campaign, initially confounded by why it was asked to respond to someone else's video, has declined. (CARLY for America also was thrown and directed The Washington Post back to the Fiorina campaign. The Center for Medical Progress did not reply to a request for comment.)
"Carly is a cancer survivor and doesn't need to be lectured on women's health by anyone," said Fiorina's deputy campaign manager, Sarah Isgur Flores. "Over their long and factually incorrect letter, Planned Parenthood doesn't and can't deny they are butchering babies and selling their organs. This is about the character of our nation."
Conservatives, by and large, have sided with Fiorina on that final point. Several chimed in at the Federalist, a conservative news site that previously excoriated Neil deGrasse Tyson for misrepresenting a quote from George W. Bush. Since the Republican debate, the site has published several stories arguing that "fact-checkers" were subjecting Fiorina's video claim to a ridiculous test.
"While it is obviously not the same baby as the one she harvested the brain of, the footage helps viewers to understand what a 19-week old baby looks like when hearing the testimony of an ex-employee who harvested brains from babies of the same age," argued the Federalist's Mollie Hemingway. "Illustrating stories with appropriate images is a common journalistic technique, one used by all media outlets."
Jonah Goldberg used his column in the L.A. Times (and National Review) to make a similar argument. "The exact scene, exactly as Fiorina describes it, is not on the videos," he conceded. "But anybody who has watched the videos would find Fiorina’s off-the-cuff account pretty accurate... the video Fiorina probably had in mind included eyewitness descriptions accompanied by borrowed footage of a fetus dying in a metal bowl, its leg kicking, to illustrate the witness’s recollection of seeing precisely that in another case. That sort of juxtaposition might not fly on the nightly news, but it’s the sort of dramatic device used in documentaries all the time."
Fiorina has had no trouble explaining to conservative voters that the mainstream media is simply trying to put one over on them. Last Thursday, after "Good Morning America" anchor George Stephanopoulos pointed out that no CMP video described exactly what she said it did, Fiorina said she had "seen the images" to which she had referred.
"Honestly, I went on national television the morning after the debate, and George Stephanopoulos told me I was mistaken, that the tape doesn't exist, that the images aren't real," Fiorina told the audience the next day at the Heritage Action policy summit in South Carolina. "Well, yes, they are real."An Israeli Air Force Boeing 707 demonstrates refueling of an F15 fighter jet during a graduation ceremony for new pilots in the Hatzerim air force base near the city of Beersheba, southern Israel, Thursday, Dec. 25, 2014. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
This story was originally published by 24/7 Wall St.
Worldwide military expenditure shrunk in 2013 for the second consecutive year, falling by 1.9% to $1.75 trillion. The 100 largest arms-producers sold a combined $402 billion worth of arms and military services in 2013, also down — for the third consecutive year.
However, not all countries are spending less. Military spending in North America and in Western and Central European countries has continued to decline, while other countries such as Brazil and Russia have increased their arms investments.
Despite the global drop, weapons producers generated massive profits from arms sales, and U.S. and European companies continued to dominate the top 10 global companies in terms of arms deals. Lockheed Martin was the global leader with $36 billion in arms sales in 2013, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
In fact, the top 10 companies tend to change very little. In an interview with 24/7 Wall St., Dr. Samuel Perlo-Freeman, senior researcher at the SIPRI arms and military expenditure program, explained that since the 2000s, the big North American and European defense corporations have secured their place among the top 10 arms dealers. Only the last two positions in the top 10 tend to see any major competition.
Yet, Russian companies have been growing rapidly, and if the trend continues, Perlo-Freeman said, Russian Almaz-Antey may breach the top 10 in the coming years. Further, although data on Chinese companies is currently unavailable, it is very likely several would be in the top 20 arms dealers.
U.S. companies still dominate the arms market by a large margin, with six among the top 10 arms sellers. In the top 100 arms-producing companies, 39 are based in the United States, and U.S. companies accounted for more than 58% of total arms sales among the top 100. U.S. company arms sales in the top 10 alone made up 35% of total arms sales among the top 100. By contrast, Western European companies, which make up the rest of the top 10 arms producers, accounted for just 28% of the total top 100 arms sales.
National governments, especially the U.S., are almost always the primary customers of these companies. Governments are often the only customers that can afford the extremely high costs of these products. An F-35 fighter jet purchased in 2018 from Lockheed Martin and delivered in 2020, for example, would cost roughly $100 million.
While cuts in U.S. military expenditure have created some uncertainty for U.S. arms market players, business is still very good in the country. According to Perlo-Freeman, several companies based in Europe, such as BEA and Finmeccanica, operate subsidiary holdings in the U.S. to access the U.S. market.
Even when a national government is not a customer of a domestic or international arms-producer, its leaders are involved in the transaction. “Top politicians, presidents, [and] prime ministers are very often directly involved in promoting major arms deals on behalf of their domestic industry,” Perlo-Freeman said. National leaders, who have an interest in who possesses some of the world’s most destructive instruments, often oversee the arms deals very closely. While these transactions are highly regulated, “for most countries, [politicians] are more interested in promoting the success of their industries,” Perlo-Freeman said.
To identify the 10 companies profiting most from war, 24/7 Wall St. examined the 10 companies with the most arms sales based on SIPRI’s “The SIPRI Top 100 Arms-Producing Companies, 2013.” Arms sales, including advisory, planes, vehicles, and weapons, were defined by sales to military customers as well as contracts to government militaries. We also considered the company’s 2013 total sales and profits, the total number of employees at the company, as well as nation-level military spending, all provided by SIPRI.
These are the companies profiting the most from war.
PHOTO GALLERY Companies Profiting the Most From WarFresh on a four game winning streak, the improbable Baltimore Orioles turn to rookie Steve Johnson to make it five straight. The 24-year-old righty takes the hill against the Seattle Mariners.
A 13th round pick in the 2005 MLB Draft |
is a complete rebuild of the domain," Microsoft engineer Joe Bialek wrote in a blog post accompanying Thursday's patch. "An attacker with administrative privilege on a domain controller can make a nearly unbounded number of changes to the system that can allow the attacker to persist their access long after the update has been installed. Therefore it is critical to install the update immediately."
The patch came on the same day that security research firm NSS Labs reported recently discovering reliable attacks in the wild that exploit security holes patched by MS14-064, an update released last week. The exploits use proof-of-concept code also released last week to install unspecified malware on vulnerable computers, NSS said.
While all supported versions of Windows contain the bug fixed Tuesday, server versions from 2008 R2 and earlier are the most vulnerable. The exploits observed so far work against Windows Server 2008 R2 and previous server versions. Domain controllers running on Windows Server 2012 and higher aren't susceptible to those attacks, but they are vulnerable to a related technique that is harder to carry out. Windows systems that don't run domain controllers are theoretically vulnerable. Bialek said all Windows users should install the patch as soon as possible, but the priority should be assigned in the following order: (1) domain controllers running 2008 R2 and below, (2) domain controllers running server 2012 and higher, and (3) all other systems running any supporter version of Windows.
Kerberos uses a "ticket to get tickets" and a service ticket when authenticating users. Embedded in both tickets is a privilege attribute certificate (PAC) that assigns the level of access for each individual user.
"Prior to the update it was possible for an attacker to forge a PAC that the Kerberos [domain controller] would incorrectly validate," Bialek explained. "This allows an attacker to remotely elevate their privilege against remote servers from an unprivileged authenticated user to a domain administrator."
MS14-068, as the patch is designated, was originally slated to be part of last week's Patch Tuesday. Microsoft pulled the patch without explanation. Company officials likely released the update shortly after confirming the vulnerability was being exploited in the wild.Archaeologists have discovered nearly eight million canine mummies -- from hours-old puppies to adult dogs -- in the dark, spectacular catacombs next to a temple of Anubis, the jackal-headed god of death, Live Science reports.
While animal cults are a widely recognized feature of ancient Egypt, not a whole lot is known about the nature of the catacombs and mummies associated with temples dedicated to animal gods. A new study, published in Antiquity this month, chronicles the catacombs of Anubis at North Saqqara: from their heyday during the Late Period (664 to 332 B.C.E.) to their exploitation for raw materials during modern times, where mummies may have been used as fertilizer.
The temple is in the country's ancient capital of Memphis. "When you go to Saqqara now, you see an area of attractive desert with the pyramids sticking up and one or two of the prominent monuments" associated with animal cults, Cardiff University’s Paul Nicholson tells Live Science. But during the Late Period, "it would have been a busy place... a permanent community of people living there supported by the animal cults." These would have included priests, merchants, and tour guides, as well as people breeding animals that will later be mummified as expressions of gratitude for the gods.
The canine catacombs were first documented in 1897, but it wasn’t until 2011 that Nicholson and colleagues began conducting a full excavation of its long series of dark tunnels. The center passageway stretched for 173 meters (568 feet), with the corridors branching from it reaching a width of up to 140 meters (459 feet). These catacombs were constructed from Lower Eocene stones dating back some 50 million years, and the catacombs themselves were built in the fourth century B.C.E. In fact, the ceiling even contained the 48-million-year-old fossil of an extinct marine vertebrate -- likely the relative of today’s manatees.
Many of the mummies have disintegrated over the centuries, and others were disrupted by graverobbers and quarrymen. Still, it was clear that this animal cult was a big part of the economy. Some of the older dogs that had more elaborate burials may have lived at the temple. But many of the dogs were just days, even hours, old when they were mummified: They were likely separated from their mothers and died from dehydration or starvation. "They probably weren't killed by physical action,” Nicholson says. “We don't have evidence of broken necks that you get with cat burials."
While 92% of the mummified remains belonged to dogs, the team also found jackals, foxes, falcons, cats, and mongooses. They’re not sure why these other animals were there: Maybe the dog-looking animals were interchangeable, and there might be a mythological rationale behind the cats and birds.
[Via Live Science]
Images: P.T. Nicholson et al., 2015 Antiquity (middle)Coordinates:
This photograph of the creature's carcass appeared in July 2008, quickly circulating through local papers and the Internet.
The "Montauk Monster" was an animal carcass, thought to be a raccoon,[1][2] that washed ashore on a beach near the business district of Montauk, New York in July 2008.[3][4] The identity of the creature and the veracity of stories surrounding it have been the subject of controversy and speculation. It is not known what happened to the carcass; it was said to have mysteriously disappeared.
History [ edit ]
The story began on July 23, 2008, with an article in the newspaper The Independent. Jenna Hewitt, 26, of Montauk, and three friends said that they found the creature on July 12 at the Ditch Plains beach, two miles east of the district. The beach is a popular surfing spot at Rheinstein Estate Park owned by the town of East Hampton. Jenna Hewitt was quoted:
We were looking for a place to sit when we saw some people looking at something... We didn't know what it was... We joked that maybe it was something from Plum Island.[5]
Her color photograph of the creature ran in black and white under the headline "The Hound of Bonacville," a take-off on the name Bonackers, which refers to the natives of East Hampton, and The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The light-hearted article speculated that the creature might be a turtle or some mutant experiment from the Plum Island Animal Disease Center. It then noted that Larry Penny, the East Hampton Natural Resources Director, had concluded that it was a raccoon with its upper jaw missing. There were rumors that the carcass had been taken away from the site.[6] A local newspaper quoted an anonymous resident who claimed that the animal was only the size of a cat, and that it had decomposed to a skeleton by the time of the press coverage. She would not identify its location for inspection.[7] Hewitt claimed that "a guy took it and put it in the woods in his backyard", but would not say who or where.[5] Her father denied that his daughter was keeping the body's location a secret.[7]
Hewitt and her friends were interviewed on Plum-TV, a local public-access television show.[8] Alanna Navitski, an employee of Evolutionary Media Group in Los Angeles, California, passed a photo of the creature to Anna Holmes at Jezebel, claiming that a friend's sister saw the monster in Montauk. Holmes then passed it along to Gawker Media website Gawker.com which gave it wide attention on July 29 under the headline "Dead Monster Washes Ashore in Montauk".[9]
Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman at Cryptomundo first coined the name the "Montauk Monster" on July 29, 2008.[10] The nickname was disseminated globally on the Internet in the following days. Photographs were widely circulated via email and weblogs, and the national media picked up on it raising speculation about the creature. The potential urban legend stature of the Montauk Monster was noted by Snopes.[11]
The monster has been discussed on Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. On August 4, 2011 the Montauk Monster was featured on the second episode of the third season of Ancient Aliens, titled "Aliens and Monsters".
Identifications [ edit ]
Initial media reports included speculation that the Montauk Monster might have been a turtle without its shell — although turtles' shells are fused with the spine and cannot be removed in this way[12][13] — a dog, a large rodent, or a science experiment from the nearby government animal testing facility, the Plum Island Animal Disease Center.[14]
William Wise, director of Stony Brook University's Living Marine Resources Institute, inspected the photo along with a colleague; they deemed the creature a fake, although Wise's "next-best guess" was that the creature could be a diseased dog or coyote which had "been in the sea for a while". Wise discounted the following general possibilities:[15]
Raccoon – the legs appear to be too long in proportion to the body.
Sea turtle – sea turtles do not have fur or teeth.
Rodent – rodents have two large, distinctive incisor teeth in front of their mouths.
Dog or other canine such as a coyote – the corpse is doglike, but the eye ridge and feet do not match.
Sheep or other ovine – although the face looks "somewhat ovine", sheep do not have sharp teeth.
Palaeozoologist Darren Naish studied the photograph and concluded from the corpse's visible dentition, skull shape, and front paws that the creature was a raccoon, with its odd appearance merely a byproduct of decomposition and water action removing most of the animal's hair and some of its flesh.[1] Naish disagreed with the idea that the legs were disproportionately long for a raccoon, providing an illustration of a raccoon's body superimposed over the corpse in the photograph.[1] Jeff Corwin also identified the carcass as that of a raccoon in a Fox News interview.[16]
In a 2009 episode of Monster Quest, cryptozoologist Loren Coleman examined a latex replica of the Montauk Monster's remains and similarly concluded that it was the remains of a raccoon, due to similar body structures and skull shape.[17]
See also [ edit ]Greg Koukl, a Christian apologist, made a video recently in which he said God’s existence is obvious and atheists are just trying to suppress the truth.
He compared us to people trying to hide a beach ball underwater, doing everything we can to keep it down. (He’s wrong, of course. Atheists are saying there’s no beach ball at all. We’re not fighting the truth; we believe in a very different reality altogether.)
Koukl’s comments are indicative of someone who’s never talked to an atheist before.
It gets weirder. If you are interpreting Romans 1:18-19 the same way Koukl is — saying that those who question God are wicked people trying to fight against the obvious — then that means he’s also condemning Christians who have religious doubts. But there are times when even religious people question God’s existence, like when a loved one dies unexpectedly. Are they actively “suppressing” God or are they just questioning why something bad happened?
That’s what Randal Rauser wants to know. Rauser is an evangelical Christian and seminary professor, and he says Koukl is wrong to assume these things about those who question God:
When Christians categorically deride all atheists without exception as evincing sinful rebellion in virtue of failing to affirm the proposition “God exists”, and they persist in doing so based on such grossly inadequate evidence as Greg Koukl [provides], then it seems to me they are culpable of bigotry.
… it seems to me time to promote a succinct term which can be invoked to flag anti-atheist bigotry. To that end, I propose “misoatheism”. The word derives from “misos” (Greek for “hatred”) and atheism. And it parallels another little used term: misotheism (hatred of God).
Rauser even proposes a word for this type of unfair characterization of all atheists:
I like the word, though I’m not sure Koukl’s beliefs warrant it. He’s not necessarily guilty of bigotry against atheists — it’s not like he’s treating us differently or suggesting we be treated differently. He’s just flat-out ignorant about why we don’t believe in his God. He needs to be educated because he just doesn’t know any better.
There’s more discussion about all this taking place in the comment threads of those article linked to above. Feel free to chime in there or here.
(Thanks to Jeff for the link)I’m sprawled out on the sofa, exhausted but feeling wonderfully tranquil and reassured – everything in the world seems to have a warm glow about it. I’m also ravenously hungry, and I know that anything I eat or drink will taste divine, but I'm not sure I can muster the co-ordination to walk to the kitchen and find sustenance. Instead, I might have a little nap.
In my case, the answer is ‘a’, but it could just as easily be ‘b’. Long runs and fat spliffs have long been said to bestow similar effects – and now scientists think they have discovered why.
A new study has concluded that the post-run buzz could be sparked not by endorphins, which were previously thought to cause the high, but by substances called cannabinoids. Yes, the same stuff that's found in marijuana.
By common lore, runners and stoners seem radically different to one another, almost separate species – the former all smug, healthy and active, the latter shy, wheezy and lazy. Yet they have much in common.
Members of both groups are, generally, comfortable in solitude, and willing to go through pain barriers of various kinds to achieve that warm glow, which strips away anxiety and glues you to your chair. Both toking and running also work up an appetite, and in particular a craving for carbs.
A growing number of ultra-marathon runners are now turning to pot as a training aid Chas Newkey-Burden
Dedicated caners and runners vehemently insist that their respective activity is not addictive – yet both pastimes continue to attract the suspicion that they are a ‘gateway drug’ on the path to harder stuff (higher class substances and ultra-marathons respectively).
In truth, the insistence that smoking and running are not addictive is contradicted by the anxious, self-pitying sulk that pursuers of both activities fall into if their hobby of choice is denied them by, say, a lack of supply or a niggly knee injury.
The link isn't just theoretical. A growing number of ultra-marathon runners are now turning to pot as a training aid. Cannabis can block pain, fend off nausea and lessen boredom, thus taking out three of the greatest enemies of those who take part in epic runs, which can be as long as 200 miles and are often competed over hellish terrain.
In recognition and partial acceptance of this trend, the World Anti-Doping Agency has raised the permitted level of one of cannabis’ active ingredient, THC, from previous threshold of 15 nanograms per millilitre to 150 nanograms per millilitre. Athletes are now allowed, in effect, to use the drug in training and even the night before a race, but not during the event itself, where its use would be regarded as violating the spirit of the sport.
As the worlds of potheads and runners grow ever closer, a company called 420 Games has been formed in California (where else?). Named after the dope-smokers’ slang term which signifies the time of day many like to spark up, 420 Games hopes to “show that cannabis users are not lazy, unmotivated or stoners”, hoping that “via athletic achievement we will change the stereotypes built up during the era of prohibition”.
Earlier this year, the group organised a 4.2 mile run in San Francisco, with the tag-line “everything in moderation except sweat”. As part of the post-run entertainment, reggae artist Pato Banton performed.
The stereotype that pot smokers lack ambition or competitiveness is being dented. Athlete and advocate Chris Barnicle claims to be “the world's fastest stoner”. The worlds are also colliding altruistically. The Marijuana Marathon Man runs events to raise support and awareness for medicinal marijuana treatment. With more states and countries decriminalising cannabis, all this might be a trend to watch.
Before we get carried away, we should remember that cannabis increases heart rate, can accelerate muscle fatigue and bring on cardiovascular disease and, when smoked, damage your lungs. None of this is ideal for running. Then there are the potential emotional effects: a fit of hysterical giggling or bout of swivel-eyed paranoia are unlikely to do you many favours mid-way through a 10k.
Many runners swear on a quick puff as a post-run ritual, as much for its anti-inflammatory, as psychological, effects. But for many of us, the natural high that runs gives us more than suffices in their aftermath.
This natural high is what running is all about. For us, the shedding of calories and toning of body are secondary benefits; the joy is in how good a run makes us feel, how it leaves us glowing like that family from the Ready Brek television advert.
So, fellow runners, try not look down upon those who choose to get high on the sofa rather than in the park. We’re both chasing the same compounds.Earlier tonight I was perusing the racks of Goodwill while chatting with my friend Isabel over the phone. As I found a vintage inspired fit-and-flare dress covered in pink elephants, we began discussing our respective Earlier tonight I was perusing the racks of Goodwill while chatting with my friend Isabel over the phone. As I found a vintage inspired fit-and-flare dress covered in pink elephants, we began discussing our respective dating histories
I was telling her about how weird it has always been when I first start dating someone. It is always hard to negotiate the public component. I already feel super visible because I’m a fat woman wearing neon most likely, which I’ll admit I’m kinda into. But add a dude to the equation and all of a sudden I feel like people’s eyeballs are a moon orbiting the planet on which our initial fumbling exchanges are taking place. High pressure.
It is so taboo for fat women to be sexually and romantically active. Period.
It feels like people are rooting against anything that even vaguely resembles thriving because, hey, fat women are It feels like people are rooting against anything that even vaguely resembles thriving because, hey, fat women are supposed to be examples of what happens when you don’t follow the patriarchy rules. When we step outside our prescribed role, we threaten all the things.
I feel like the I feel like the sex lives of fat ladies have been relegated to some underground sphere. Fat romance has little space in popular culture beyond the punchline. The idea of being a fat person who is happily dating in public creates really strong feelings in people.
I feel less and less shame about my body as I continue to heal from a near-lifetime of body dysmorphia, but I know that having my body in a fatphobic culture bears a steep price, and the happier I seem the more threatening I am.
I told Isabel about the time that a woman came up to me and my amazing, fat-positive then-boyfriend as we were exiting the train station in downtown San Francisco. She locked eyes with me. She was wearing a huge grin, like she was about to hand me the biggest and shiniest present I had ever seen in my life. And then she actually handed me the metaphorical equivalent of a poop sandwich: “Whatever you’re doing to keep him, you keep doing it.” Then she walked away, her head high and her chest swollen with the pride of a person who just oppressed you while thinking she was doing you a favor.
What she thought she saw was an unworthy fat lady who worked her big ass off to entrap and manage to keep a superior thin man by her side. What she didn’t know was how hard he had actually worked to become my boyfriend, even traveling about 7000 miles by plane just to be holding my hand on that very afternoon. He had wooed me from across the planet and thought I was the most beautiful girl alive. Unfortunately, interacting with him in public never stopped being an emotional challenge for me.
I thought about another time I had spent about 27 hours making sweet love to this commercial crab fisherman who was a total burly babe-man with a Prince Albert. After our night of passion, he asked if he could accompany me on my commute to work. As we sat together holding hands, a woman sitting in front of us could not stop looking back at us, checking me and him over and over, snooping for any clues that would help elucidate the details of our entanglement so she could rationalize our coupling.
I often find myself internally negotiating whether it’s even worth it to try to get to know someone by going out on dates, just knowing that I will have to navigate all the scary things that are just part of dating someone new in addition to people gawking and body checking us, tabulating my worth compared to his or vice versa, making sure we don’t threaten anybody’s worldview too much.
I have in the past opted into casual, sexual relationships because I couldn’t handle the idea of going through all that one more time. It scares me that I still have thoughts like that, but the truth is these thoughts are not my fault. These thoughts are evidence of how potent fatphobia truly is, especially in a place like San Francisco. I feel less and less shame about my body as I continue to heal from a near-lifetime of body dysmorphia, but I know that having my body in a fatphobic culture bears a steep price, and the happier I seem the more threatening I am.
Being fat, above all other things, has had the greatest impact on how, why and when I date.
I don’t know exactly how to feel about that. In many ways, I have been culturally forced to MacGyver my way into hearts and pants. I have not always loved this, but I can’t say I have always hated it either. As with most things, it’s complicated. But I do know one thing for sure: dating while fat shouldn’t be this fucken weird. Get it together, society!The following has been posted on the xen-devel and xen-users mailing lists.
Executive summary
The number of event channels available for dom0 is currently one of the biggest limitations on scaling up the number of VMs which can be created on a single system. There are two alternative implementations we could choose, one of which is ready now, the other of which is potentially technically superior, but will not be ready for the 4.3 release.
The core question we need to ask the community: How important is lifting the event channel scalability limit to 4.3? Will waiting until 4.4 cause a limit in the uptake of the Xen platform?
Read on for a deeper technical description of the issue and the various solutions.
The issue
The existing event channel implementation for PV guests is implemented as 2-level bit array. This limits the total number of event channels to word_size ^ 2, which is 1024 for 32-bit guests and 4096 for 64-bit guests.
This sounds like a lot, until you consider that in a typical system, each VM needs 4 or more event channels in domain 0. This means that for a 32-bit dom0, there is a theoretical maximum of 256 guests — and in practice it’s more like 180 or so, because of event channels required for other things. XenServer already has customers using VDI that require more VMs than this.
The dilemma
When we began the 4.3 release cycle, this was one of the items we identified as a key feature we needed to get for 4.3. Wei Liu started work on an extension of the existing implmentation, allowing 3 levels of event channels. The draft of this is ready, and just needs the last bit of polishing and bug-chasing before it can be accepted.
However, several months ago, David Vrabel came up with an alternate design which in theory was more scalable, based on queues of linked lists (which we have internally been calling “FIFO” for short). David has been working on the implementation since, and has a draft protoype; but it’s in no shape to be included in 4.3.
There are some things that are attractive about the second solution, including the flexible assignment of interrupt priorities, ease of scalability, and potentially even the FIFO nature of the interrupt delivery.
The question at hand then, is whether to take what we have in the 3-level implementation for 4.3, or wait to see how the FIFO implementation turns out (taking either it or the 3-level implementation in 4.4).
The solution in hand: 3-level event channels
The basic idea behind 3-level event channels is to extend the existing 2-level implementation to 3 levels. Going to 3 levels would give us 32k event channels for 32-bit, and 256k for 64-bit.
One of the advantages of this method is that since it is similar to the existing method, the general concepts and race conditions are fairly well understood and tested.
One of the disadvantages that this method inherits from the 2-level event channels is the lack of priority. In the initial implementation of event channels, priority was handled by event channel order: scans for events always started at 0 and went upwards. However, this was not very scalable, as lower-numbered events could easily completely lock out higher-numbered events; and frequently “lower-numbered” simply meant “created earlier”. Event channels were forced into a priority even if one was not wanted.
So the implementation was tweaked, so that scans don’t start at 0, but continue where the last event left off. This made it so that earlier events were not prioritized and removed the starvation issue, but at the cost of removing all event priorities. Certain events, like the timer event, are special-cased to be always checked, but this is rather a bit of a hack and not very scalable or flexible.
One thing that should be noted is that adding the extra level is envisoned only to be used by guests that need the extended event channel space, such as dom0 and driver domains; domUs will continue to use the 2-level version.
The solution close at hand: FIFO event channels
The FIFO solution makes event delivery a matter of adding items to a highly structured linked list. The number of event channels for the interface design has a theoretical maximum of 2^28; the current implementation is limimited at 2^17, which is over 100,000. The number is the same for both 32-bit and 64-bit kernels.
One of the key design advantages of the FIFO is the ability to assign an arbitrary priority to any event. There are 16 priorities available; one queue for each priority. Higher-priority queues are handled below lower-priority queues, but events within a queue are handled in FIFO order.
Another potential advantage is the FIFO ordering. With the current event channel implementation, one can construct scenarios where even with events of the same priority, clusters of events can lock out others based on where they are or the number of them. FIFO solves this by handling events within the same priority strictly in the order in which they were raised. It’s not clear yet, however, whether this has a measurable impact on performance.
One of the potential disadvantages of the FIFO solution is the amount of memory that it requires to be mapped into the Xen address space. The FIFO solution requires an entire word per event channel; a reasonably configured system might have up to 128 Xen-mapped pages per dom0 or domU. On the other hand, this number can be scaled at a fine-grained level, and limited by the toolstack; a typical domU would require only one page mapped in the hypervisor.
By comparison, the 3-level solution requires only two bits per event channel. Any domain using the extra level would require exactly 16 pages for 64-bit domains, and 2 pages for 32-bit domains. We would expect this to include dom0 and any driver domains, but that domUs would continue using 2-level event channels (and thus require no extra pages to be mapped).
Considerations
There are a number of additional considerations to take into account.
The first is that the hypervisor maintainers have made it clear that once 3-level event channels is accepted, FIFO will have a higher bar to clear for acceptance. That is, if we wait for the 4.4 timeframe before choosing one to accept, then FIFO will only need to be marginally preferrable to 3-level to be accepted. However, if we accept the 3-level implimentation for 4.3, then FIFO will need to demonstrate that it is significantly better for 4.3 in order to be accepted.
We are not yet aware of any companies that are blocked on this feature. Citrix XenServer clients using Citrix’s VDI solution need to be able to run more than 200 guests; however, because XenServer control both the kernel and hypervisor side, they can introduce temporary, non-backwards or forwards-compatible changes to work around the limitation, and so are not blocked. Oracle and SuSE have not indicated that this a feature they are in dire need of. Most cloud deployments that we know of — even extremely large ones like Amazon or Rackspace — use large numbers of relatively inexpensive computers, and so typically do not need to run more than 200 VMs per physical host.
Another factor to consider is that we are considering attempting a shorter release cadence for 4.4 — 6 months or possibly less. That means that the impact of delaying the event channel scalability feature will be reduced.
What we need to know
What we’re missing in order to make an informed decision is voices from the community: If we delay the event channel scalability feature until 4.4, how likely is this to be an issue? Are there current users or potential users of Xen who need to be able to scale past 200 VMs on a single host, and who would end up choosing another hypervisor if this feature were delayed?
Please respond with any feedback on the xen-devel or xen-users mailing list.
Thank you for your time and input.
-George Dunlap,
4.3 Release managerOne in five people aged between 31 and 44 who do not have children has been forced to delay starting a family due to a lack of affordable housing, a study said today.
More than one in four (26pc) of those who have put starting a brood on hold also say that they have been doing so for five years or more, charity Shelter found.
It estimated that more than a million people in this age group could be delaying starting a family if the figures were projected across Britain.
This could equate to a 63pc rise in people putting off having children because of housing costs compared with a similar study carried out in October 2009, the study said.
Shelter said the Government must take radical action to stop an entire generation being held back by a “desperate shortage” of affordable homes.
The charity said that with one in three first-time buyers now aged over 35, the large deposits often demanded by lenders are stopping growing numbers of people from buying a home.
Lenders have been tightening their borrowing criteria in recent months amid the weak economy, resulting in a drop in the proportion of approvals, while the range of mortgages available to first-time buyers and people with deposits of 10pc or less has shrunk back significantly over the last six months.
A report from Lloyds TSB last week found that people trying to take their second step on the housing ladder, who are often those trying to trade up because they want to start having children, are facing some of the toughest market conditions seen in a generation.
Many would-be second-time buyers are stuck in negative equity because they bought their first home at the top of the market.
However, for those who do manage to meet lenders’ stricter criteria and raise a deposit, a separate study from Halifax found yesterday that typical mortgage payments for a new borrower, including first-time buyers and home movers, are at their most affordable in 15 years.
Rents have soared over the last year as would-be home buyers have remained trapped in the rental sector.
Kay Boycott, director of communications, policy and campaigns at Shelter, said: “It’s heartbreaking that so many people are being forced to put their lives on hold in this way.
“Sadly, more and more couples are finding that despite working hard and saving hard, they’re still priced out of a stable and affordable home, trapped in rented housing where landlords can evict them or raise the rent at any time.
“We know that many simply don’t think this is a suitable place to raise a family.”
Netmums founder Sally Russell said a family home was one of the most basic requirements for raising children, but many people are finding this increasingly unattainable.
She said: “The latest news from Shelter that the number of 31 to 44-year-olds who are delaying starting a family has leapt by two thirds is simply shocking.
“Sadly for a number of these, leaving it too late may mean they may never able to have children. For others, it could mean both parents forced to work full time when their baby is tiny just to keep a roof over their heads.”
More than 5,000 people took part in the research this month across Britain.Bill Clinton is getting nervous.
With polls showing Bernie Sanders ahead in New Hampshire and barely behind, if at all, in Iowa, the former president is urging his wife to start looking toward the delegate-rich March primaries — a shift for an organizing strategy that’s been laser-focused on the early states.
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Bill Clinton, according to a source with firsthand knowledge of the situation, has been phoning campaign manager Robby Mook almost daily to express concerns about the campaign’s organization in the March voting states, which includes delegate bonanzas in Florida, Illinois, Ohio and Texas.
Many Clinton allies share the president’s desire for more organization on the ground; they see enthusiasm that’s ready to be channeled, but no channel yet in place. “Iowa matters a ton, but it seems to be the campaign’s only focus," said one person close to the campaign's operations in a March state — one of nearly a dozen Clinton allies with whom POLITICO spoke for this article. "It’s going to be a long primary, and the campaign seems less prepared for it than they were in 2008.”
Bill Clinton’s involvement has been growing as he campaigns and raises money for his wife in March states like Ohio and Illinois, in addition to his public events in Iowa and New Hampshire. Wherever he goes, he shows his famous penchant for sponging up granular nuggets about local politics, people who have spoken with him say.
“The president was in town, and I had a nice conversation with him by phone,” said Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest supporters in the state. “He gathers as much information as he can and shares it with other key players in the campaign.”
Ryan said Clinton wanted “to know a little bit about everything” during his two most recent visits to Ohio, including details about the state of his wife’s organization in the crucial state, which sends 93 delegates to the Democratic convention in July, awarded proportionally.
Ohio doesn’t vote until March 15 and has not yet become a priority for the campaign, which in recent months has begun to bring staffers into the 11 states that vote on so-called Super Tuesday, which is March 1. And while Ryan speaks enthusiastically about the grass-roots support and network of Clinton volunteers eager to pick up where they left off eight years ago, some of what he had to report to Bill Clinton may have only increased the former president’s agita.
The campaign's organization in Ohio is, so far, nonexistent — there are no campaign offices or staffers on the ground yet — and the Democratic front-runner needs all the support from big statewide African-American leadership that she can get, a local source said. Eight years ago, she had the backing of political powerhouse Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a close friend who served as the campaign's national co-chairman and was the first African-American woman from Ohio to be elected to Congress. She died in 2008. This time, she has Rep. Marcia Fudge behind her. But at least one African-American who once backed Clinton, Ohio state senator and minority whip Nina Turner, has shifted to the Sanders camp.
“They don’t have a whole lot here,” Ryan acknowledged. “We have people calling my campaign office because they don’t know who else to call. We just track it, and when the time is right, we’ll activate those people.” (Bernie Sanders’ campaign — which says it has hired 90 staffers in Super Tuesday states so far — is currently interviewing staffers for Ohio and said it plans to have them in place in the next 10 days.)
But Ryan said supporters have been active on their own. "Some of it is self-organized," he said. "We've done a bunch of meetings with Hillary supporters across the state. It's about time to start thinking about it, but I don't think earlier than this would have been useful. They're really trying to strike the right balance."
As a tightening race against a well-funded opponent threatens to drag on into spring, Bill Clinton’s increased interest in the ground operations of the campaign is emblematic of his widening role in the absence of a dominant chief strategist. And it marks a shift from the first eight months of the campaign, when he largely stayed away from the daily operations of his wife’s White House bid and kept up a heavy travel schedule related to the Clinton Foundation.
Longtime Clinton aides aren’t exactly surprised at the change. In 2008, Bill Clinton became so involved in his wife’s campaign after her stinging third-place finish in Iowa that he started showing up for work regularly at the campaign's headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. There, he would conduct conference calls with state directors, veterans of that campaign recalled, and became obsessed with the state of her organizations in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. “He felt in 2008 that we didn’t have a ground operation in the early states,” recalled one 2008 veteran.
This time, the dynamics of the race are flipped. Mook’s mantra, since the April launch, has been to build a strategy around the first four nominating states — it’s part of his overarching philosophy of taking nothing for granted and always running from behind.
And if there is a sense among Clinton allies that there is too little going on in the states that vote deeper into the calendar, it is partly because that’s the way the campaign wanted it to appear. Clinton operatives have studiously avoided making what |
question, Macs outnumbered PCs 2-to-1).
I was sitting, tapping away on my laptop, secretly glad that the wireless wasn't working because maybe I'd actually get some work done without the distraction of the Internet, and rocking out a little to my favorite playlist, when I noticed that the trendy guys at the table behind me had a view of my iTunes window. In its lower left hand corner was the album artwork for the song I was listening to at that moment, by one of my favorite country singers, Carrie Underwood.
They looked at me. I looked at them. They looked at Carrie. They looked at each other, disgust written on their faces. Then they held up a cross and a clove of garlic, and threw Holy Water on me. Okay, not quite.
But they did look truly mortified that they were being forced to share a space with me and Ms. Underwood, and as I turned back to my computer, the looks on their faces betrayed the kind of disdain, mingled with pity, that made me remember why I usually keep my penchant for country music to myself: people here are music snobs.
I don't say this to trash my adopted home of the last three years, and I certainly don't mean to insist that everyone love Tim McGraw the way I do. But I did notice, upon arriving at college and doing some old-fashioned Facebook stalking, that a lot of people seemed to describe their music tastes as "anything but country." In my freshman year, I happened to make friends with some of the few country fans on campus, and they introduced me to their much-reviled collections of twang. I started as a social listener, but before I knew it, I had a playlist-a-day country habit. I kept my addiction to myself, because on the East Coast of the U.S., country music is about as popular and desirable as an STD. Don't believe me? Let me tell you about my friend Maria.
Maria, a molecular biology major, did her thesis research on the herpes virus. When she used to reveal this to people, Maria told me, their attempts to hide their disgust for the topic made Jessica Simpson look like an Oscar winner, and the ensuing discussions always seemed to be an attempt for them to reassure themselves that Maria's interest in herpes was purely scientific, and she hadn't actually had to experience the virus to be able to study it. I like country enough to have spent this whole year studying it for my junior thesis. When I told people about my research topic, their reactions were much the same as the ones Maria experienced: "So, uh, do you actually have to, like, listen to it, and stuff?" This was usually accompanied by shuddering and grimacing.
Yes, I had to, like, listen to it. So, there's my confession—no, not confession, a loud, proud, proclamation: I like country music. I like twang and Southern accents and ridiculous, self pitying narrative songs about heartbroken husbands and cheating wives. I like funny song titles like "Jesus Loves You, I Don't" and "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off" and I love a man in a Stetson hat. But I realize that my music taste places me in a cultural minority in the Northeast, and especially here in New York City, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at the reactions of those guys at the table behind me.
I left 'Snice feeling dejected. Was there no one in this town who shared my love for Sugarland and Keith Urban? Was I really alone in thinking that despite being a native East-Coaster, Bon Jovi has never been sexier than during his recent foray into country?
Having recently discovered that one of the city's best vintage stores, Cherry, was only a few blocks from my house, I stopped in on my way home, and found the comfort I had been seeking. Waiting for me at the top of a stack of old t-shirts, as though the country gods had heard my plea, was a 1975 Hank Williams Jr. tour shirt, with "Bocephus" emblazoned across the front. I sighed in delight and asked the salesgirl how she expected to sell a shirt like this in New York City. "Oh I know," she replied, "people aren't really country fans around here, but we'll find someone who'll want it." She was right: I took it off the pile and tried it on.
Unfortunately, while it catered to my music preferences, the shirt didn't do the same for my budget, and I was struck by the irony of a very old t-shirt, made for fans of a genre that espouses living simply and without pretension, being sold some 20 years later in a New York City boutique at five times its original price. While I was trying it on, the salesgirl told me that she and her boss, who was from the South, were both country fans, and we talked for a while about our favorite artists. We talked about the Dixie Chicks and Tennessee, and what it is that makes country a genre unlike any other, and while I didn't buy the Hank Williams Jr. t-shirt, I did walk out knowing that I had found one place in Manhattan where my music choices were not reviled, but embraced.
I might be a private school girl from the suburbs of Sydney, and I might be living in the "anything but country" capital of America, but I left that store with my head held high. Then I turned up my iPod as loud as it would go, and walked defiantly home, “Redneck Woman” blaring all the way.Music charting authority Billboard has released its “Top Money-Makers List” for 2015. The list is a ranking of the highest paid artists in the music industry. Topping the list is pop sensation Taylor Swift, who made a whopping $73.5 million in total revenue last year.
Though sparsely, hip-hop is represented on the list. In fact, there are only three rappers made the cut. The top earner in hip-hop was none other than Roc Nation realist J. Cole, at #27 with $8.8 million in 2015 revenue. He made $1.5 million in sales, $788,000 through streaming, $1.1 million in publishing and $5.5 million off of touring. Cole was one of eight artists on the list to garner a billion streams in the year. He was also one of eight to generate more than a million dollars in publishing revenue.
The other rapper on the list was Canadian standout Drake, at #32. He made $7.4 million in 2015 revenue, broken down as follows: $4.4 million in sales, $2.3 million off streaming, $188,000 off publishing and $464,500 in touring revenue. Drake probably isn’t tripping though. He made headlines after ousting 50 Cent on Forbes‘ list of wealthiest rappers. On that list, endorsements and ventures outside of music are factored in. With a net worth of $60 million, Drizzy trails Forbes list mainstays Diddy, Dr. Dre, Jay Z and Birdman.
The final rapper on the list was this generation’s premier femcee, Nicki Minaj, at #39. She made a total of $6.3 million: $1.7 million in sales, $826.5 in streaming, $311,700 off publishing and $3.5 million off touring. She moved moved 425,000 albums in the year and got 1.3 billion spins on streaming sites.
According to Billboard, “touring is once again the determining factor” in this year’s rankings.
In all, including Cole, Drake and Nicki, there were only five Black music artists on the Billboard list (of which Cole is also the highest ranked). The others were The Weeknd, right behind Cole at #28 with $8.6 million earned and Uncle Charlie Wilson at #34 with $6.9 million. Surely, with the surrounding Lemonade, Beyonce (who is absent fro this year’s list) will be ranked for this year.
Read here about the success of NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton.Carson: 'Putin is a one-horse country'
Ben Carson speaks during the Republican presidential primary debate on Jan. 28, 2016, in Des Moines. (Photo11: Chris Carlson, AP)
DES MOINES — Debate answers often feature many canned phrases that you've heard over and over again, but that wasn't the case in Ben Carson's discussion of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The retired neurosurgeon, who took hits late last year over his foreign policy acumen, delivered an assessment of Putin when asked to respond to a hypothetical scenario about how he'd handle Russian aggression if he were president.
"Putin is a one-horse country," Carson said. "Oil and energy."
"Putin is a one-horse country: oil and energy" https://t.co/iXQ4IYG5Ge — Mashable News (@MashableNews) January 29, 2016
It was enough to get Twitter talking.
Putin is a country with one horse. And 30 million bears. Which are more awesome than horses. #tytlive — Danny Wier (@DaWierComposer) January 29, 2016
“Putin is a one-horse country: oil & energy.” I'm dead set on deciphering Carson's answer on Russia. It's the new Divinci Code #GOPDebate — Joseph Karam (@Joseph_Karam) January 29, 2016
1. Putin is not a country. 2. Putin’s country has more than one horse. 3. Oil and energy are more than one thing. 4. They are not horses. — Rick Klein (@rickklein) January 29, 2016
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1SN8ojlOne morning 10 years ago, my brother lost his long-time job when the owners of the Scarborough electronic parts factory where he worked announced it was closing the plant and moving its operations to Chicago. Soon after, his company shut down two other factories in Oakville, tossing 400 employees out of work. The jobs were shifted to the U.S. and Mexico.
Former prime minister Brian Mulroney spoke to U of T's Rotman School of Management on the 25th anniversary of the Canada/U.S. free trade agreement. (Feb. 12, 2013) ( RICHARD LAUTENS / TORONTO STAR )
A bit later, the Markham electronics company where my niece had worked also closed its doors. It, too, moved its jobs outside of Canada. The owners never admitted it, but workers were convinced a major reason why the companies closed the Ontario plants was the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement reached in 1987 under former prime minister Brian Mulroney. The deal, which was the focal point of the 1988 federal election, eliminated import tariffs on most products, resulting in many profit-hungry companies closing plants here and moving the jobs to cheap-labour areas.
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I was reminded of those lost jobs when I read an article in the Star about a huge event last week for Mulroney at the Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the trade deal. For a full hour, Mulroney regaled the 700 adoring fans in attendance with tales of how he rescued the trade deal, turning it into “the greatest in the history of the world.” It was vintage Mulroney — charming, confident, boastful. Mulroney is right when he says the deal radically reshaped this country’s economy. But it hasn’t been all for the best, as he and free-trade champions, few of whom I bet have ever worked a day on a factory floor, like to brag. In fact, the agreement shattered the dreams of hundreds of thousands of workers, many of them in the industrial heartland of Ontario, who saw their well-paid, middle-class jobs vanish in the months and years after the deal was signed.
Those lost jobs weren’t confined just to assembly-line workers. Accountants, salespeople, receptionists, IT and warehouse workers also lost their jobs when factories shut down. And the impact is still being felt. Remember just a generation ago when a young person could walk down any street in most towns and quickly find a good factory job? That never happens now; those jobs are gone forever.
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Beyond the happy-talk about how the trade deal made us more confident on the world stage, the reality is that high world oil prices have had more positive impact on our economy than the trade agreement. “The promise that free trade would induce more trade, productivity growth and higher incomes is not remotely supported by the aggregate economic data,” Jim Stanford, a respected Canadian Auto Workers economist, wrote in a recent article for the Progressive Economics Forum. Stanford is one of those people pro-deal supporters would label a “free-trade denier,” a slur used by Trade Minister Ed Fast to describe Canadians who don’t enthusiastically back such agreements. “It’s reasonable to assert that the typical Canadian is no better off” than before the Canada-U.S. deal, Stanford said. Stanford cited government statistics showing that our exports to the U.S. are at the same percentage level as in the mid-1980s, that our trade deficit is the highest ever, that our productivity has fallen in comparison with the U.S and that income levels of most Canadians in real terms are unchanged. “It is not the ‘free-trade deniers’ that inhabit a fantasy world,” he adds. “No matter how loudly Trade Minister Fast asserts that only an economic illiterate would dare to question the virtues of free trade, it’s his side of the debate that relies on faith, rather than fact.” Maybe the next time the Rotman School stages a celebration of the free-trade deal, the organizers will invite Stanford as well as Mulroney. Better still, they should invite a few workers who lost their jobs in the wake of the deal. But that’s unlikely to happen because no one, especially Mulroney, wants a hard dose of reality to spoil a celebration. Bob Hepburn’s column appears Thursday. bhepburn@thestar.ca.
Read more about:AP Julius L. Chambers, the newly elected president of the NAACP legal Defense Fund, appears in New York on Jan. 21, 1975.
Julius Chambers, a North Carolina attorney who helped to shape U.S. civil rights law, died aged 76 on Friday after battling declining health, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Legal Defense Fund said in a statement.
Chambers and his partners argued landmark civil rights cases related to de-segregation and voting rights before the United States Supreme Court, according to the NAACP.
They included Swann v. the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education in 1971, which led to cross-town student bus transit that helped to integrate local schools.
"He was a man of tremendous courage," the NAACP said in a statement.
Former Rep. Lindy Boggs died Saturday. She was 97. NBC's Lester Holt reports.
His firm, founded in 1964, was the first racially integrated law practice in the southern U.S. state, according to the Charlotte Observer.
"He believed that regardless of one's position, status, race, creed, color, religion or gender, everyone has an obligation to ensure equality for all," Attorney James Ferguson, a partner at Chambers' firm, told a news conference on Saturday.
Chambers graduated first in his class at the University of North Carolina School of Law and was the first African-American editor-in-chief of its law review, according to the NAACP.
In the mid-1980s, he became president and chair of the board of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, a position he held for nine years, and in 1993 he was made Chancellor at his college alma mater, North Carolina Central University, the NAACP said.
His wife, Vivian, died last year, and he had two children, according to the NAACP.
Related:In 1997, the rock band Foo Fighters released their second album 'The Colour and The Shape'. It was released on May 20, several months after the late January-early February date the band had publically anticipated. Such delays in release dates are very common in the music industry, and this particular case didn't appear to be anything unusual. No reason was given for the delay, but they almost never are, and no-one questioned it.
It is notable that while it is officially the band's second album, 'The Colour And The Shape' was in fact their first album as an actual band, as Dave Grohl had recorded their first album 'Foo Fighters' entirely by himself two years earlier.
The new album consisted of thirteen tracks. According to some sources close to the band, there had originally been intended to be fourteen, but the fourteenth track was removed shortly before its eventual release.
Such last-minute decisions are also very common in the industry and no reason was given, nor sought, for this. The album went on to be a success for the band with several million copies sold, was well received by the critics and included several successful chart singles.
Around the end of 2008, over 11 years after the release of the original album and 1 year after the tenth-anniversary 2007 re-release that included 6 B-side tracks, minor rumors began to spread surrounding the whereabouts of the fourteenth track that had been cut from the original listing in 1997.
Initially, many had assumed it was among the 6 B-sides included in the 2007 re-release, but word began to spread it was not. This had disappointed many of the band's hardcore fans who were eager to be in possession of any and all Foo Fighters' songs in existence.
It was around this time that curiosity began to grow and fans began asking the bandmembers, through letters and emails, at signings and press conference Q&A's etc., about the fourteenth track. Every time it was put to them, they would brush off or divert the question, claim they could not remember it or quickly change the subject.
As more and more fans began asking, the more visibly agitated the bandmembers would get. At one particular signing day in April 2008, it was reported that, after several fans had asked Dave Grohl directly about the track, Grohl suddenly burst out of his chair and walked out of the signing area, visibly distressed, followed shortly by the other bandmembers.
Shortly after, it was leaked by someone claiming to have worked with the band during the production of the album in 1997 that the deleted track, supposedly named 'Perennial', had been written and recorded solely by Dave Grohl, in the space of a few hours while the other bandmembers and recording crew were drinking in a nearby bar, in the final days before the album's initial release date. He intended to slip it in as the fourteenth track.
Upon playing the song back to the other bandmembers and recording crew, Pat Smear, the band's guitarist and backing vocalist, allegedly grew angry with Grohl for reasons no-one in the meeting could decipher. Seconds later he stormed out of the room.
While the source can not confirm this as the reason for Smear's sudden and unexpected departure in 1997 from the Foo Fighters' line-up (until his return a decade later), he strongly suspects this to be the main factor. Grohl did not seem dismayed or affected by Smear's outburst, and insisted the song be added to the album as the fourteenth track, to which no-one objected.
The next day, while mixing and adding finishing touches, Smear returned and demanded to speak alone with Grohl. Though in privacy, everyone in the recording studio could hear the two having a'very heated debate' about the fourteenth track. Smear was heard multiple times roaring something about how Grohl had 'blatantly stolen one of Kurt's most private songs', and how Grohl 'knew how much that song meant to him ['Kurt'?]' to which Grohl repeatedly relayed his indifference. After a few minutes, Smear barged out of the studio and didn't come back. Grohl, visibly agitated, remained at the studio for a bit before leaving to cool off.
The next day, Grohl, visibly hungover, possibly still drunk, entered the studio and attempted to start mixing through the tracks. He was angry, disheveled-looking and was acting confused. Eventually the other bandmembers and studio executives ordered him to leave the studio until he was cleaned up and sober.
He disappeared for a few days after this, to the point where the others had to go look for him, eventually finding him in a dirty motel room, drunk and babbling something about how he was 'keeping the fourteenth track' and how 'Kurt didn't scare him'.
After some harsh words from his bandmembers, he told them he would get some sleep and be back at the studio the next morning with a clear head. He didn't return as he said, this time disappearing for nearly two weeks without a trace. The others continued with their work in the studio, though by now Pat Smear had quit the band and had told them he didn't care what they did to the album.
Two weeks later, the bandmembers reported they had gotten strange phone calls from Grohl, all on the same night. They each reported that he sounded terrified and incoherent, stopping in mid-sentence as if to yell at someone or something next to him.
Not one of them could make out what he was trying to say and eventually had to hang up on him. The next day, Grohl arrived unexpectedly at the studio. He looked pale and nervous. He was trembling and would not make direct eye-contact with anyone, and he had strange bruises around his neck and forehead.
He briefly apologized for his erratic behaviour, before telling the recording executives, somewhat reluctantly, that he wanted to delete the fourteenth track from the album and leave it at thirteen tracks. When asked if he wanted to keep the fourteenth track for use as a B-side for one of the singles or as part of a future unreleased collection, he sharply replied he wanted the track destroyed permanently, and that it was a huge mistake recording it in the first place.
Unsure as to Grohl's urgent reasons for his decision, the track was deleted, with Grohl taking it outside and burning it, all the while standing over and watching with a look of intensity. Afterwards, Grohl seemed to lighten up, eventually telling jokes and getting back to the business of finishing the album, for which the release date had to be put back.
Grohl would not speak about where he was or what happened to him. The band, suspecting Pat Smear had met with and possibly assaulted Grohl, demanded to know what had happened between them over the two weeks Grohl was missing. Smear, as it turns out, had been in Europe the whole time.
After telling Smear of Grohl's absence and behaviour since he quit the band, Smear eventually told them that the song Grohl had recorded and wanted to use as the fourteenth track, had originally been written by Kurt Cobain (with whom Grohl and Smear were former bandmates) who had intended to use it as the main single for Nirvana's fourth and, as it would turn out, final album 'In Utero'. Smear said it was one of the greatest songs Cobain had ever written, but Kurt himself wasn't sure if the song would fit the album.
Grohl had advised against using the song, calling it 'crap', that it would definitely NOT fit the album. Smear suspected that Grohl, who had been considering leaving Nirvana to set up his own band, was looking for a way to deceive Kurt into thinking it was a terrible song, so he could then leave and record and release the song with his own band. In the end, Kurt decided not to record the song, with the band instead pushing 'Heart Shaped Box' as the new single (to huge success).
After Cobain's death and the demise of Nirvana, Grohl, still looking into forming his own band in which he would be the lead member, convinced Smear that he had not been out to sabotage Cobain and the 'In Utero' album, which had been a massive success without the deleted song. Smear agreed to join Grohl's newly formed band Foo Fighters after the release of their pre-line up eponymous album. It is not known if the two discussed Cobain's deleted song before the fall-out in 1997.
To this day, Grohl will not speak about what happened to him over those 2 weeks that convinced him to change his mind regarding the fourteenth song. Where he was, who, if anyone, he was with, how he got the physical injuries across his neck, are all a complete mystery to even his closest friends and family members. Neither he, nor any members of Foo Fighters will discuss the story of the fourteenth song.
Although the source confirms he saw Grohl destroy the track himself, making it impossible for it to still exist and have been included in the album, it has allegedly appeared as the fourteenth track of some CDs bought on the day of its release in 1997, with some people not involved in the song's production, or privy to any information therein, apparently able to rehearse it lyric by lyric themselves, though he has only heard this through word-of-mouth and has not personally met anyone who can rehearse the song.
VideoWith the latest polls in Iowa showing Donald Trump up between 2 and 7 points over Ted Cruz, the importance of a ground game and GOTV effort becomes more evident.
Here’s where the candidates are, and this reflects the size of their operations on the ground in Iowa. Note that all the candidates will be in Des Moines on the 28th for the Fox News GOP debate.
Trump
Today (26th), a 5 p.m. rally in Marshalltown and a 7:30 p.m. rally in Iowa City. He flies back to New York to sleep in his bed, and doesn’t return to Iowa until the 30th for a big rally in Davenport. On the 29th, Trump is in New Hampshire.
Trump can pull together a rally in practically any size arena and fill it, and bring staffers to the event with very little notice. All he needs is an airport. Notably, his GOTV online caucus-finder is smooth, easy to use, and very competently done. None of the other candidates have this feature (they should).
It’s yet to be seen how well this hands-off approach works, or if Trump has an out-of-state effort to move potential supporters on caucus day. But nothing works better than a knock on the door.
Cruz
The man is indestructible. Cruz is making 7 stops today. On the 27th he has a big pro-life rally with Rick Perry in Clive, followed by a string of 5 appearances between Ringside and Wapello on Friday. No break on Saturday with another 5 appearances between Hubbard and Sioux City, capped by a rally with Rep. Steve King.
On Sunday the 31st, Cruz continues in Iowa with 3 events (I assume after church), starting in Iowa City and ending in Des Moines with a rally at the State Fair Grounds. Monday, Feb 1 has Cruz in Jefferson and Marion for a pre-caucus rally at Grace Baptist Church.
That’s a total of 23 events on Cruz’s calendar–far more than anyone else. Only a well-developed, committed team on the ground can support this kind of whistle-stop campaigning. You can be sure that Cruz volunteers and staffers are calling every single voter to remind them to get to the caucuses, telling them where their locations are, offering to help with transportation, child care or any other issues. Cruz will maximize his turnout.
Rubio
Where’s Marco? He’s got 4 events today (26th) starting in Pella, going through Marshalltown before Trump gets there, and ending in Des Moines with a town hall at the Sheraton. On Wednesday (27th), Rubio has a rally at Wellman’s Pub and Rooftop, a few miles from the hotel.
And that’s it. After the debate, Rubio leaves Iowa, and heads (I don’t know where) somewhere. His website has no obvious links to “events” and even searching for “events” yields nothing useful. Rubio has no events in New Hampshire through Feb 2nd, so really, where is Marco?
Update: Rubio’s Communications Director, Alex Conant, tweeted that Rubio will remain in Iowa through the caucuses. Find the updated schedule here.
WORTH NOTING: @MarcoRubio returned to Iowa this afternoon and won't leave until after the caucuses on Feb. 1. #Marcomentum — Alex Conant (@AlexConant) January 24, 2016
Carson
Just for comparisons’ sake, I added Carson in. He’s got one event tonight (26th) called REVIVE714 at Heritage Assembly of God in Des Moines. Then he’s gone. He’s not in New Hampshire; actually he goes to Denver for an organizational meeting, then back to Iowa for the debate. After that, he’s got nothing on the calendar until after the caucus, when he travels to California for a week.
Dr. Carson, do you know that there’s a primary in New Hampshire on Feb 9?
Conclusion
It’s going to be Trump vs. Cruz. Cruz is all in and will follow Reagan’s (and John Wayne’s) path to victory for GOTV. “There is no substitute for down-to-earth, house to house, person-to-person contact.” Shoe leather vs. The Show.
History is betting on shoe leather, but Trump may overturn everything.Victor Chang's killer deported to Malaysia
Updated
The killer of heart surgeon Victor Chang has been deported to Malaysia after his release from a Sydney jail on parole.
Chiew Seng Liew was released from the Long Bay prison within hours of the New South Wales Government ruling out further action against his parole.
Liew, 69, who has Parkinson's disease, was immediately whisked off to Sydney airport and kept in custody by immigration officials.
He later boarded a flight to Kuala Lumpur.
When Liew was granted parole last month, the State Government challenged the decision but was overruled by the Supreme Court.
The court upheld the ruling of the Parole Authority, which had been told that if Liew was not released urgently, it was likely the state would miss its opportunity to deport him before he became medically unfit to travel.
Liew has spent the past 21 years behind bars after being sentenced to 26 years in jail for shooting Dr Chang in his car during a botched extortion attempt in 1991.
His accomplice, Phillip Choon Tee Lim, was deported to Malaysia two years ago after serving 18 years in prison.
Following his release, Malaysia's home minister said Lim was a free man and would enjoy the privileges of any other Malaysian citizen.
NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith has praised the "strength of character and dignity of the Chang family during this very difficult time".
Topics: murder-and-manslaughter, crime, law-crime-and-justice, prisons-and-punishment, sydney-2000, nsw, australia, malaysia
First posted‘Circle Of Life,’ Say Women
NEW YORK—Describing it as just another stage in the unending cosmic circle of life, the nation’s female joggers acknowledged Tuesday they shall all, at some point or another, be physically attacked and buried deep in the woods.
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Women joggers of all ages across the country told reporters that every female who partakes in the aerobic exercise will eventually turn up as a half-nude body discarded in a heavily forested area, thus fulfilling the majestic journey taken by all jogging females, from time immemorial, in their passage through the universe.
“Such is the transcendent, time-honored pathway taken by all women who choose to exercise outdoors by themselves,” said Rhonda Wilmington, 28, shortly before beginning her 5 a.m. jog around Manhattan’s Central Park. “It is one of life’s great constants: the sun rises, the sun sets, and a lone lady jogger will be stabbed, dragged into a forested area, and ultimately be thrown in a ditch 15 feet off the bike path. So it has been, and so it shall always be in the universe’s perennial cycle of life, death, and rebirth.”
“Days later her body will be found—her bloody Nike tracksuit covered in leaves, dirt, and ants,” Wilmington added. “Just as the cosmos, in its infinite mystery, always intended.”
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Calmly confirming that it is their ultimate, inexorable destiny to one day become the subject of a missing persons report, the nation’s women joggers confirmed this week that they put on their running shoes and spandex tank tops every morning knowing full well it could end up being the day they are savagely beaten or sexually assaulted, and knowing full well that such a fate is neither bleak nor catastrophic, but merely their preordained role in the greater tapestry of life itself.
When asked by reporters to elaborate on their eventual demise at the hands of a violent assailant, the majority of women joggers said, “This is the only way it can be. This is the way it has to be. This is the way of the Earth, the way of the stars, the way of all things connected as one.”
“We do not know if death will come to us during a morning jog, an evening jog, or even a midday jog right in broad daylight,” said Fort Smith, AR resident Judy Gonzalez, with an expression of total serenity. “But when it comes—when we turn around and see a wild-eyed man running and closing in on us—we face our death knowing the forces of the universe had always intended for us to haplessly kick and scratch our attacker until he eventually overpowers us.”
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“Who am I to question how the tide convenes upon the shore, or when the leaves begin their gentle, autumnal descent?” said Boston attorney Lindsay Hatcher. “All matter, living and nonliving, must play its prescribed part in the continuing theatre of the cosmos, and if it is my role to be a mangled corpse stumbled upon by children playing Frisbee, so be it.”
Other joggers added that while their grisly fate will, of course, be tragic, they have gradually found inner peace in knowing they have fulfilled their chapter in nature’s grand narrative.
“It is harmony, seemingly opposed forces working in concert to create a beautiful and inevitable whole,” said Seattle accountant Jessica Chen. “Just as the spider eats the moth and the lion eats the gazelle, so too must the anonymous assailant kill the jogging woman, so she may become one with the universe.”
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“We all come from the earth cold, alone, and utterly vulnerable, and we must all return to the earth in much the same way,” Chen continued. “Accompanied only by the fading sound of an iPod playlist blaring through our headphones.”
Female joggers went on to say that those who are not killed during their morning routes will go on to be ogled, shouted at, and sexually harassed for the remainder of their days, thereby fulfilling their own role in the timeless saga of existence.Peter Thiel
If you’ve seen The Social Network, you may have caught a passing glimpse of Peter Thiel. Thiel was the first outside investor in Facebook, putting up $500,000 to finance the site’s original expansion in 2004. In the film’s version of events, he connives with Sean Parker, the founder of Napster, to deprive Mark Zuckerberg’s friend Eduardo Saverin of his 30 percent stake in the company. Though the character based on Thiel appears on-screen only briefly, Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay demolishes the German-born venture-capitalist in a single line: “We’re in the offices of a guy whose hero is Gordon Gekko.”
While he clearly enjoys playing Richie Rich—various profiles have commented on his Ferrari Spyder, his $500,000 McLaren Supercar, an apartment in the San Francisco Four Seasons, and a white-jacketed butler—Thiel fancies himself more than another self-indulgent tech billionaire. He has a big vision and has lately been spending some of the millions he has made on PayPal, Facebook, and a hedge fund called Clarium trying to advance it. Thiel’s philosophy demands attention not because it is original or interesting in any way—it’s puerile libertarianism, infused with futurist fantasy—but because it epitomizes an ugly side of Silicon Valley’s politics.
To describe Peter Thiel as simply a libertarian wildly understates the case. His belief system is based on unapologetic selfishness and economic Darwinism. His most famous quote—borrowed from Vince Lombardi—is, “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.” In a personal statement produced last year for the Cato Institute *, Thiel announced: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” The public, he says, doesn’t support unregulated, winner-take-all capitalism and so he doesn’t support the public making decisions. This anti-democratic proclamation comes with some curious historical analysis. Thiel says that the Roaring 20s were the last period when it was possible for supporters of freedom like him to be optimistic about politics. “Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron,” he writes.
If you want to go around saying that giving women the vote wrecked the country and still be taken seriously, it helps to be handing out $100 bills. What differentiates Thiel’s Silicon Valley style of philanthropic libertarianism from Glenn Beck’s screaming-raving-weeping variety is a laissez-faire attitude toward personal behavior and the lack of any demagogic instinct. Thiel, who is openly gay, wants to flee the mob, not rally it through gold-hoarding or flag-waving. Having given up hope for American democracy, he writes that he has decided to focus “my efforts on new technologies that may create a new space for freedom.” Both his entrepreneurship and his philanthropy have been animated by techno-utopianism. In founding PayPal, which made his first fortune when he sold it to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002, Thiel sought to create a global currency beyond the reach of taxation or central bank policy. He likewise sees Facebook as a way to form voluntary supra-national communities.
Offline, Thiel is the lead backer of Seasteading, a movement to create law-free floating communes based on voluntary association. Led by Milton Friedman’s pajama-wearing grandson, this may be the most elaborate effort ever devised by a group of computer nerds to get invited to an orgy. (Let’s build our own Deepwater Horizon with legal prostitution!) Thiel is also an investor in space exploration, with the avowed aim of creating new |
ell and the Irishman Gabriel Byrne. “I went to an exhibition at the Met a few months ago, and I had this vision of creating these glorious costumes, so I said, ‘I’ll do it.’ Then I found out they don’t get there till Season 2.”
Presuming there is a Season 2, “Vikings” will thus continue to aid the cause of employment in Ireland. “Our primary focus is to support Irish talent in making audio and visual works” whether it’s Irish co-productions or not, said James Hickey, chief executive of the Irish Film Board, at the Galway Film Fleadh.
An undertaking like “Vikings” hires 300 to 400 workers, Mr. O’Sullivan said. “So if you have three or four shows on at a time, that’s significant employment. And we’re just one production company.”
Another, headquartered in a Georgian town house along the Grand Canal here, is Element Pictures, which, like similar Irish companies, survives through diversity. It is involved in producing, co-producing, distributing, even showing films (via the city’s Light House Cinema).
Given the Irish economy and the instability within the euro zone, nothing’s a sure thing here. The filmmaker Lenny Abrahamson, whose latest project, “What Richard Did,” was produced through Element, said, “I think lots of us are like the guy falling through the air, having stepped off the ledge of a tall building, thinking, ‘So far, so good’ as he passes floor after floor.”
But as Element’s co-director, Ed Guiney, noted, the country is rather enlightened about the arts. Its president, Michael D. Higgins, is a former arts minister; he’s also a poet.
“The creative industries play very well right now in Ireland,” Mr. Guiney said. “We’re clearly not very good at property development, and clearly not very good at banking. But you could argue we’re not bad at art and theater and music and possibly film. We’re good at that stuff, so we should be nurturing that part of our talent base.”Concerns have been raised among the England management staff over Raheem Sterling’s state of mind after the Manchester City winger’s confidence was apparently dented by criticism of his form from the stands and on social media.
Sterling, who endured a difficult first campaign at the Etihad Stadium after joining from Liverpool for £49m last summer, had performed brightly in England’s pre-tournament friendlies and started the national team’s first two games in Group B. There was initial promise to his performance against Russia only for his form to rather peter out in the second half. Indeed, he departed Marseille that night by posting a picture of the Stade Vélodrome with the message “#TheHatedOne” on Instagram.
His fitful display in the second fixture, against Wales in Lens, prompted loud boos from the stands at the Stade Bollaert-Delelis and Roy Hodgson opted to withdraw the 21-year-old, along with Harry Kane, at the interval. The winger, one of the few positives to have emerged from England’s three-game involvement at the 2014 World Cup finals, did not feature in the goalless draw with Slovakia on Monday, but it is understood he keeps regular tabs on social media and is well aware of the abuse to which he has been subjected. That has included one supporter setting up a JustGiving page to raise funds to buy Sterling a plane ticket home.
Although the player has developed a thick skin, not least while he agitated for a move away from Anfield, he has been taken aback by the level of criticism that has been flung his way – particularly online – over Euro 2016 and apparently feels he has been made a scapegoat for England’s shortcomings at the tournament.
Roy Hodgson misses scouting chance but England face familiar packed defence Read more
The player has sought advice in the past from the England squad’s sports psychiatrist, Dr Steve Peters, having worked with him at Liverpool. The pair had spoken as recently as during the pre-finals friendlies and may now do so again, but there are concerns within the setup that Sterling’s confidence may have been badly eroded by his toils in France.
Hodgson had publicly backed the most expensive player in his squad after the draw with Russia, and following that post on Instagram, claiming Sterling’s “mental state is very good” and that he had been “as bright as a button in training”.
“It’s not nice to see people like [Sterling] being booed – it does hurt,” the assistant manager, Ray Lewington, said when asked about Sterling before the game against Slovakia. “People think they earn loads of money and have no feelings – it’s completely wrong. They are human beings, they feel things, particularly when they are young and trying to find their feet and it wasn’t nice.
“Young players do suffer for confidence sometimes and in the second game he looked as if he was slightly nervy and wasn’t doing things he was doing in the first game. But we have a lot of time for him, he’s a lovely kid. I don’t know how he gets this thing that people don’t like him. He’s a really smashing kid, actually quite shy, and we all love him really because he never gives anything less than 100%. So we’re going to try and look after him and try to ease him back, not rush him because we know there’s a really good player there.
FA unsettled by Roy Hodgson’s risky team selection against Slovakia Read more
“The one thing we want him to do is play his game, which is to get the ball and run with it, and he was a little bit reluctant to do that when we joined up in May. We’ve been talking to him about doing what he’s best at and running at people and I thought he had a really good game [against Russia].”
Sterling is unlikely to start the last-16 tie against Iceland in Nice on Monday, though Hodgson is expected to make a number of changes from the side that drew with Slovakia. Kane may return up front, along with Wayne Rooney and Dele Alli in midfield, and the Tottenham Hotspur full-backs Danny Rose and Kyle Walker are set to be restored. That would see Jack Wilshere, Ryan Bertrand, one of Jamie Vardy or Daniel Sturridge and the unfortunate Nathaniel Clyne and Jordan Henderson drop back to the bench.CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- There's a story Patty Knap remembers about her son, Manny Diaz, from his childhood that still makes her smile. Diaz was just 5 or 6, and Knap hoped to enroll him in the gifted program at the prestigious Miami Country Day School. Before Diaz could be accepted, however, he needed to interview with a school psychologist.
"What do you want to be when you grow up," the psychologist asked him.
This was an easy question. The best days of Diaz's life were spent in the stands at the old Orange Bowl, watching Miami football or a Dolphins game. His father, Manny Sr., jokes that Diaz learned to read by consuming the sports pages of the local newspapers.
"A football player," Diaz quickly replied.
The psychologist frowned, shook her head and glared at Knap.
"Not good for the gray matter," she quipped.
No, Diaz was too smart to get beat up on a football field, she told them, so maybe coaching football instead.
Knap laughed.
"Or how about becoming a doctor?" she snapped back.
Truth is, Diaz probably could've been a doctor or a lawyer or a politician, like his dad. He even started his career in TV production for ESPN. But coaching, that sounded right.
And so the path began, first as a graduate assistant at Florida State, later with big jobs at Texas and Mississippi State. In those years, a lot changed. Diaz learned the ropes of coaching, endured his share of ups and downs. Miami -- the football program -- plummeted from annual championship contender to the back pages of those papers Diaz grew up reading. And the city, Diaz's hometown, faltered badly before Manny Sr. -- as mayor -- helped rebuild it.
It's funny how things come full circle sometimes, Knap said. Her son doesn't remember that school interview, but when he took the job as Miami's defensive coordinator last January, she teased him about the prediction anyway.
Diaz has never been in the prediction business. When he left home two decades ago, it was with the understanding that he might never return beyond the brief visits with family. But when Mark Richt called with a job offer, there was no hesitation.
Miami is home.
"When the opportunity came about, it was hard to find a reason not to take the job," Diaz said. "It may be the only time the train comes to the station and if that train takes off, it may never come back again."
After Diaz took the job, he called his dad. The call went something like this: "Hey dad, I need a place to crash."
Diaz's family was staying in Mississippi through the school year, but his new gig required him in Miami immediately. That usually means an extended hotel stay or a rented apartment, but for Diaz, it was a homecoming.
Manny Diaz Jr., left, grew up in Miami while his father Manny Sr., right, was mayor. He has since been able to bring his family, including his oldest son Colin, middle, back to his hometown. Courtesy of Manny Diaz Jr.
Funny thing is, Diaz had never really lived with his dad, at least not as far back as he could remember. His parents divorced when he was a kid, and while the divergent wings of the family remained close, Diaz still spent only alternating weekends with Manny Sr.
"Now, all of a sudden, your 40-something son returns home," Manny Sr. said.
As a kid, Diaz wasn't shaken by divorce. He looks back now and sees it as a luxury. His father's family instilled an understanding of the immigrant experience. His grandparents had fled Cuba during Fidel Castro's regime. His father had worked his way through law school to become a prominent attorney.
His mother worked, too. She raised the kids, did so much of the dirty work. And his stepfather, John Knap, and his father both proved to be a great influence. They'd moved from up north, started a new life in Miami, and they made it work.
Diaz sees one story or the other repeated again and again with the players he recruits, and he connects with all of them.
"It was all some form of the American dream," Diaz said. "They started over, but the idea was, in America, you could."
Still, this was a chance to reconnect. All those family ties had been frayed by years of coaching football, bouncing from town to town, job to job. Now he was home.
So each morning, the Diaz boys woke early. Manny Jr. brewed up a fruit smoothie and shared with his father -- "my way of trying to get my dad to eat some fruit." They talked family and sports and politics, just like the old days. Dad went for a walk. Son went for a run. They'd both return late at night, and they both gained a better perspective on how much work it took to be successful in their chosen fields.
The father is still the more famous Diaz in Miami, the son says.
The son has the tougher job, the dad says.
That's the funny thing about family. You grow up, and you gain a whole new perspective on something you'd always known so intimately.
Just a few weeks after Diaz returned to Miami, he was a guest at a family wedding -- a cousin on his mother's side -- that he never would've had a chance to attend at previous jobs. When Diaz entered the reception, it was a like a conquering hero returning from battle.
"Everyone was so thrilled," Diaz's mother said. "And of course, they're all Miami fans there."
That's not why Diaz is here though. It's nice to be recognized, fun to see the seeds of his work make an impact in his hometown. But it's the little moments, like when he sees his dad on the sideline at a Canes practice or when he sees his own son playing baseball on the fields at Country Day, where Diaz used to play. That's what makes this project worthwhile.
"It certainly makes for some good dad storytelling," Diaz said.
Diaz hates the idea of being a "rah-rah guy," as he calls it. It's fake, and he's anything but.
That's a concern this offseason. How do you take a defense that turned around so dramatically, that played so well, that's still so young -- how do you tell that group it needs to get better?
"It's like a dream. You pinch yourself. Who would have thought the little boy who was running around cheering for the Canes would grow up to do this?" Manny Diaz Sr.
A year ago, Diaz had five freshmen he planned to play in the front seven -- partly due to talent, partly necessity. He didn't give them any grand speeches about overcoming the odds. He just told them about Miami's history, about what it meant to play here, about the standard that was set. He told them it had nothing to do with scheme. It was all about energy and desire and physicality. Just play harder, he told his guys, and it worked.
Now, a year later, Diaz is hoping to instill something bigger without taking away that fundamental belief that effort wins the day. So he shows film. Here's a play. It was a fine play. It could've been better. How do we make it better? How do we get back to those old Miami days when everything was better?
"We try to make it real and tangible and prove it with statistics or show it to them on video," Diaz said. "When we came in and analyzed ourselves from a year ago, there's no doubt that we did well, but there are a lot of things we can get much, much better on. You can show players those plays and say, 'Forget about the results from a year ago. Look at all these plays we can do better.' And they see it. You can present it without acting like it's a Hollywood coaching speech."
Richt insists he liked Diaz when they first met, way back in 1998. Diaz was a graduate assistant. Richt was one of the most successful offensive play callers in the country. Diaz remembers it a little differently.
"I would've just been another guy," Diaz said.
Regardless, when Richt arrived at Miami, Diaz wasn't immediately on his radar. It was only after he starting giving the job some consideration that the picture became clear. Who was he looking for? A coach who could tell a story, sell recruits. A coach who understood scheme and could be innovative and thoughtful. A guy who meshed well with others and wanted to work with the best of the best. A guy who could preach fundamentals and turn a defense plagued by mistakes into one that looked like the Miami of old. The more Richt considered it, the more it all sounded like Manny Diaz.
And so it came to pass that Diaz came home, that he inherited a defense that was among the worst in the country on third down, at generating pressure, at stopping the run. And a year later, voila. Miami, with three freshmen linebackers and a freshman edge rusher and a group of under-appreciated defensive backs, turned into one of the most fundamentally sound units in the country.
Now, here they are. The Hurricanes' young defenders are the No. 1 reason the college football world is finally beginning to take Miami seriously again, why this -- after years and years and years of struggles -- feels like it could be the season things finally turn around.
"It's like a dream," Manny Sr. said. "You pinch yourself. Who would have thought the little boy who was running around cheering for the Canes would grow up to do this? It's incredible."
Maybe that's why Diaz can preach so authentically. He's not grandstanding. These aren't rah-rah speeches. It's just what he's always known of Miami football, what he wants his players to understand. It's bigger than them. It's about family and community and showing the rest of the world that South Florida is just better than anywhere else on the globe at churning out football talent.
"He's at a premier place in the country, a place he knows and loves," Richt said. "This job, it's different for him."
It was 1986, and Vinny Testaverde was the QB. That's Diaz's story. Everyone in Miami has one. He was at the old Orange Bowl with his dad. So was the rest of the city. When Florida State or Florida or even Notre Dame would come to town, they brought their fans with them. This game, against top-ranked Oklahoma, was different.
"It might have been the most Hurricane fans in the stadium at any one time," Diaz said.
When Manny Diaz took the Hurricanes' defensive coordinator job in 2016, it was an opportunity to come home. Alan Diaz/AP Photo
A year earlier, Miami had turned the power structure of college football on its head, knocking off an undefeated Oklahoma team in Norman. Now, the Sooners were in South Florida, the two best teams in the country going head to head. Diaz was just a kid, but the significance of the moment was obvious. Testaverde threw four TDs. One that landed in the hands of Michael Irvin ended with a celebration among the crowd.
"The place was so electric, and the connection between the team and the fans," Diaz said, "It was just one of those days."
Diaz now tells the kids he's recruiting about that day. They don't know much about it. Most weren't born when Miami last made a serious run at a national title. But their parents remember. Their aunts and uncles and grandparents remember, too. Invariably, they'll interrupt Diaz's recollection with a story of their own, and before long, everyone in the room understands what's at stake.
"From a recruiting standpoint, it's the connection the university has with the city," Diaz said. "There's a pride in knowing that if they all go to the same school, you can beat anybody in the country.
For Diaz, the city and football and family and culture, it's all interwoven. And that's what he's selling now, and he wants the kids to understand the magnitude of it all the way he did that day in the stands of the old Orange Bowl
"Everybody gets to try on the jersey when they're getting recruited," Diaz said. "But do they really want everything that comes with wearing the jersey? It's a heavy jersey. There's a standard that's set, and it's your responsibility."
That's the thing about Miami, the thing Diaz understands and has embraced. There's history here, a big history. It's a history that, for the past decade-and-a-half has overwhelmed the program. But Diaz remembers better days, remembers what it feels like when things are really rolling.
It's cultural. It's family. It's Miami.
"The University of Miami was always our university. It carries the city's name," Manny Sr. said. "To have the city come back like it has over the past decade, and now it's his turn to bring back the Hurricanes. I did my job as mayor and now it's his turn."
A year ago, Diaz turned a moribund defense into a powerhouse. Now his story has helped corral the top-rated recruiting class in the country. The momentum is building. The tide has turned. The excitement is palpable. This is Miami as he remembers it. This is home.
"It's still, at its core, the same place," Diaz said. "It's grown up in a lot of different ways but the essence and the soul of Miami, it's still the same."A joint group of U.S. and Canadian military surveillance teams is expected to conduct a series of observation flights over Russian territory this week as part of a treaty designed to create transparency and trust between Russia and the West, according to a report Monday from Russian news site Tass. While similar flights have been commonplace since the treaty went into effect in 2002, they have taken on more significance over the past two years as old wounds between NATO and Russia have been reopened over conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.
"On Nov. 2-6, as part of implementation of the international Open Skies Treaty, a joint Canadian-U.S. mission plans to perform an observation flight over the territory of the Russian Federation on board a Canadian C-130J observation plane," Sergey Ryzhkov, chief of the ministry’s national Nuclear Risk Reduction Center, told Tass.
During the flight, which is expected to be flown over a route agreed on by Russia, Canada and the U.S., Russian Air Force specialists on board will control the use of surveillance equipment, Ryzhkov said. He also noted that that as part of the same agreement, a Russian group of observers will guide a Russian An-30B aircraft over German territory.
A team of U.S. and Ukrainian teams conducted similar flights over Russia in March, while Moscow arranged for its Open Skies team to fly over Greece in February and over the U.S. in December, covering a maximum range of 2,640 miles.
The flights have played an important part of retaining the small amount of trust that still exists between the West and the Russian-led East. Moscow’s decision to annex Crimea in March 2014 and its continued involvement in the East Ukraine war has caused widespread alarm in both Europe and the U.S. that Russia is looking to regain the same sphere of influence in the Eastern European region that it had before the end of the Cold War in 1991. Meanwhile, Russia has contended that it feels threatened by attempted U.S. and European expansionism intended for the E.U. and NATO alliance.
To add to the complex relationship between the two regions, Russia is now heavily involved in the Syrian civil war, having commenced airstrikes alongside, but not with, a U.S.-led coalition.
The Treaty on Open Skies allows any of the 34-member countries to carry out observation flights over one another's territories to gather information on military forces and activities that are of concern to them, according to the U.S. Department of State.Caplansky's Deli, the popular Jewish deli on College Street since 2007, was shut down overnight between Monday and Tuesday.
Owner Zane Caplansky said he went down to the deli at midnight on Monday to investigate an alarm when he discovered bailiff notes on the door and a locksmith changing the locks.
"This is a total surprise. I had no notice of any problems with the landlord recently," said Caplansky. "I am beyond livid. I pay my rent every month on time."
S. Wilson & Co. Bailiffs wrote in a notice that Caplansky's lease had been terminated and the building the deli occupied had been repossessed by the landlord. This was due to a violation of the lease, pertaining to "failing to effect repairs not authorized by the landlord."
"We are fighting this outrageous action," said Caplansky. "I don't know what repairs I effected without his authority."
He said 55 people are employed by the restaurant, and more than $100,000 in food is currently in the restaurant.
Caplansky had just announced plans to expand, and opened up another location of his namesake deli in Yorkville. "We're a growing business," he said. "This is very damaging. For guests who pull up and want to come eat at the restaurant, what do they think when they see this notice on the door? This is a nightmare."
The bailiff could not comment on the case.
Caplansky did admit there were issues with his landlord in January, but he believed those to be resolved. Lawyers for Caplansky and his landlord have been in contact.
The situation, according to Caplansky, is headed for court.
"I won't stand for it. I want to be heard. I want my day in court," he said.
Caplansky said he did not make any repairs or renovations recently, and was not aware of anything else the landlord wants done.
"My concern is for my staff and for their families and livelihoods. I would be really heartbroken if any of them felt they had to get a job somewhere else," he said. "I feel a real responsibility for them."Information from the famous Windows leaker and Microsoft enthusiast “FaiKee” suggests that Windows 9 could be with us in its first preview form, the developer preview, from Q2-Q3 in 2015, that’s between March and September next year. The current codename for the next-gen Microsoft OS is Windows 9 but apparently that is subject to change at any time. The rumour confirms the fact that Windows 9 is now expected to be off-schedule, although other Microsoft-enthusiasts such as Mary-Jo Foley of ZDNet believe Windows 9 is still set for a Spring 2015 release. FaiKee went on to state that Windows 8.1 update 3 is expected in Spring 2015, the current Windows 8.1 update 2 is expected to be released very soon. His rumours also suggest we might see a change of names with Windows 8.1 update 3 actually being called Windows 8.2. Check out more details at the source link.
Source: Microsoft-News / FaiKee
Image courtesy of Winbeta.orgAfter three years of delay, Maryland elections officials are finally replacing the state's aging touch-screen voting machines with ones that can optically scan paper ballots in time for the 2016 presidential election. However, an April 12 story in the Maryland Reporter noted that they are planning to spend virtually all of the $1.2 million budgeted for the transition on just five outside contractors.
Election Board Administrator Linda Lamone, who previously stated that the switch would occur "over my dead body," has recommended paying the yet-to-be-hired senior project manager $350,000, the deputy project manager $300,000, two business analysts $210,000 each, and a technical writer $170,000 for just nine months of work.
Del. Guy Guzzone, D-Howard, chairman of the Public Safety and Administration Subcommittee, which oversees Lamone's budget, was "floored" by the proposed salaries, some of which are twice as high as Gov. Martin O'Malley's. His fellow Howard County Democrat, state Sen. Jim Robey, said that "everybody is scratching their heads" over how it could cost more than $1 million when state employees have already written two versions of the request for proposal -- a major component of the contract.
This is not the first time Lamone has come up with highly questionable figures. Two years after the Maryland General Assembly passed legislation requiring the switch, she overestimated the cost of moving from touch-screen to optical scan machines in a 2009 presentation before the Board of Public Works. However, the following year, the Department of Legislative Services concluded that Maryland would actually save $9.5 million over eight years because optical scan equipment requires less labor, less maintenance and less technical support to operate.
Nationally known computer science experts have warned of the risks of voter fraud posed by Maryland's aging touch-screen machines, which are vulnerable to hacking and other manipulation. Optical scan machines reduce that risk by producing a voter-verified paper trail that can be audited in close races. They also have the added advantage of reducing the wait times at polling places. During the 2012 presidential election, 20 of Maryland's 24 jurisdictions failed to provide at least one touch-screen machine for every 200 registered voters, as required by state law, resulting in long lines at polling places.
Lamone's past opposition to optical scanners and her greatly inflated cost estimates make her current figures highly suspect. Legislators should take the time to verify them first.Sweden’s Migration Agency is in hot water for giving Bible knowledge quizzes to Christian asylum seekers, local media reports. Some social media users are saying it is ‘absurd and ridiculous’ to require such tests in mostly secular Sweden.
A few questions on the quiz cited by Swedish SVT broadcaster included:
“How many parts are there in the New Testament?” “Can you tell us about the Trinity? “What is the difference between the Orthodox and the Protestant church?” “Can you tell us about the Letter to the Romans?”
Read more
Some of the asylum seekers became Christians in their home country and fled because of persecution, while others just wanted to leave Islam, SVT reports. Religious persecution can be a reason for applying for asylum in Sweden.
One lawyer representing asylum seekers, Serpil Güngör, told the broadcaster that it was a terrible idea to test the asylum seekers in this way.
“I think it’s terrible. I have repeatedly had to interrupt administrators who ask these questions because they are not relevant and are far too complicated,” Güngör said.
Some representatives of the Church of Sweden were hesitant to support the idea of administering detailed ‘Christianity quizzes.’
“Migration Board tests the knowledge of Christianity, not faith,” a deacon of a Swedish church that has been working with Christian asylum seekers for years told SVT on condition of anonymity.
The deacon’s church has already begun writing a handbook of facts on Christianity to prepare asylum seekers for their interviews with the Migration Agency, SVT said.
Hans-Erik Nordin, Bishop of the Diocese of Strängnäs in southeastern Sweden, was curious about how much the Migration Agency itself actually knows about religion.
“What knowledge does the Migration Agency have about religion and faith?” he wondered, as cited by Dagen newspaper.
Sweden’s migration agency has defended the Christianity-oriented quizzes for migrants, however.
READ MORE: Sweden extends border controls amid ‘still unclear situation’ with asylum seekers
“It is a reasonable demand that the asylum applicant should show some knowledge of the Bible – this should come naturally, and isn’t something you need to study,” Carl Bexelius, deputy legal director at the Swedish Migration Agency, said.
Refugees Welcome Sweden, a group working for open migration policies in Sweden, slammed the questionnaires on Twitter.
“Migration Board re-introduces ‘catechism doctrine’. They are testing just Bible knowledge, not faith,” it said.
Some people on social media called the questionnaire on Bible knowledge “absurd and ridiculous.”
“The questions you ask are ridiculous. [They] show the depth of ignorance about Christianity,” one person wrote, addressing the Migration Agency.
Hej @Migrationsverk!
Frågorna ni ställer är absurda. Visar på djup okunskap om kristendom hos de som tagit fram dem.https://t.co/cp8MtwrqNQ — Stefan Jämtbäck (@fembarnsfarsan) May 13, 2017
“Religion should be voluntary, not forced,” “Welcome to a secular country,” said sarcastic comments from other people on Twitter.
Välkommen till ett sekulärt land. Migrationsverket håller ”kristendomsprov” med asylsökande https://t.co/GQ1QF70cqX via @svtnyheter — Jon Ekerwald (@JonEkerwald) May 14, 2017
@anderslindberg@uddinse@Migrationsverk Allt religiöst skit ska bort ur obligatoriska sammanhang. Religion ska vara frivilligt, inte påtvingat. — Glam Casvaluir (@GlamCasvaluir) May 14, 2017
Over 7,000 people have applied for asylum since the beginning of 2017, according to the Swedish Migration Agency.
Sweden has received over 260,000 asylum applications since 2014, at least 160,000 of which were submitted in 2015, the agency added.“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” – Truman Capote
How to Make Infused Oil
Infused oil is a simple way to create great flavor in any dish you prepare. Use rosemary oil with fresh pasta dishes, hot chili oil to give roasted green beans extra zip and garlic oil to flavor meat, poultry or homemade salad dressings. The list of ways to use these wonderful bursts of flavor could go on and on. Buying them in the store can get pricey. The great news is they are very simple to make. Try a few of your own and create additional layers of flavor in your recipes with only a minimal amount of effort. But don’t tell anyone, leave them wondering how your learned to cook so well.
Fresh Herb or Chili Infused Oil 2013-09-17 21:47:39 Write a review Save Recipe Print Ingredients 1 - 2 cups olive oil (dependent on the size of the bottle to store the oil in) Fresh sprigs of herbs (Rosemary, thyme, Oregano, etc.) or dried hot chili peppers (do not use fresh) Instructions Wash and air dry your herbs until completely dry. Place herbs in container. Add olive oil to fill clean sterilized bottle.(usually a run through the dishwasher with heat will do it) Place bottle in slow cooker that has been filled about half way with water. Place uncapped bottle in slow cooker. Do not cover with slow cooker lid. Cook on low heat for 24 to 48 hrs. Remove container from heat. Cap and refrigerate oil. A few notes If you do not have a slow cooker you can place the bottle in a pan filled half way with water and place on very low heat. Watch the water. You may have to refill a few times because of evaporation. Do not cap the bottle as the herbs are infusing as moisture needs to be released from the herbs to prevent the herbs from spoiling. Refrigeration is your best avenue to prevent the oil from spoiling. The oil may cloud up a bit in the refrigerator, but the oil is still okay. Once the bottle is removed from the cold and allowed to warm up a bit, the cloudiness will go away. Best to use the oil within 1 - 2 months. Pure Grace Farms http://puregracefarms.com/Stephen Colbert emerged from a glass case of scandal journalism on Monday to find out there was a perfectly good reason his own super PAC had been “slow-walked” by the Internal Revenue Service.
“Why has my application for tax-exempt status never been granted?” he asked his lawyer, Trevor Potter.
“Because we never filed it,” Potter replied, to Colbert’s surprise, since his 501 (c)(4) group was doing business and had handled at least hundreds of thousands of dollars, in Potter’s estimation.
“How is that possible, that I didn’t apply?” Colbert asked. “Am I breaking the law?”
Potter took that opportunity to remind the Colbert Report host that he was not legally obligated to apply for tax-exempt status in the first place.
“So wait a second,” Colbert said, stifling a laugh. “So you can form a 501 (c) (4) without asking to form one.” When Potter confirmed that, Colbert got a little giddier.
“So these tea party, anti-big government organizations didn’t have to ask big government for permission, but they did anyway?” Colbert asked as a follow-up.
“Right,” Potter answered.
“What a bunch of pussies,” Colbert responded.
But Potter did acknowledge that IRS officials being found to have targeted tea party-related groups for extra scrutiny put the agency in a bad position, since it would invite extra pressure for it to approve more of their applications in the future. Colbert took that opportunity to file his own application.
“Can I file under a different name?” he asked Potter. “Because Colbert super PAC S.H.H. isn’t sufficiently tea party enough.”
Assured by Potter he could use another name for the application, Colbert went with “Making America A Better Tea Party Patriot 9-12 Place To Constitution America Tea Party Nominally Social Welfare Conservative Political Action Tea Party Secret Money Liberty I Dare You To Deny This Application Of America Tea Party.”
Watch Colbert’s latest plan unfold, as aired Monday on Comedy Central, below.BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany will set another export record this year despite recent worries of an economic slowdown in China, the head of the German trade association said in an interview published on Sunday.
Cars and containers are pictured at a shipping terminal in the harbour of the German northern town of Bremerhaven, late October 8, 2012. REUTERS/Fabian Bimmer
Economists have expressed concern that China’s woes might become a burden for Germany’s export-centric economy, Europe’s largest, which has the greatest exposure to China of all 28 EU member states.
China is the Germany’s fourth biggest export market, accounting for 6.6 percent of its exports.
Anton Boerner, head of the BGA trade association, told the newspaper Der Tagesspiegel that he still expected German companies to trump last year’s record trade performance.
“We’ll manage to post a small plus,” Boerner said, adding that China’s impact on Germany should not be overestimated, and that he was more worried about the risk of a break-up of the euro zone.
“There was an incredible growth phase over several decades (in China). So it’s only natural if there is a setback now,” Boerner said, adding that German exports to China might grow at a slower pace, but would not decline.
In total, Germany exported 1.13 trillion euros’ worth of goods and services in 2014, a 3.7 percent increase on 2013, despite sluggish global growth and the sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukraine crisis.
However, weaker demand from abroad was reflected in a sharper-than-expected drop in industrial orders in July.
Fresh data will come on Monday when industrial output figures for July are due, with analysts predicting a 1.0 percent rise.
Tuesday sees the release of trade figures for July, which will give another clue to how the German economy started into the third quarter.The members of the KBS variety show “2 Days & 1 Night” show their support for Jung Joon Young during the opening of the newest October 9 episode.
The members gather at Pangyo station for the opening scene and as they engage in light conversation, the screen text says, “As much as it must have been a shocking incident for everyone, we will do our very best to provide wholesome laughter.” This is the first episode in which Jung Joon Young did not appear, following his decision to step down after his sexual assault case, from which he has been acquitted.
The members then bow to the viewers and Kim Joon Ho lifts up his hat briefly as he bows. The staff members notice his hair is much shorter and they ask what happened. Kim Joon Ho looks embarrassed as he says, “I was doing something and it accidentally got cut this way.” Cha Tae Hyun laughs as he jokes if Kim Joon Ho had shaved his head to show his remorse over Jung Joon Young and although he asserts that it isn’t, the cast members all tease him as the screen text flashes “Eldest hyung RESPECT.” Kim Joon Ho then plays |
rewdly suspect that he would have been treated with more candour; nor is it charitable to suppose that any thing but personal pique and hurt vanity could have dictated such bitter sarcasms and reiterated expressions of contempt as occur in your Reflections.
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But without fixed principles even goodness of heart is no security from inconsistency, and mild affectionate sensibility only renders a man more ingeniously cruel, when the pangs of hurt vanity are mistaken for virtuous indignation, and the gall of bitterness for the milk of Christian charity.
Where is the dignity, the infallibility of sensibility, in the fair ladies, whom, if the voice of rumour is to be credited, the captive negroes curse in all the agony of bodily pain, for the unheard of tortures they invent? It is probable that some of them, after the sight of a flagellation, compose their ruffled spirits and exercise their tender feelings by the perusal of the last imported novel.–How true these tears are to nature, I leave you to determine. But these ladies may have read your Enquiry concerning the origin of our ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, and, convinced by your arguments, Edition:PHP has been around for a long time, and it’s starting to show its age. From top to bottom, the language has creaky joints. I’ve decided to take a look at how things got to this point, and what can be (and is being) done about it. I start out pretty gloomy, but bear with me; I promise it gets better.
In the Beginning, There Was Apache and CGI
And there was much rejoicing.
In 1994, Rasmus Lerdorf created the “Personal Home Page Tools,” a set of CGI binaries written in C. These tools looked little-to-nothing like the PHP we know today. Embedded in HTML comments, and using a syntax bearing no resemblance to C, they still contribute one critical principle to modern PHP; it just worked.
PHP is a language of convenience. It was built with the idea that anyone could toss together a few lines of code and have a working CGI script, without having to worry about the server interface, the cryptic syntax of Perl, or the pitfalls of C. It’s a great idea, in theory, and for the most part, it’s worked very well in practice.
Unfortunately, nothing’s perfect — PHP included. Over time, PHP has suffered everything from security failures to bad design decisions. Some of these problems were avoidable, but others weren’t.
Backward Compatibility Is a Female Dog
Backward Compatibility (or BC) is the bane of every library and app writer in existence. It stifles improvements, holds back innovation, promotes unsafe practices, frustrates users, and slows development. PHP, being a language intended for beginners, suffers from it even more than most.
When BC is broken, apps break. Operating system vendors who shipped the new and improved version of PHP tend to come under fire for having a broken system, even though they did nothing wrong. More often, the writers of the apps are vilified for not providing working software, despite having done nothing but follow the manual.
Sometimes, the source of the problem is correctly identified, and the PHP developers are berated for trying to make a better language. No matter who takes the blame, though, one thing remains constant; users rarely understand anything other than “it’s broken!” They don’t care whether the new version is better. The old one worked. They want it to keep working. It’s a reasonable expectation.
Unfortunately, with a programming language, it’s often impossible to meet that expectation without sacrificing features, safety, or speed — usually more than one of these.
PHP 4.4 was released to fix a bug that caused memory corruption when references were misued. The fix changed the internal API, forcing every extension module to be rebuilt. Unfortunately, rebuilding extensions can be an arduous process in some environments. Some extensions don’t come with source code. Others are ancient, and code that managed to struggle along finally stops compiling cleanly. Vendors (such as those who provide various flavors of Linux) who ship packages have to rebuild and test not only PHP itself, but also every extension they ship before pushing to their repositories.
The results of all this are twofold. First, almost everyone holds off on updating to the new version to avoid the work and cost involved in fixing the problems that arise, leaving them all running a version with publically disclosed memory corruption bugs. Second, PHP itself is discouraged from making similar changes in the future, lest adoption of compatible fixes be slowed. It only gets worse when the change breaks source compatibility, forcing app writers to change their code even after the vendors catch up.
All of this is bad enough when the change is essential for whatever reason. It’s far worse when the compatibility break is the result of bad choices or poor planning.
Innovations Are the Devil’s Playthings
There are several examples in PHP’s history of changes that were made by well-meaning, forward-thinking developers who were trying to make PHP better, only to be shouted down because of the trouble it would cause to implement them, or, worse, to actually make the change and suffer the chaos that ensued, because they didn’t realize how far the effects would reach.
A recent example is a change in the behavior of the is_a() function between versions 5.3.6 and 5.3.7. is_a() used to allow a string parameter as its first argument; it was changed so that it would call the autoloader when passed a string referring to a class that doesn’t exist. The new behavior was technically correct and consistent with the is_subclass_of() function, but calling into the autoloader when it previously hadn’t caused a great deal of working code to break. Several PEAR packages started throwing exceptions from the autoloader due to supposedly missing classes. Fixing these packages required adding an extra is_object() check to every place is_a() was used.
Unfortunately, by the time the scope of the problem was realized, and a solution was agreed upon, a further version in the 5.3 series, 5.3.8, had been released, with the new behavior intact. To revert the behavior at that point would have created a whole new BC break and necessitated a second round of code changes. By the time the situation was settled with a patch to the 5.4 tree and a reversion in 5.3.9, a CVE report had been entered for the new behavior, and several mailing list threads regarding poor testing coverage and lack of procedures for BC breakage had reached impressive length.
All of this could have been avoided if a unit test had caught the break, or a procedure regarding BC breaks had been in place to prevent the change. The original author of the change can’t be held responsible for fixing a bug and correcting inconsistent behavior, but in an environment where fixes and corrections can have such far-reaching consequences, blame tends to get assigned (that fortunately didn’t happen in this case), and people become less willing to fix things.
On a rather less excessive note, for a long time there have been complaints about the inconsistent naming of array functions. It would be quite nice if, for example, the [uka][r]sort() family of functions was instead named array_[uka][r]sort(), but while the new function names could be added, the old ones couldn’t be removed for a very long time — at least two major PHP versions. With that limitation in mind, it seems pointless to add the new names. So, the old ones just stay — the result of a design decision far in PHP’s past, reasonable at the time (shorter function names were easier to understand, remember, and use).
When the Porpoises Ask the Few Survivors What Went Wrong
If, in the past, someone had asked me what was wrong with PHP, I probably would have said something like “developer apathy.” In early 2009, I took the lead in moving PHP’s source code from the increasingly creaky CVS repo to a shiny new SVN repo. I found that individuals with specific knowledge, such as whether a particular module needed to be saved or not, were in plentiful supply, but it seemed to me as if there was a lack of people to help with the overall process.
Let history be my judge in that regard. It may have been that offers of help were made that I misunderstood or chose to ignore. If so, I apologize to all who made the effort and were rebuffed. I do, however, stand by my assertion of apathy as a problem; PHP 6’s failure is an equally good example.
Even if we accept that perception as valid, it’s certainly not so any longer. A great deal more is happening with PHP now at the end of 2011 than was going on in early 2009. If asked what the problem is today, I would say, “no design and no plan.”
PHP has always been an evolving, almost-organic language. It has been rewritten from the bottom up at least four times, with massive internal changes to the engine at least twice more. Through all these mutations, however, its external interface — the language itself — has remained quite similar for a long time. Nearly everything that can be pointed to as different between PHP 3 and PHP 5.4 is an addition or extension to the language, not a change in existing behavior. There are exceptions, such as the new object model, but by and large, a PHP coder looking at PHP 5 code will be able to make complete sense of PHP 3, and vice versa. All of these versions share one flaw: there is no single specification of the language!
External tokenizers have to be implemented by reading the Zend Engine’s re2c and Bison input files. Reimplementations of PHP have to refer constantly to Zend’s implementation to understand the quirks of the engine. The behavior of the language is inconsistent, and it often feels clunky. In particular, expressions do not reduce recursively to values as one might expect. (new SomeClass)->methodReturningClosureReturningArray()()[5] causes a parse error, for example, though a similar construct in Objective-C, [[[SomeClass alloc] init] methodReturningBlockReturningArray]()[5] works fine.
There are a variety of reasons why this behavior is part of the PHP language, but they boil down to two major points. First, there is no specification that says how the language should work; there’s nothing to compare against and say, “this is wrong” or “this is wrong.” Second, fixing issues like these in a complete and lasting form would necessitate a parser rewrite, and that means reimplementing the entire language differently. “BC break” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
I Can See Clearly Now
I’ve gone on at quite some length about PHP’s problems. I’ve mentioned some solutions to those problems, but I haven’t said much about what’s actually happening. So, here’s the situation, and it’s not nearly so bad as I may have made it sound.
BC breaks A new release process was adopted in June of 2011, clarifying the timeline for releases, including the proper times for changes which break BC. This has also put PHP on a track for more regular releases in general, which is a significant help for vendors who bundle PHP. Communication problems PHP has historically had trouble with no one outside the core team knowing what was happening. In the last several months, there has been considerably more communication with OS vendors and others affected by changes and the release timeline. Some of them came to us, but in other cases we went to them. Lack of specification and standardization The lack of a language specification remains a significant issue, but at the very least, awareness of the problem has increased. An initiative to document the language behavior in a format such as EBNF has been suggested. Unit tests ignored and broken This particular problem, brought to the public eye by a major security bug in the 5.3.7 release which was caught — and ignored — by a unit test, was dealt with shortly thereafter. Since that time, a huge number of failing tests were fixed, and the release managers now pay a great deal more attention to the test suite. Apathy Developer apathy in the PHP community has largely disappeared. Participation and discussion are considerably improved from where they once were. Development is now active on the 5.4 branch, the development line that grew out of the PHP 6 effort, and it’s already in RC status as of this writing. Undocumented, confusing engine API Unfortunately, the cruft of the Zend Engine’s API remains a sticking point. The API is complicated, mostly undocumented, and completely unintuitive. zval reference management comes to mind. Efforts made to document the API have stalled time and again. The news isn’t all grim, though; an RFC is in discussion to completely separate the internal API and create a new, clean external API. Bit rot (old code and features holding back new things) The new release process eases this quite a bit; it’s now safe to say there will be a new version at some point which isn’t afraid to break BC. This follows from a simple and obvious fact: the people affected by BC breaks will now have warning that it will happen. Deprecation in point releases is a bad way to handle future changes. Giving the expectation of major changes at a defined point in the future is a good way, and that’s where PHP is headed. No Unicode The lack of Unicode support in PHP remains a serious problem, but at least we’re no longer nursing a dying animal (PHP 6) in the vain hopes of making it work when the entire surrounding situation has changed. This opens the door for new ideas on how to fix the issue. For more on PHP 6’s history, see this excellent set of slides by Andrei Zmievski.
A Little Nonsense Now and Then Is Relished by the Wisest Men
It’s safe to say PHP still has a long way to go to be the shining beacon of light we’d all like to see in a language, but it has withstood the test of time better than any other language of its kind, and it sees daily use across millions of servers. Nothing that’s wrong with PHP or its development is unsolvable, and tremendous progress has been made in the last year. No matter how dark I may have sounded during some parts of this article, I’m proud to be a part of PHP, and I hope I’ll continue in the future.
Developer Gift
A gift I recommend for any developer is a copy of any comprehensive book on hardware architecture and operating system design, with Inside the Machine and Operating Systems Design and Implementation being two excellent examples. I have long held the belief that any developer’s skills — whether they’re writing raw machine code or PHP or anything in between — can be improved by a clear and comprehensive understanding of the machines themselves.It’s the end of a bad week in a bad month in a bad season in the all-too-bad, human-heated, era for Arctic sea ice. As of the middle of this week, both the US measure — NSIDC — and Japan’s measure — JAXA — were showing record low daily sea ice extents. The lowest levels in the history of Arctic sea ice observation for this time of year and likely the lowest levels for hundreds, even thousands of years.
As charts go, the JAXA graphic looks pretty amazingly ominous. A 2015 sea ice extent line diving below all others, steadily plumbing an abyss that, if not this year or the next, could lead to a dreaded blue ocean event in the not-too-distant future. The kind of upshot from human greenhouse gas emissions we thought we might see by 2080 or later. One that has become increasingly more likely during recent years and that some researchers are expecting could emerge by before 2020.
(JAXA sea ice measure plunging to new record lows on May 22 and now hitting a very steep angle of decline. Image source: JAXA Polar Research.)
Above you can seen the 2015 red line taking its most recent plunge after hovering very near to record low levels. According to JAXA’s Polar Research Center, sea ice extent dropped like a stone to 11.44 million square kilometers yesterday, or about 200,000 square kilometers lower than the previous record low value set in 2006.
Divergence in May
The problem is not just one of a new record low. It’s one of timing and divergence. Accelerated melt in the May-to-June time-frame can have serious impacts on late season ice. The reason is that greatly reduced ice coverage also reduces albedo or reflectivity. The result can be compounded warming and increased heat absorption by darker surfaces under the 24 hour Arctic sunlight of June and July.
Large open stretches of ocean also enable swell formation, which can chew away the ice. And already we can see very large sections of dark, low albedo, ocean forming throughout many vulnerable regions.
(MODIS satellite shot shows widespread regions of open ocean and far northward melt advance for this time of year. Image source: LANCE-MODIS.)
For this time of year, we have very advanced sea ice loss and open ocean development in the regions of the Chukchi, the Beaufort, Northern Baffin Bay and the Kara. In addition, large open water areas are now becoming visible in the Laptev. A far northern extent of sea ice melt for May in addition to typical seasonal losses coming from Hudson Bay and southern Baffin Bay.
Such record low ice totals at this time of year can enable far greater melt advance by end season if the weather stacks up in all the wrong ways. And, at least for the next week, the weather forecast is tilting ever more heavily toward a melt-enhancing extreme warming of Arctic regions.
Arctic Warm Air Invasion Forecast to Continue
Over the next seven days, heat is predicted to continue to flood from south to north — goaded along by high amplitude ridges in the Jet Stream continuing to form over Northwestern North America and the Siberian region adjacent to the Kara Sea. The warm flux zones are forecast to deliver unseasonable, above average temperatures to the Arctic — resulting a general state of much warmer than normal conditions for the entire Arctic Ocean by late next week.
(Side-by-side comparison of Arctic temperature anomaly forecast [left] and 2 meter temperature forecast [right] for May 29, 2015 in the GFS model run as provided and graphically displayed by Climate Reanalyzer. It’s worth noting that such extreme anomalies are very unusual for Arctic Ocean regions during late spring and summer.)
As a result, we see temperature anomalies for the entire Arctic Ocean zone hitting a range of between 5 and 15 degrees Celsius above average for next Friday (May 29, 2015). Such a warm air surge would push temperatures in the above freezing range for almost the entire Arctic Ocean area. These are temperatures more typical of late June and early July. Conditions that, should they emerge, would result in a multiplication of ice-threatening melt ponds, a further expansion and warming of already unseasonably large open water zones, and a forcing of more ice-eating, high heat content water vapor into the Arctic environment.
Any forecast is subject to uncertainty. Rapid May melt during 2013 and 2014 stalled out during June of those years. However, May melt is significantly more advanced this year than during those years. And, as opposed to 2013 and 2014, GFS model forecasts showing warmer than normal conditions have tended to be correct. The warm air slots over Northwest North American and Western Siberia are also very well established at this time.
(Snow cover gone, melt ponds plainly visible at Barrow Alaska today. Proliferation of melt ponds during May and June can greatly enhance risk of record low totals come August and September. Image source: Barrow Sea Ice Cam.)
As a result, there’s high risk that the current record lows now appearing in the NSIDC and JAXA measures with continue to deepen over the coming week. It’s an utterly wretched situation for sea ice in the Northern Hemisphere. One that will bear very close watching as the risks now appear to be heading toward some unsettling markers.
Links:
NSIDC Arctic Sea Ice
JAXA Polar Research Center
LANCE-MODIS
Climate Reanalyzer
Barrow Sea Ice Cam
AdvertisementsMadonna did a photoshoot in blackface and doesn't get what's wrong with it.
In one of her Rolling Stone interviews, Madonna admitted that she did a whole photoshoot in blackface for her 2008 Hard Candy album, which was heavily inspired by r’n’b music and was produced by Pharrell Williams and Timbaland. She wanted to call the album "Black Madonna".
"I did a photo shoot with Steven Klein for my last album cover, and I painted my face black, except for red lips and white eyes. It was a play on words. Have you ever heard of the Black Madonna? It has layers of meaning, and for a minute, I thought it would be a fun title for my record. Then I thought, 'Twenty-five percent of the world might get this, probably less. It's not worth it.' It happens all the time, because my references are usually off the Richter scale. That's why I have people like Guy [Oseary, her manager] in my life who look at me and go, 'No, you are not doing that.'", she said.
Madonna says her manager put a stop to the publication of the said photoshoot, complaining that people “wouldn’t get” her blackface. Later on, the same photographer used the same concept (pictured above) for a photoshoot that caused controversy.
Madonna used the N-word.
Last year, Madonna took to Instagram to post a picture of her son Rocco and hastagged the picture with the racist slur.
When shit hit the fan and people started to call her out for it, Madonna did something most media outlets didn’t report on. She didn’t apologize until a day later when her PR team took over. Before that, she was being vile on Instagram and attacking people for calling her out for the use of the N-word.
„Ok let me start this again. #get off my dick haters!“, she said. she said.
Days after the scandal, Madonna brought her son David to The Grammy Red Carpet. This has never happened before or after this scandal:
Days after the scandal, Madonna brought her son David to The Grammy Red Carpet. This has never happened before or after this scandal:
Madonna called Barrack Obama a 'black muslim'
During her MDNA World Tour in 2012, Madonna showed her ignorance by calling President Obama a ‘black muslim’.
“For better or for worse, all right, we have a black Muslim in the White House, OK? Now that is some shit. That's some amazing shit.," she preached to her fans.
Madonna believes all black men are inherently sexist.
Despite being tied up to a chair and beaten up by white man, Madonna believes black men are the ones who disrespected her the most. She says that her black partners disrespect women because it’s a “cultural thing” for them to hate on women because black men grew up without fathers.
Yes, she really said this.
“I’ve always in this naive way identified with other minorities because I’m in a minority. You think that somehow unifies you in some philosophical way. But ultimately it doesn’t. Because I’ve found that being a strong female is actually more frightening to the black men that I’ve dated. It took me a really long time to accept that. I believe that I have never been treated more disrespectfully as a woman than by the black men that I’ve dated. I’ve never actually said that to anybody, but it’s true and I think it’s a cultural thing. So many black men grow up without fathers, without strong male figures, without a sense of romance and seeing a man treat a woman with respect.“ – Madonna, Spin Magazine, 1998
– Madonna, Spin Magazine, 1998
Madonna believes all black women are inherently submissive.
In the same interview, Madonna messily tries to explain the reasons why black women are „more willing“ to accept abuse from a black man.
„I think black men have just been shit on for so long, that, in a way, black women are maybe more willing to accept rage from a black man, because they see what’s happened to them. They grew up without fathers…“
Yikes!
Madonna faked a charity in Malawi and wasted $3.8 million dollars on “salaries, cars, office space and golf course membership, free housing and a car and driver for the school’s director”.
Despite using it for several photo-ops and preaching about an educational crisis in Malawi, Madonna didn’t care that the same charity that promised to build schools squandered the money. “Raising Malawi Academy for Girls“ wasn't built and the money was instead spent by the 'charity' managers connected to the shady Kabbalah Centre.
this 'charity' left Malawi villagers broke and homeless after taking the land for the supposed'school' (which wasn't built) and never properly compensating them for the land.
Even worse,
Madonna defiled a Martin Luther King picture to promote her #RebelHeart album.
The cover of Rebel Heart features a close-up of Madonna's face wrapped in a BDSM-alluding tangle of black cord. Then, she she Instagrammed images of Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Bob Marley, seemingly oblivious to the concept that a white artist who's made various forms of black music throughout her career showing images of civil rights icons tied up in cord is demeaning.
Madonna surfboards on a black woman on her new tour.
During yesterday's lukewarm opening of Madonna's new Rebel Heart Tour, Madonna performed one of her new songs on a stripping pole cross. The problematic part? She uses a black woman as a surfboard to stand on while she spins around the pole.
Following several accousations of racism during her Rebel Heart promo blitz, the Rebel Heart Tour kicked of in a small arena in Montereal to an unenthusiastic reaction. Madonna's first show - like many others - wasn't sold out.
Madonna still believes she is more disenfranchised than the black community.
In her recent interview with Out Magazine, Madonna once again compared different disenfranchised groups like it’s a competition. She concluded her thoughts by saying that all other groups have gotten some rights, while she, as a white woman, still has it worst.
"It’s moved along for the gay community, for the African-American community, but women are still just trading on their ass. To me, the last great frontier is women." – Madonna, Out Magazine, 2005.
Bonus moments of Madonna appropriating different cultures:
Madonna appropriating the geisha imagery
Madonna appropriating the sari
Madonna's appropriation of the kimono
Madonna's appropriation of the bindi/henna
In light of herand a "gypsy" themed section, the time has come to go over some of's most racist, culturally appropriative and insensitive moments.Ignoring the apologetic portayal of the supposedby the mainstream media, this ONTD Original is supposed to serve as a reminder of what Madonna truly is and how she got away with it all.Despite what most people believe, Madonna has been racist and downright unapologetic about her racism (no pun intended) for 25+ years.So here are some of Madonna's most racist moments:It turns out that one of the most popular players to ever don a Revolution uniform will get another chance to do so after all.
After spending weeks of training with the same club he helped lead to the brink of a championship three times, Shalrie Joseph officially returned to the Revolution on Tuesday after the club acquired him via the Waiver Draft.
Joseph, the club record holder for career appearances (261), spent nearly 10 seasons with the Revolution and became a major part of the club’s run to the MLS Cup finals in 2005, 2006 and 2007. He helped them win the U.S. Open Cup championship in 2007, and hoisted the SuperLiga trophy with his teammates in 2009.
His superb play in the six spot earned him eight All-Star nominations, four MLS Best XI selections, and was a MVP finalist in 2009. All the while, he became a fan favorite and, not surprisingly, earned the captain’s armband by 2009.
Following the 2011 season, he became the second designated player in Revolution history when he signed the richest contract in club history, earning in excess of $550,000 annually. At the time, it appeared Joseph would play out the remainder of his career in New England.
But that was until an abrupt midseason trade sent him to Chivas USA in August 2012, the result of a reported clash with coach Jay Heaps. At the time, it appeared the club legend would not get the storybook many envisioned for him.
Following his trade to Chivas USA, he was sent packing for a second time in less than six months when the Seattle Sounders acquired him. The hope was that he, alongside Ozzie Alonso, would give the Sounders one of the most formidable central partnerships in the league.
That hope, however, never panned out. Injuries and fitness issues limited Joseph to only 12 games for the Sounders in 2013. By the end of the season, it was not a matter of “if,” but “when” the Sounders would find a way to wash its hands of Joseph’s hefty contract.
In January, Sounders coach Sigi Schmid told the media that Joseph was no longer in his plans. With that being the case, Joseph was essentially left in limbo. No longer a welcome face in Seattle, he emerged with the Revolution during their preseason stay in Tucson, Ariz. Though still officially a member of the Sounders, Schmid nor anyone else from the organization put up any fuss about Joseph’s return to his former squad.
Finally, in late-March, the Sounders bought out Joseph’s contract. But even though Joseph traveled back with the Revolution to continue training with them into the opening weeks of the regular season, it wasn’t as simple as having him sign on the dotted line.
“Obviously, there is no free agency in MLS,” Revolution general Michael Burns said prior to the team’s season opener on Mar. 22. “Although he’s not with Seattle, there’s not a 100 percent guarantee that, even if we wanted to sign him, he would end up in New England. So we have to work that though with the league.”
As far as the possibility that any tension remains from his sudden trade to Chivas nearly two years ago, Burns didn’t seem concerned about it when speaking with the media about it last month.
“Shalrie’s been great,” Burns said at the time. “I give Shalrie a lot of credit for him to come back here, and be willing to go on trial. (It) says a lot about him, says a lot about his character, because that’s not easy for an older player with his resume to come in and say ‘OK, I’m going to show you what I can and can’t do.’”
Joseph, a holding midfielder by trade, may face an uphill battle for minutes. The Revolution appear to be stable at the position with Andy Dorman growing into the role early in the season. Scott Caldwell has showed himself capable as well, leaving question.
However, with injuries suffered across the backline early this season, Joseph may project as a possible backup to Jose Goncalves, who’s currently on the shelf with a quad injury. He could also serve as a center forward, a role he’s proven himself capable at in the past.
At 35, he may no longer be the player he once was during the Revolution’s runs to its MLS Cup appearances. But, at bare minimum, he’s convinced the Revolution front office and coaching staff that he may just have enough in the tank to help fuel the club’s playoff ambitions this year.Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.
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Over the last four years, Congress and the Obama administration have only enacted laws that have deregulated gun use in America. It’s no secret why. As pundits love to note, the gun lobby is incredibly influential. But as we consider the potential for reform in the wake of the tragedy today, one of the first questions we should ask this time is: who does the gun lobby really represent? Ad Policy
The National Rifle Association portrays itself as an organization that represents “4 million members” who simply love the Second Amendment. The truth is much more murky.
In reality, the NRA is composed of half a dozen legal entities; some designed to run undisclosed attack ads in political campaigns, others to lobby and collect tens of millions in undisclosed, tax-deductible sums. This power has only been enhanced in the era of Citizens United, with large GOP donors in the last election reportedly funneling money to the NRA simply to use the group as a brand to pummel Democrats with nasty ads. (As The Huffington Post’s Peter Stone reported, even the Koch network now provides an undisclosed amount to the NRA.)
Despite the grassroots façade, there is much evidence to suggest that corporations that profit from unregulated gun use are propping up the NRA’s activities, much like how the tobacco lobby secretly funded “Smokers Rights’” fronts and libertarian anti-tax groups, or how polluters currently finance much of the climate change skepticism movement.
In a “special thanks” to their donors, the National Rifle Association Foundation lists Bushmaster Firearms Inc., the company that makes the assault rifle reportedly found with the shooter responsible for the mass murder today in Newtown, Connecticut. How much Bushmaster Firearms Inc. (a firm now known as Windham) contributes is left unsaid.
The Violence Policy Center has estimated that since 2005, gun manufacturers have contributed up to $38.9 million to the NRA. Those numbers, however, are based on publicly listed “sponsorship” levels on NRA fundraising pamphlets. The real figures could be much bigger. Like Crossroads GPS or Americans for Prosperity, or the Sierra Club for that matter, the NRA does not disclose any donor information even though it spends millions on federal elections.
And like other industry fronts, the NRA is quick to conceal its pro–gun industry policy positions as ideological commitments.
Take, for example, “The NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund.” It’s a pro–gun rights legal fund “involved in court cases establishing legal precedents in favor of gun owners.”
And who helps pick which impact-litigation cases the NRA will become involved with? Folks like James W. Porter II, a board member of the NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund, who doubles as an attorney whose private firm specializes in “areas of products liability defense of firearms manufacturers.” His last client, according to a search of the federal court docket, was Smith & Wesson Corporation.
Is the NRA working for casual gun-owners, many of whom, according to polling, support tougher restrictions on gun ownership— or is the NRA serving the gunmaker lobby— which is purely interested in policies that will promote greater gun sales and more profits? Any gun control policy debate should begin with this question.
The NRA never walks alone. Read John Nichols on ALEC's efforts to thwart honest gun policy debate.Coordinates:
The Newport Transporter Bridge (Welsh: Pont Gludo Casnewydd) is a transporter bridge that crosses the River Usk in Newport, South East Wales. The bridge is the lowest crossing on the River Usk. It is a Grade I listed structure.
It is one of fewer than 10 transporter bridges that remain in use worldwide; only a few dozen were ever built. It is the only operational transporter bridge in Britain apart from the Tees Transporter Bridge.
History [ edit ]
The bridge was designed by French engineer Ferdinand Arnodin. It was built in 1906 and opened by Godfrey Charles Morgan, 1st Viscount Tredegar, on 12 September 1906.[1]
Newport Museum holds a silver cigar cutter which was presented to Viscount Tredegar on the day of the opening, as a memento of the occasion.[2]
Reason for the transporter design [ edit ]
The design was chosen because the river banks are very low at the desired crossing point (a few miles south of the city centre) where an ordinary bridge would need a very long approach ramp to attain sufficient height to allow ships to pass under, and a ferry could not be used during low tide at the site.[3]
Principal dimensions [ edit ]
A Corporation of Newport drawing dated December 1902 is calibrated in metres. The height of the towers is 73.6 metres (241.5 ft), and the height to the underside of the main girder truss above the road level is 49.97 m (163.9 ft). The span between the centres of the towers is 196.56 m (644.9 ft), and the clearance between the towers is quoted as being 180.44 m (592.0 ft); however, including the cantilevered sections, the main girder truss gives the bridge an overall length of 236 m (774.3 ft). The distance between the centres of the anchorage caissons is 471.06 m (1,545.5 ft). Power to propel the transporter platform or gondola is provided by two 35 hp (26.1 kW) electric motors, which in turn drive a large winch, situated in an elevated winding house at the eastern end of the bridge. This winch is sufficient to drive the gondola through its 196.56 m (644.9 ft) total travel at a speed of 3 metres per second (9.8 ft/s)[citation needed].
This is the oldest and largest of the three historic transporter bridges which remain in Britain, and also the largest of |
guarantee an open intellectual space for all students.
At a time of increased political tension in the country, it is also important for colleges to push students to learn how to grapple with different views. It was Mario Savio, the socialist leader of Berkeley’s free speech movement in the 1960s, who argued that the university should be an intellectual realm where the “hard light of free inquiry” can be brought upon any and all ideas — be they liberal or conservative.Leonard says wealthy should pay higher taxes on land and buildings, and richest 1% should pay one-off windfall tax
Richard Leonard, the new Scottish Labour leader, has signalled in his first policy speech that he wants to see higher taxes on wealthy property owners to fund public services.
Richard Leonard wins Scottish Labour leadership in decisive victory Read more
With the UK party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, by his side, Leonard said he believed the wealthy should pay higher taxes on their land and buildings and there should be a one-off wealth tax for the richest 1%.
He announced the formation of a party commission to review possible wholesale reforms of Scotland’s income and property taxation system, from council tax through to inherited wealth, which is due to report by next summer.
“The richest 1% in Scotland today already own more personal wealth than the poorest 50% put together,” Leonard told a party event in Glasgow. “This is unjust. This needs to change.”
A former GMB political officer, Leonard won the Scottish Labour leadership contest comfortably against his centrist rival, Anas Sarwar, after being backed heavily by pro-Corbyn union leaders and Corbyn’s allies.
While the tensions between Labour’s leftwingers and its centrists are far less pronounced at Holyrood than at Westminster, the leadership campaign quickly became caught up in the struggle for overall control of Labour at UK level.
In an implicit criticism of Scottish Labour’s previously centrist positioning under Kezia Dugdale, whose sudden resignation in August led to the Scottish leadership vacancy, Corbyn stressed the case for unity between the UK and Scottish parties.
“Now our whole party and movement must campaign together to inspire people in every nation and region of the UK to have the confidence to be a country that genuinely cares for all,” he said. Leonard’s victory was “a turning point for our party in Scotland,” Corbyn added.
In a further sign that he plans sweeping and potentially radical changes to Scottish Labour’s policy platform, Leonard said there would be 12 policy reviews ranging from climate change policy to social care and the NHS, renationalising water and rail, to housing and child poverty.
There are few specific details so far on Leonard’s tax plans. Sarwar wrong-footed him in the final stages of the leadership campaign by calling for a new 50p top tax band on those earning over £100,000, Leonard responded by suggesting a windfall tax on the wealthy and two new tax bands.
The Scottish government said at the time that Leonard’s plan to raise about £3.7bn from a one-off windfall tax of 1% on the wealthiest 10% in Scotland would need consent from Westminster.
Leonard’s immediate challenge is to respond to a request from Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, that opposition parties at Holyrood suggest changes to Scotland’s income tax before her government’s draft budget is published on 14 December.
He is expected to stick to Scottish Labour’s existing policy, supporting reintroduction of the 50p top rate for those earning over £150,000 along with a 1p rise in all other bands. The Scottish government’s own data shows this would raise more than any other proposals.
However, Leonard’s speech – in which he again accused Sturgeon of managing austerity rather than fighting it – suggested it would be only an interim measure. His proposals involve significantly higher spending than Scottish Labour has suggested previously.
Using the phrase “real change” 15 times in his speech, he confirmed he wanted to see far greater central planning from the government around economic investment, energy strategy and climate change.
With Dugdale in Australia competing in the ITV reality show I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here, Leonard launched an implicit attack on the Dugdale era by concluding: “Scottish Labour has a new unity of purpose. Scottish Labour has changed, and now we are determined to change Scotland.”First of all, I must give credit to @BoilerMelissa on Twitter for drawing my attention to this. As I mentioned earlier today, Micah Shrewsberry has left the program to become an assistant under Brad Stevens for the Boston Celtics. There are now rumors that his position on the men's basketball staff has been filled, and by one of the all-time most beloved players in program history.
Yes, Brian Cardinal could possibly be coming back to Purdue as an assistant coach. How do we know? First, there is his official Twitter:
Well then... That was an interesting phone call! — Brian Cardinal (@BrianCardinal) July 11, 2013
Then Tony Barone, an assistant with the Memphis Grizzlies when Cardinal played there had this to say:
Happy as hell for my boy cardinal — tony barone (@tonybarone4) July 12, 2013
I will officially be a boiler fan now! — tony barone (@tonybarone4) July 12, 2013
What does this mean now? Barone is currently the Director of Player Personnel after serving as interim coach in 2006-07 (while Cardinal was playing in Memphis). He would have a close relationship with Brian and possibly know something we don't. He was also with Brian at Wrigley Field tonight if you look at both Brian and Tony's Twitter feeds.
A lot of signs point to the Custodian becoming an assistant under coach Painter. This is great for multiple reasons:
He is a Purdue LEGEND that will sell the program.
He can promote heart and hustle, which is the hallmark of Purdue basketball.
He can point out that his heart and hustle lead to an lengthy NBA career where he earned almost $40 million and an NBA Championship ring.
He earned almost $40 million in the NBA, so we don't need to break the bank for him and the expanded resources for assistant can be used if someone else leaves.
He is GUARANTEED A STANDING OVATION AT THE HOME OPENER because of what he has done for the program.
Brian is also a reader of the blog here, as he even called me personally last year to discuss something on the site. I even got in a pickup game once with him at the Co-Rec when I was a freshman, so if he is officially coming home (and he has been working with the athletic department unofficially for awhile) Let's welcome him home.Jayden Short was penalised for deliberate out of bounds late against the Bulldogs
THE CONTENTIOUS deliberate out-of-bounds rule has been "important to the quality of football", says AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan after another weekend of confusion surrounding its interpretation.
The rule came under fire again at the weekend in decisions involving Greater Western Sydney's Callan Ward and Richmond's Jayden Short.
Short was penalised in the dying stages of Saturday night's five-point loss to the Western Bulldogs when he fumbled the ball over the line, a decision McLachlan indicated was wrong.
"When I first saw it, I thought it was deliberate but when you look close in slow motion, he fumbled it," McLachlan said on Monday, at the launch of the Country Festival that will feature Saturday night's Essendon-Geelong match as its showpiece.
"It's a tough job, umpiring."
But while McLachlan acknowledged there were "a couple of mistakes" across round seven, the game was better for the shift in the rule.
"I think we are not talking about the important role the rule changes have made to the quality of the game," he said.
"The football is exceptional at the moment: high-scoring, entertaining, the crowds are fantastic and the ratings are fantastic.
"I want to congratulate the boldness of the rules committee to make the changes they have to keep our game relevant to everyone in 2017.
"When you make change, there's always challenges with that but I think the rule has been important to the quality of footy."
He added that he believed there was a "solid expectation" on how the rule was interpreted, and that people generally understood it.
On Saturday night, Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge compared its application to an episode of 1970s sitcom Fawlty Towers, after the League last week re-framed its language around the rule to include the words "insufficient intent".
But McLachlan maintained the game was in excellent shape.
"I think that it was an extraordinary weekend of football, the first time since 1975 that every team who was low-ranked in each game beat the high-ranked team," he said.
"Football is going really well, so in the absence of other noise, we focus on two mistakes.
"There is always some mistakes, and I think the respect for umpires is an incredibly important part of our game at a community level and the elite level. They do a very tough job.
"I think that the umpiring was excellent on the weekend."Barack Obama just became the first sitting president to publish a scholarly article.
The article, titled "United States Health Care Reform: Progress to Date and Next Steps," with "Barack Obama, JD" listed as the author, was published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (known as JAMA) on July 11.
It's a pretty badass move for a president, and he got a lot of love on Twitter with the hashtag #ObamaJAMA.
Obama has an article in a peer-reviewed journal. Wonder what he'll do when not "tied up" being prez... #OBAMAJAMAhttp://fortune.com/2016/07/11/obama-jama/?xid=for_fb_sh...
Every thing this man does just adds to his greatness @BarackObama #ObamaJama
A gentleman and a scholar #obamajama
What's in the article
Basically, Obama is laying out how the next president could continue to improve health care. Obama recommends things like lowering the cost of prescription drugs and making a "public option" available for people buying health care coverage as a cheaper alternative to buying coverage from private companies.
Keep in mind the article isn't marked as peer-reviewed, though it did go through extensive fact checking and editing, Forbes reported.
"While we of course recognized the author is the president of the United States, JAMA has enormously high standards and we certainly expected the president to meet those standards," Howard Bauchner, JAMA's editor-in-chief, told Bloomberg in an interview.
Defending Obamacare
In the article, Obama lays out a rigorous defense of the Affordable Care Act and how much progress we've made.
"Since the ACA became law, the uninsured rate has declined by 43%, from 16.0% in 2010 to 9.1% in 2015," Obama wrote.
But the work is far from done. "Despite this progress, too many Americans still strain to pay for their physician visits and prescriptions, cover their deductibles, or pay their monthly insurance bills; struggle to navigate a complex, sometimes bewildering system; and remain uninsured," wrote the president.
The future of health care under Clinton or Trump
Obama recommends future policies that will expand the Affordable Care Act, make prescriptions less expensive and introduce a public option plan for health insurance.
Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton seems more in-tune with Obama's health care policies and has thrown her support behind expanding taxpayer-funded insurance options. Presidential candidate Donald Trump has vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act if elected.Music and dance are far from idle pastimes. They are universal forms of expression and deeply rewarding activities that fulfil diverse social functions. Both feature in all the world’s cultures and throughout history.
A common feature of music and dance is rhythmic movement, which is often timed with a regular pulse-like beat. But the human capacity for rhythm presents something of a puzzle.
Even though rhythmic coordination seems fundamental to human nature, people vary widely in ability. Some have the machine-like precision of Michael Jackson, others are closer to the case of “beat-deaf” Mathieu.
What are the underlying causes of these individual differences? By looking at the way the brain responds to rhythm, we can begin to understand why many of us can’t help but to move to a beat.
Power of rhythm
Rhythm is a powerful force. It can regulate mood, ranging from the arousing effect of pounding war drums to the pacifying effect of gently rocking a baby. It can even induce altered states of consciousness, as in spiritual rituals and shamanic traditions involving trance.
Rhythm and music can also be used for therapeutic purposes in the rehabilitation of conditions characterised by motor impairment, such as stroke and Parkinson’s disease.
Even more fundamentally, rhythmic skills displayed in the context of music and dance may have been essential to our evolution as a species.
In The Descent of Man (1871), Charles Darwin mused that:
it appears probable that the progenitors of man, either the males or females or both sexes, before acquiring the power of expressing their mutual love in articulate language, endeavoured to charm each other with musical notes and rhythm.
Rhythmically coordinated body movements may function similarly to fuel sexual attraction by providing an “honest” signal (one that can’t be faked) of an individual’s health and fitness.
Outside the competitive arena of finding a mate, coordinating with others through music and dance facilitates social cohesion by promoting interpersonal bonding, trust, and cooperation.
These prosocial effects of music and dance may have contributed to the flourishing of human culture by preventing the disintegration of early societies into antisocial mobs.
Today, they remain potent enough to be relied on, even in maximum security prisons.
Entrainment
But if music and dancing are so universal, why are some people simply unable to hold a rhythm?
The key to answering this question lies in how the human brain locks onto rhythms in the external environment, and how this process of “neural entrainment” supports the coordination of body movements.
Neural entrainment occurs when regular sensory input, like music with a clear beat, triggers periodic bursts of synchronised brain activity. This periodic activity can continue independently of external rhythmic input due to interactions between already excited neurons. It is as if they expect the sensory input to continue.
Entrainment can thus enhance processing of incoming information by allocating neural resources to the right place at the right time. When performing or dancing to music, entrainment allows the timing of upcoming beats to be predicted.
A recent study on individual differences in rhythmic skill identified relationships between the strength of neural entrainment and the capacity to synchronise movements with musical rhythms.
We measured entrainment to the underlying beat in two types of rhythm using electroencephalography (EEG), a technique where electrical signals reflecting neural activity are recorded via electrodes placed on the head.
One rhythm had a regular beat marked by periodically occurring sound onsets. The other was a relatively complex and jazzier “syncopated” rhythm in which sound onsets were not present on all beats: some were marked by silence.
Results indicated that the strength of neural entrainment was related to people’s ability to move in synchrony with the beat. Individuals with strong neural responses were more accurate at tapping a finger in time with the beat of the two rhythms.
We also found individual differences in brain responses to the two rhythms. While some individuals showed a large difference between strength of entrainment for the regular rhythm versus the syncopated rhythm, others showed only a small difference.
In other words: some people required external physical stimulation to perceive the beat, whereas others were able to generate the beat internally.
Remarkably, people who were good at internally generating beats also performed well on a synchronisation task that required them to predict tempo changes in musical sequences.
So the capacity for internal beat generation turns out to be a reliable marker of rhythmic skill. This adds new meaning to Miles Davis’ reported maxim that “in music, silence is more important than sound”.
But we still don’t know why individual differences in the strength of neural entrainment occur in the first place. They may reflect the efficiency of neural responses at early levels of auditory processing, such as brainstem responses. Or the degree of connectivity between higher-level auditory and motor cortical regions.
Another open question is whether rhythmic skills can be boosted by recent advances in neuroscience. Brain stimulation techniques that induce neural synchrony at specific frequencies provide a promising method for enhancing entrainment and thereby improving an individual’s capacity for rhythm.Rated 5 out of 5 by Chris from TFM Boat Shoes are definitely the top of the casual shoe game for those that hate socks. These classics will not disapoint and come in at a great value. Be prepared to ask young women to stay away.
Rated 1 out of 5 by hugepark from Not BROWN -- these are SAHARA color (light tan) These shoes, although labeled on this website as "Brown", are actually the color named "Sahara" which is much lighter than what is pictured. If the website properly showed them as "Sahara" I would have looked at other websites and photos online to make sure of the color.The strange part is that my confirmation email AFTER ordering the shoes called them "Brown/Sahara". Not sure why they couldn't just put that up-front.I returned them without issue at the store.
Rated 5 out of 5 by Scottyo from Replacing 20-yr old pair I'm very pleased with these shoes, though they're a bit pricey. They're replacing (augmenting, I still use the old ones for messy stuff, the new for more dressy) a 20-year old pair that are beat-up but still serviceable.There was a bit of a pinch from the upper of the left shoe at first, but a few hours in a good shooe-tree got rid of most of that; I had a fairly long break-in because of that pinch, but now I'm good to go for hours of wearing them.Recommended
Rated 5 out of 5 by Blaze from I would buy this product again. I have owned these for over two years. I wear them constantly inside and out. I work in them and am on my feet constantly. The soles show very little wear,the leather uppers are still in perfect shape. All eyelets are still intact. You just don't find this kind of quality anymore. I am a leather worker so I know quality leather when I see it. I only have oiled these three times in the time that I have owned them and that is abuse. They're just like new.
Rated 5 out of 5 by Ted from As Expected Sperry makes a superior product, period. I had to replace my previous pair, not because they had worn out, but because my feet got bigger (it happens as you age!) My only slight disappointment is in the color. Online it looks to be more of a caramel color, which I have always associated as being the original Sperry boat shoe color. In fact the color is more on the tan side.
Rated 3 out of 5 by JTD from Sizing different from past experience I have bought 2 exact pairs of this model and color from Sperry in the past 6 years. I always wore the same size and width and they fit perfectly. This pair was much smaller so had to return them. Quality was fine, but. Receommend Sperry for sure, but if you havent ordered in awhile, go to the store and try them on first.
Rated 5 out of 5 by Boat and casual from Great Shoes These are standard Sperry topsiders. Great fit; great construction; just plain good shoes.[...]I believe these shoes may run a bit large as far as sizing. The fit is proportional, but I did end keeping a half size smaller than I regularly wear in other shoes. [...]$1.2M project to offer improved east and west connections, access to jobs.
– The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority today broke ground on what will soon become the new Oakley Transit Center.Located at the intersection of Marburg and Ibsen, the transit center will provide improved connections and amenities to make using public transit more convenient. It will feature four boarding bays, designated off-street park & ride spaces for commuters, enhanced transit shelters, streetscaping, wayfinding, a ticket vending machine and real-time information screens.The Oakley area represents approximately 7,100 jobs and is home to several major retailers including the world’s second largest Kroger, making it the ideal transit center location.“As we work to reinvent Metro, this is the perfect opportunity for us to enhance the transit experience for the many customers living and working in this area and to attract even more riders,” said Metro CEO & General Manager Dwight A. Ferrell. “The Oakley Transit Center will offer more convenient connections between five major Metro routes in addition to providing improved access to employment opportunities, medical services, shopping and entertainment in the area.”The Oakley Transit Center will be served by two crosstown routes, the 41 and 51, connecting the east and west sides of town; two local routes, the 4 and 11; and one express route, the 12X, with service into downtown Cincinnati.The project was designed by the Transportation Planning and Urban Design section of the City of Cincinnati’s Department of Transportation and Engineering. The Oakley Transit Center is expected to be completed this winter.The $1.2 million Oakley Transit Center project is funded through a Federal Surface Transportation Program grant and local match funds. Project partners include the Ohio Department of Transportation, OKI Regional Council of Governments, and the City of Cincinnati.Metro is a non-profit public service of the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority, providing about 15 million rides per year in Greater Cincinnati.Lately I have become newly aware of how many parents, particularly (but not exclusively) Christian ones, are extremely uncomfortable with the fact that one of their children happens to be gay. I used to be one of those parents, but am no longer; instead I find myself in the very odd and ironic position of being envious of them.
I have come to the conclusion that it is a luxury to have things to complain about. It is a gift to have something to give away or even reject. If you chat with someone who has been unemployed for months, you won't find them complaining about the bad dental benefits at their last employer.
When I talk with parents who have recently buried their infant daughter, I never hear them complain about sleepless nights up with their crying toddler. A friend of ours who spent years living on the streets of Seattle knows that he is more than fortunate to have found affordable housing. He wouldn't dream of noticing the features in his apartment that aren't exactly to his liking. It seems to me that it is those of us who have much who also have the extravagance of trivial grievances.
I think parents with gay kids are richly blessed. They have the luxury of being able to choose whether or not to love their gay child, because they have a gay child. But for those of us whose gay children have died, most frequently from the scourge of AIDS, the horrors of addiction or the tragedy of suicide, we no longer have that luxury.
When we hear of parents who have told their lesbian daughter that she is no longer welcome to come for Thanksgiving, of the transgender son whose mother refuses to acknowledge him as part of the family, or of the gay teen whose parents repeatedly remind him that he is headed for Hell, we experience a plethora of acute emotions: shock, astonishment, envy, confusion, anger, and sometimes even rage.
I have to be honest and say that if I had come across these words -- my words -- six or seven years ago, I would probably have felt defensive and upset. I might have stopped reading. But it would have been to my peril. Back then, I needed someone with perspective and wisdom to say the hard but true things. I needed someone who had compassion for my fear and grief to help me figure out why I was so scared, sad and deeply bothered by the thought of our son having a boyfriend.
Sadly, in the first years after Ryan came out, I let my fear keep me from understanding, cherishing and embracing my son. Instead of protecting him, as I intended, my fear and reluctance backfired, causing a far greater danger and crisis than any I had ever imagined. This is not just our story; I have heard from hundreds of men and women whose experiences of rejection and alienation from family members have sparked downward spirals of depression, addiction and despair.
I wish someone had told me what I did not know: that having a living, breathing gay child who challenged me and caused me to be uncomfortable and uneasy, and whose desires caused me to lose sleep at night because of fear and worry, was vastly, immeasurably, infinitely better than having a gay child who is dead.
No more challenges. No more discomfort. No more worries. At least not the kind we used to have. Instead, all those relatively insignificant emotions were replaced by overwhelming sorrow, paralyzing grief and crushing regrets.
While your child (whether 14 or 49) is still alive, please treasure the fact that you have the luxury of having an LGBTQ child to enjoy, to love and to learn from. Please don't take that gift for granted. It is a privilege that far too many of us will never have again.
While your child is still alive, join a support group for parents of LGBTQ kids. Read books written by gay "children." Make friends with people who are gay, and ask them lots of questions. Let them teach you.
While your child is still alive, take advantage of every single chance you get to tell him that you love him just the way he is.
While your child is still alive, call her and invite her over for dinner, and ask her to please bring her girlfriend.
While your child is still alive, ask them if you've done anything that has been hurtful, so that you have the chance to say, "I'm so sorry. Please forgive me."
While your child is still alive, reassure her that God adores her and wants a relationship with her. God doesn't only love straight and cisgender* people. He loves every one of His children, all of whom are fearfully and wonderfully made.
While your child is still alive, remember that actions speak louder than words. If you say, "I love you so much," but you don't attend their wedding, they probably will be tempted to call bullshit the next time you remind them that you love them.
While your child is still alive, don't worry about what your friends will think. Twenty years from now, your friends' opinions won't keep you up at night. But your remorse about not loving your child while you still had the chance will. Trust me on this.
While your child is still alive, don't miss an opportunity -- not even one -- to get to know each of the people your child loves, her world, her passions and her dreams. Adore your child, just like you did when he was small. Take lots of pictures. Make more memories than your heart can hold. Soak up every single moment you get with her.
While your child is still alive, make sure that they aren't living in shame because of who they are. Shame causes us to keep secrets, hide and run from God and others. God calls us with kindness. God delights in us. God is not ashamed to call any of His children His own. He loves us unconditionally because He is God, and God is love.
While your child is still alive, please do all these things and more. We who visit the gravestones of our gay children would give everything that we have to do just one of them.
Once you have lost a child, you get to know lots of other parents who have lost children. Many of our friends had a healthy, thriving child one minute, and the next minute they were gone, in an instant, without warning or a chance to say goodbye. We never know how long we will have our children; today could be your last chance to love your child while he or she is still alive.
I have heard a lot of Christian parents say, "I love my kid, but I don't have to like what he is doing. Don't expect me to go marching in any of those darn Pride parades." I get that; there were many years when that would have been far too difficult for me, in spite of my fierce love for my son. But don't give up trying to get to know your child, learning to love him of her fully, and allowing yourself to feel uncomfortable for the sake of communicating unconditional love.
Learning to love is a task for a lifetime. We get to spend our whole lives learning to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and learning to love our neighbors as ourselves.
I am regularly reminded that when Jesus walked the Earth, He was continually doing stuff that made the religious people say that he was a heretic and a blasphemer. He was continually hanging out with and loving the people whom the religious people condemned. He was continually causing scandals.
So what would Jesus do? Jesus would make those religious people angry by heading right down to the part of town where all the gay people live and causing an enormous scandal by marching in their parade, sharing a meal with them and making sure that they knew that they are loved.
So while your child is still alive, reconsider marching with them in that parade. It might just save their life -- and yours, too.
*A cisgender person is someone who identifies with the gender/sex that they were assigned at birth. For example, if your birth certificate says "female" and you identify as a woman, then you are cisgender.
Read more about how God taught these evangelical parents how to truly love their gay son here on The Huffington Post.Last year’s Royal Rumble felt like an event out of some bizarro wrestling world. For weeks, rumors circulated that WWE had re-signed Batista from retirement and promised that he’d win the Rumble and headline WrestleMania. It made a certain kind of sense — Batista was once one of WWE’s biggest stars, and he was seven months away from appearing in a Hollywood blockbuster. That mix of wrestling and mainstream stardom had worked for the Rock, who left for film and would receive the rapturous approval of fans anytime he returned to the ring.
But Batista wasn’t the Rock. And more than that, he was not Daniel Bryan, the underdog whose semi-real-life story line was the fans’ cause of the day. When Batista jogged out during the Rumble, and when Rey Mysterio came out at no. 30, ensuring that Bryan would not appear in the match (and thus would have no chance to headline WrestleMania), the fans should have cheered two long-serving babyfaces. But instead they revolted. They showered boos on Batista and Mysterio and WWE in general. Batista appeared shaken as he celebrated his win. He’d been an eight-year pro, and he’d never seen anything like this before. After leaving in 2010, he had no idea he’d come back to an entirely new world. If it were a Star Wars movie, it would have been called Mutiny of the Smarks.
Sunday night in Philadelphia, fans got the sequel to that disaster, this time starring Roman Reigns in the role of Batista. Rumors abounded that WWE planned to have Reigns win the Rumble almost from the moment Reigns’s solo career began. At first, the idea didn’t seem terrible: Bryan was injured last April and hadn’t wrestled for months, John Cena’s reign at the top felt beyond stale, and fans craved a new generation of stars. That next generation was embodied in the Shield, a trio made up of Reigns, Seth Rollins, and Dean Ambrose. Once WWE split them up (a ploy that helped make up for Bryan’s absence), all three were set to see their stars rise. And Reigns was supposed to shine brightest.
Let’s get this out of the way: One year ago, Roman Reigns was insanely over. When the Shield and the Wyatt Family had their first stare-down, Reigns stood toe-to-toe with Bray Wyatt, and that felt right. At the same Rumble where Batista was booed, the next most important story line was the dominance of Reigns, who set a WWE record by eliminating 12 competitors. He wasn’t as gifted a talker as Ambrose and lacked the ring acumen of Rollins, but nobody could deny Reigns’s star power. But rather than let Reigns develop into a headliner, WWE heard the cheers and decided to shove him straight into the spotlight, readiness be damned. Reigns would be fast-tracked to become the company’s new superman, no matter how fans reacted. Sunday’s debacle was inevitable. On the night that the fans rejected WWE’s plans for Batista and Bryan so forcefully that they changed the company’s narrative over the next several months, WWE failed to grasp the larger point: Fans won’t like somebody just because WWE tells them to. The “suspension of disbelief” is one of the most central ideas of modern pro wrestling — you have to give yourself over to the show, to accept its intrinsic limitations and allow yourself to enjoy it. But WWE has taken this to a whole new level — it convinced itself that fans will love Reigns in the face of so much evidence to the contrary.
So when the rumors began last fall that Reigns was in line for a Mania push, fans started grumbling. It wasn’t a knock on Reigns, but a knock on WWE for repeatedly pushing musclebound mediocrities who never seemed to amount to more than pale imitations of the Rock. Rather than build Reigns into a title-caliber wrestler and a character people cared about, it let him coast on the Shield’s laurels — he kept their theme song and costume, while Rollins and Ambrose evolved into new, fuller characters. Reigns was kept in a risk-free holding pattern until the Rumble rolled around. WWE seemed so afraid of messing with his success that it didn’t do anything interesting with him. When Reigns went out with a hernia last fall, it felt like a blessing. He could be spared WWE’s railroading routine and then repositioned into a more fitting role. For fans, the injury appeared to be a welcome escape from being force-fed another artificial star. But then Reigns returned, was rushed into a feud with the Big Show, and, with exactly one singles matche under his belt, booked for WrestleMania as the new wrestling messiah. For many fans who weren’t thrilled about Reigns’s WrestleMania destiny to begin with, the injury made it worse. Not only did they prefer other wrestlers, but now Reigns’s limited experience and months of inactivity would prevent him from living up to the moment, skill-wise. His victory at the Rumble makes him an even stronger symbol of WWE’s blinkered intractability than Batista was a year ago — and that’s saying a lot.
So at Sunday’s Rumble, when Reigns’s impending victory became obvious, the crowd turned on him. Loudly. So loudly that WWE edited the boos out of re-broadcasts of the event and announcer Michael Cole was later forced to call the event “controversial” — a bit of doublespeak used whenever a story line or character utterly fails (and often applied to Cena in his most despised moments). On Monday, with Raw canceled in Connecticut because of snow, WWE aired a studio show with replayed matches from the night before and new interviews with its biggest stars. Reigns maintained a low-key vibe, a sharp reversal from the corny promos he had been cutting over the past month.
In his promo, Reigns tried to acknowledge the animosity toward him and strike a go-getter tone: “If I was handpicked by the higher-ups, I guess I’d have to say thanks for the opportunity. But it’s an opportunity. You still have to go out there and capitalize, you have to deliver … you have to go out there and take advantage.” Reigns mentioned his family, a who’s-who of Samoan wrestlers. More than anything, though, Reigns seemed slightly shell-shocked from the previous night. And who wouldn’t be? When Vince McMahon told him the plan for the Rumble, I’m sure “they’re going to fucking hate it” was never part of the pitch. The saving grace of Monday’s show was when Brock Lesnar’s “advocate,” Paul Heyman, took over the interviewer’s duties and conferred some history and significance upon the title match. And most importantly, Heyman’s spiel allowed Reigns to be the character who had been so popular a year ago — steely, silent, and ambiguous.
It made sense that WWE was trying to win back the fans who had revolted the previous night, but Reigns’s reversal in tone, from the way he’d been presenting himself in previous weeks, was shocking. His volume was down and his humility and heritage were on display. He was almost likable. This was the fix WWE settled on — but it’s what it needed from the start. If this turns out to be a Band-Aid that gets replaced by further tone-deaf mythmaking for Reigns, then the fan reaction will be relentless. If it’s an indication that WWE is trying something different with Reigns’s character, then there’s some hope. If not, he risks dragging Heyman down with him, just like he did with the Rock.
An about-face worked last year with Bryan, who went from being perennially “buried” to full-fledged World Heavyweight Champion status before his injury. WWE would like you to think it had planned that outcome all along, and that leaving Bryan out of last year’s Rumble was an inspired feat of misdirection. The debate over Bryan is whether WWE was actively trying to hold him down before fan outrage forced it to include him in the WrestleMania main event, or if it was playing the fans all along. But the difference between those competing theories is less significant than it seems. Every wrestling story line is in some way a reaction to the fans, and it’s foolish to demonize WWE for finally listening to its audience. The problem is that it spent months ignoring and discounting the groundswell behind Bryan, just like it ignored the negative response Reigns had been getting in recent weeks.
The fans who booed Sunday’s Rumble weren’t simply agitating on behalf of Bryan, whose long-awaited return was greeted with swift elimination from the match. They were mad about all the fan favorites — Bryan, Dolph Ziggler, Ambrose, Cesaro, even Wyatt — who were treated as mere cogs in the Roman Reigns elevation machine. What’s at stake is more than just booing a character they aren’t fond of. Many fans feel ostracized from the product, having spent the last decade bored by the sovereignty of Cena. Now they look at Reigns and see Cena being created all over again, with even less emphasis on wrestling ability and coherent storytelling. The fans see this and they’re desperate to prevent it from happening. If WWE is dead set on re-creating the past 10 years instead of offering something fresh, then wrestling fans will do whatever they can to change the course of history.
WWE
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new context is created when the call is ended, the execution context associated with that call is destroyed
eval code running an eval() command creates a new execution context using eval() is not recommended in general due to performance and possible security issues, therefore I will ignore it for the rest of the article
Every execution context has associated a variable object which all of its variables and function exist – is not accessible by code but it’s used behind the scenes to handle data.
Execution flow in Javascript
The execution flow in JS behaves like a stack. At the bottom of the stack is always the global context. The global context will be destroyed only when the program is ended.
Every time a new function is called, a new context is created and add it on top of the stack. It will remain there until the execution of that function is ended. At any point in time, in stack will be the functions which are called and haven’t finish execution yet.
Let’s see an example:
function printer(index) { if (index == 0) { return; } printer(index-1); console.log(index); } function main(index) { printer(index); } main(2);
How the execution flow will look when this code is executed?
since the program starts and until calling the main(2) function we have only the global context in the stack
when calling main(2), another context is added on top
inside the main function, we called the printer function so we add a new context on top
we entered the printer function, we pass the if (since index is 2 in this case) and move on to find another call of the printer -> another context is created
!!! a new context is created even the function calls itself – because the context is link to the function call, not the function itself
the printer function is called this time with the index = 1, so in the new context, index will be 1
the printer function is called this time with the index = 1, so in the new context, index will be 1 we call the printer again with index 0 -> new context is created
this time, when reaching the if (index == 0) statement, the function returns, so the stack pops the last entry
we go back to printer function where index is 1 and index is printed
execution is over in this function as well, so the context is pop
we are now in the first call of function printer, with index = 2
2 is printed and the function ends -> we go back to main
we print the value of index from main, which is 2 and the call ends
the global execution is the only one left after the main is finished – this will pe pop only when the program itself is terminated
When a function is declared with var is added to the most immediate context available. In a function, that would be function local context.
No block level context
One of the main sources of confusion regarding execution context is the fact that JS doesn’t have block level execution context. For example, in other main stream languages – C++, Java, C# -, if you would declare a variable inside a for (or while, or if or any block), that variable would not be accessible after the for block ends (belongs to the scope of that block). This is not the case in JS hence the possible confusion at (5) in the example above.
EcmaScript2015 introduces the keyword let which declares a variable visible only in that block. Variables declared by let have as their scope the block in which they are defined, as well as in any contained sub-blocks. In this way, let works very much like var. The main difference is that the scope of a var variable is the entire enclosing function.
function varTest ( ) { var x = 1 ; if ( true ) { var x = 2 ; console. log ( x ) ; } console. log ( x ) ; } function letTest ( ) { let x = 1 ; if ( true ) { let x = 2 ; console. log ( x ) ; } console. log ( x ) ; }
Variable scope
The scope determines the accessibility (visibility) of a variable. In Javascript, there are 2 types of scope:
global – the exterior code
– the exterior code local – inside a function
Whenever a function is called, a new scope is created. Local variables have local scope: They can only be accessed within the function.
When a variable is declared using var, is automatically added to the most immediate scope available. In a function, the most immediate one would be to function’s local context. Since local variables are only recognized inside their functions, variables with the same name can be used in different functions.
Each function has its own scope, and any variable declared within that function is only accessible to that function. However, a global variable can be used inside a function, unless another variable with the same identifier is used in that function.
But what happens if we have a nested function? Let’s see an example:
var global = 1; var mainVariable = 0; function main() { var mainVariable = 2; function nested() { var nestedVariable = 3; console.log(nestedVariable); console.log(mainVariable); console.log(global); } nested(); } main();
When we run this program, it will print 1 2 and 3. We can see that the nested function has access to the globalVariable and the mainVariable from main(), even though they don’t belong to the same context. How is that possible? The answer is scope chain.
Scope chain
When code is executed in a context, a scope chain of variable is created. The purpose of the scope chain is to provide ordered access to all variables and function than en execution context has access to. The front of the scope chain is always the variable object of the context whose code is executing. The back of the scope chain is always the global scope (to whom anyone has access to).
In this example, when we reach the console.log statements, we have the following scope chain:
global scope -> main() function scope -> nested() function scope
In the nested function we have access to all variables from main() and global. However, this can’t go other way around. Main cannot see the variables inside nested. This is a very powerful feature.
Whenever encounters an identifier, the JS engine search for it in the entire block chain, starting with the most recent one in the chain. This process is called variable lookup. Let’s see it in action for the example above
console.log(nestedVariable); the JS engine looks for the identifier ‘nestedVariable’ in the nested() function scope first – it finds it there and use it for printing
console.log(mainVariable) we look for the mainVariable name in nested() scope – nothing there we look for it in the next scope in chain – main() scope – and it’s there
You may notice here that in the block chain there is another variable named mainVariable (in the global scope). However, that variable is unreachable from nested() function and main().
!! The variable lookup ends when the first identifier is found. If you declared a variable locally with the same name as a global one, you will loose access to the global one
console.log(globalVariable) no identifier found on nested() scope no identifier fount on main() scope the identifier is found in the global scope
If the JS engine reaches the end of the scope chain and still couldn’t find a matching name, it returns undefined.
Variable Hosting
Let’s go back to the first example of the article. What happened at print number (2)?
The variable is declared globally and is declared again inside the function one line bellow. However, the result is undefined.
The short answer is: variable hosting. As we already stated before, if we declare a variable with var inside a function, it will be attached to the local scope and we won’t have access to the global variable with the same name anymore.
Hoisting is JavaScript’s default behavior of moving all declarations to the top of the current scope (to the top of the current script or the current function). So it doesn’t matter where inside a function we declare a variable, the variable belongs to that scope from the beginning of execution context.
However, JavaScript only hoists declarations, not initializations. So until an explicit add a value to that variable, it will be undefined.
In that example, we are using myString in the first line of function f(). We know the myString was hoisted, so it belongs to the f() scope. At variable lookup, the identifier it’s found there. Because an explicit value was not added to it there, it’s still undefined.
Conclusion
And that was it. We had passed the first real challenge in this roadmap.
I know a lot of developers that complain about Javascript being weird and unpredictable. This is because they assume that JS should behave exactly like other languages – especially Java -. There are some core differences between these 2 and what we have discussed in this article is one of them. Once you understand these core concepts, the rest will be a piece of cake.
Now let’s look again at the first example. Things should make sense now:
1. "I'm outside" // variable from global scope 2. undefined // hoisted local variable from function scope // the value is not added yet, so it's undefined 3. "I'm in function" // same variable as above, but this time a // value was explicitly added 4. "I'm in for" // same local variable, initialized again 5. "I'm in for" // since we don't have block level scope, the same // local variable is printed 6. "I'm outside" // the variable from the global scope again (like 1)
Further reading:
Scotch.io Understanding scope in javascript
ryanmorr.com: Understanding scope and context in javascript
Javascriptissexy.com Variable scope and hoisting explained
Thank you for your time!
Please subscribe for more weekly web wisdom!It can be hard to keep up with YouTube and it’s ever changing array of How To Draw YouTube channels. Many people have asked me what YouTube channels should they be following for the best How To Draw advice. I’ve wondered the same thing since the day I started my mission to learn how to draw.
While I have a large number of channels that I follow I’m sure that I don’t have all of them which is why I wanted to create a directory which would feature all of the channels known to mankind. The only way I can do this though is with your help to keep it updated and make sure we’re tracking any new channels that pop up along the way.
My quest for help goes out to all the owners of How To Draw YouTube Channels too and that if you want to be listed on this page then just contact me and we’ll be able to add you as soon as possible.
How To Draw YouTube Channels
So there you have it. 91 channels and I’ve undoubtedly missed many more awesome channels that you or your friends might know about. Please like and share this post with as many people as you can because it benefits all of us to have an up to date and complete directory listing of all of the How To Draw YouTube Channels.
If you’ve got any ideas on how we can make this directory listing more useful then please let me know in the comments below but for now let me know any channels I’ve missed? Did your channel make the cut?Alves and the second or paternal family name is Freitas. This name uses Portuguese naming customs. The first or maternal family name isand the second or paternal family name is
José Roberto "Zero" Alves Freitas[1] (born c. 1955) is a Brazilian businessman whose record collection of over eight million discs is said to be the largest in existence. In addition, he has more than 100,000 compact discs.
Early life [ edit ]
Freitas was born around 1955, and acquired the nickname "Zero" at school.[2] When he was a child, his father bought a hi-fi stereo that came with 200 albums, thus kindling Freitas's interest in the area. The collection was damaged in a flood and Freitas later recreated it.[3] His mother, who had a collection of 400–500 records, also influenced Freitas.[4] The first record he bought was Canta para a Juventude by Roberto Carlos, which he acquired around December 1964 or January 1965. By the time Freitas left high school he had 3,000 records.[4] Freitas studied music composition at college then took over the family transport business which ran buses in the city of São Paulo. By the time he was 30, Freitas had acquired about 25–30,000 records.[2]
Expansion [ edit ]
Until recently, most of Freitas's buying was anonymous. He placed adverts in Billboard magazine reading "RECORD COLLECTIONS. We BUY any record collection. Any style of music. We pay HIGHER prices than anyone else." and used agents to act on his behalf. He bought the remaining stock of 200,000 records from Colony Records in New York's Times Square after the store's 2012 closure and bought the stock of the Rio de Janeiro's Modern Sound store around the same time. Around 2013 he bought the collection of Murray Gershenz, the former proprietor of the Music Man Murray record shop in Los Angeles.[3] Also in 2013, Freitas bought the collection of Paul Mawhinney of Record-Rama, once itself thought to be the largest in the world.[5] The collection of around three million records took eight semitrailers to move.[3]
Publicity [ edit ]
The extent of Freitas's collection was first revealed to the world after details were published in an article in The New York Times Magazine in August 2014. At that time he was estimated to have "several million" records.[3] By March 2015, his collection was estimated at six million, making his the largest record collection in existence.[4] Freitas was unable to explain why he continues to acquire so many records, saying "I’ve gone to therapy for 40 years to try to explain this to myself".[3] He collects 33, 45 and 78 rpm records of any style of music or speech. The records are cleaned and cataloged by a team of assistants that he has recruited but he is acquiring new material faster than they can work and only 250,000 records have been processed so far. He keeps 100,000 records at home.[4] The collection includes many rareties such as "Heartache Souvenirs"/"Chicken Shack," by William Powell but it also includes up to 30% duplication. Those duplicates are now beginning to be sold off.[3] Ten thousand Brazilian records were given to the ARChive of Contemporary Music where they form the Zero Freitas Brazilian Music Collection.[6]
As Freitas has become well known, collectors have begun to offer him their collections. In October 2014 alone he acquired one million records from another collector for 200,000 reais. In 2015, Terence McEwan of the San Francisco Opera gave Freitas 6,500 classical LPs.[4] Freitas continues to maintain agents around the world, including in Mexico, New York and Nigeria. These enable him to buy a diverse range of material such as the collection of the late Bob Hope and the 100,000 albums of Cuban music he has acquired. His staff joke that the island of Cuba must be rising due to the weight of material that Freitas has removed.[3]
Future plans [ edit ]
Freitas is building a warehouse to store his collection which he plans to call the Emporium Musical.[3]
Business activities [ edit ]
In addition to transport, Freitas runs a business providing audio-visual systems for concerts and other public events.[3]
See also [ edit ]Back in May, Budweiser announced it would be temporarily rebranding cans of its American style adjunct lager, with the word “America” replacing the name brand for a limited time this summer as part of its “America is in Your Hands” campaign. Like the rice-infused yellow swill itself, the decision left a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of beer drinkers.
After pondering the subject for weeks, Will McCameron, president and co-owner of Brewery 85 in South Carolina, decided to say something, penning a critical response for craft beer blog Brew Studs. “Frankly, Budweiser calling itself ‘America’ is the most un-American thing I’ve observed in quite a while,” he wrote.
That’s because the brand’s parent company, A-B InBev, is a a Belgian-Brazilian multinational corporation headquartered in Belgium. So while a good portion of Budweiser is still brewed in various locations across the country — most notably St. Louis, Missouri — there’s an undeniable hypocrisy, he argued, in labeling your beverage “America” but refusing to pay a fair share of American taxes. One could easily argue, as well, that many of A-B InBev’s business practices in regards to distributors seem to reject the American idea of fair, open competition. After laying out an overview of his arguments, he tied the issue to economic ideas brought up by the current election cycle, concluding “…don’t come to me bitching about the state of the American economy with a can of Bud in your hand.”
He did concede, however, that those most effectively targeted by Budweiser’s “America” stunt are also those least likely to know or care about the brand’s open hypocrisy — in his words, those who “either don’t want to pay a premium price for beer, aren’t concerned with taste, or don’t care how and where their beer is made.”
Of course, this isn’t the first time in recent years that Budweiser has angered the craft beer community while its parent company continues to gobble up larger craft breweries and attempt to confuse less knowledgeable consumers with faux-craft brands like Shock Top.
The 2015 Anomaly Super Bowl spot “Brewed the Hard Way“ created by agency Anomaly, not- so-subtly mocked craft beer while Bud proclaimed itself “Proudly a macro beer.” It was met with expected vitriol from a community of brewers who actually do brew the hard way, some of whom released a video of their own parodying the ad. For this year’s Super Bowl, Anomaly and the brand released a slightly toned-down follow up.
McCameron’s piece highlights the downside to Budweiser’s effort. One could argue that not many people who actually care about the beer they’re drinking would reach for a Budweiser by any name. But then, is the change attracting a significant number of new customers?
It’s even more difficult to know whether there are drinkers in the middle ground who may have reached for the watery brew in a pinch or to save money this summer but instead will opt for something else after being turned off by the hypocritical appeal to blind patriotism.
CommentsIf your resolution for 2017 is to take better photographs than your current blurry, badly composed effort, you’ll want to check out this free MOOC from Harvard University –the school where Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates cut their teeth.
ALISON – one of the many repositories of online learning courses – has uploaded Harvard’s photography course to their platform under a Creative Commons license.
The course consists of twelve modules that cover the fundamentals of photography – from software tools to composition and light. There’s also a thirteenth module which serves as an assessment of all you know. If you pass this with a score of 80 percent or higher, and you can get yourself a diploma to print and hang on your wall.
There is a caveat though: The course itself is from 2009, and while the fundamentals are still true, some of the lessons on software tools aren’t exactly current.
Harvard, obviously, isn’t the only prestigious university that’s put its material on the Internet; UCLA, Yale, Princeton have all launched their own efforts. But most of these tend to be geared towards computer science or academics. Therefore, it’s nice to see one with more creative pursuits in mind.
Update 01/17: Our post previously stated incorrectly that Harvard uploaded this course to ALISON. This has been amended to reflect that ALISON uploaded the course from Harvard OpenCourseWare themselves under a Creative Commons licence.
Update 01/18: ALISON has said it’s to remove the course by February 15, 2017. The site says it will be replaced with a new course, created from scratch by ” leading photography experts”.
Via Konbini.
Read next: How tech is turning CMOs into Chief Collaboration OfficersIf society were a vehicle, its institutions would be its ‘engine’; they are the basic means by which society strives to reach prosperity and to protect itself against the fickle vagaries of the global capitalist system. Institutional failure is often viewed as a coordination failure within society. Greece represents a glaring such example of a country that attracted the ‘unwanted’ attention of capital market investors and speculators in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, giving way to an unprecedented debt crisis in this part of the European periphery. The decline in the quality of its institutions (political, economic, judicial, social, etc.) came as a result of the shakiness of their foundations; Greek institutions have for the most part been externally imposed and implanted into an arid soil of low social capital, trust, and state capacity. The gradual erosion of the social contract has generated deep mistrust of the ‘top-down’ institutions of representative democracy and, therefore, weakened the elites’ capacity to reform them.
full textMy Boss Wants Me To Write Something Nice About Hillary
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Can someone — anyone — please write something nice about Hillary?
“For the love of God,” came a cry from the wilderness in our work group. “Doesn’t anyone in here have something good they can write about Hillary?!?” That’s right. My boss needs more of us to say something nice about Hillary, so we don’t appear too biased for Bernie Sanders, the real liberal. Oops, there I go again.
Among New York City’s and Washington D.C.’s pundits, power brokers and pollsters, Hillary Clinton reigns supreme. But on Twitter, Facebook, political blogs, and other parts of the Internet where real people from real places gather, posts that say “something nice about Hillary” are in short supply.
Since that message went out last week, only one of us has obliged. Nathaniel Downes shared a fond memory in his story, “The Day I Met Hillary Clinton“: But that was 20 years ago, this is now. The tweets below provide a more accurate sampling of what folks are saying about Hillary Clinton, and these are just ones from liberals. The ones from conservatives are even worse.
Hillary Clinton is like a less interesting Frank Underwood. — Cassandra Fairbanks (@CassandraRules) December 27, 2015
My abuelita worked factories, would choose Bernie over Hillary except she's dead, she couldn't get #richwhiteladyhealthcare. #NotMyAbuela — VCubed (@VV4Change) December 23, 2015
Hey @hillaryclinton — it's not too late to join your fellow Dems and reject fossil fuel money! https://t.co/8s9Bi5LE7l — Greenpeace USA (@greenpeaceusa) December 26, 2015
One of the only folks on Twitter willing to say something nice about Hillary Clinton is…um…Hillary Clinton.
"If you would like help with your campaign, I am available and I would work for candy." https://t.co/1lvbW2W98b — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) December 26, 2015
Say something nice about Hillary? Okay. She’s not quite as neoliberal as her husband.
Oh, and her hair looks nice. At first, I thought, “yeah, we’re overdue for a positive piece on Hillary Clinton.” Then my brain rebelled and screeched, “say something nice about Hillary? HELL NO!!!!!!” I supported Barack Obama back in 2008, but still admired the former Secretary of State. I now support Bernie Sanders, but thought I had no problem with Hillary…Then, something snapped.
What makes saying something nice about Hillary Clinton less appealing than gargling with bleach? Part of it’s her damned sense of entitlement. She just seems to feel like it’s her turn and she deserves to win, even though so many of the policies Hillary Clinton supports make our lives worse, not better. And really, do you think Debbie Wasserman-Schultz would set the debate schedule to limit exposure for rival candidates if Hillary Clinton didn’t WANT it that way?
If she wins the Democratic nomination, getting Bernie Sanders’ supporters on board and able to say something nice about Hillary Clinton will be an uphill task if the DNC’s actions keep raising suspicions that it’s not a fair fight.
And even if the Democratic National Committee (DNC) doesn’t favor Hillary Clinton and wasn’t trying to sabotage Bernie Sanders’ insurgent campaign, as many suspect, they should have apologized to Sanders for recommending he hire the man who caused the data breach instead of punishing him for it. If HIllary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, getting Bernie Sanders’ supporters on board will be an uphill task if they think it wasn’t a fair fight.
It’s hard to say something nice about Hillary Clinton after her neoliberal husband’s “third way” transformed the Democratic Party from an engine of prosperity and defender of civil rights into a cowering, sniveling, and triangulating GOP Lite. Classic liberal policies made America the envy of the world, yet President Bill Clinton threw it all down a supply-side rat hole to appease angry white people who’d rather return to the poverty suffered by their grandparents than be forced to share their short-lived affluence with black people.
mend it, not end it?” Bill Clinton. Who helped roll back affirmative action — a cornerstone of the Civil Rights movement — while claiming we should “?” Bill Clinton.
welfare as you know it ” under the guise of “personal responsibility” and “work opportunities,” while failing to demand corporate responsibility. Bill Clinton. Who ended “” under the guise of “personal responsibility” and “work opportunities,” while failing to demand corporate responsibility. Bill Clinton.
NAFTA would create new jobs even though these trade agreements actually screw working people and force us to compete against desperate people in poorer countries? Who promisedwould create new jobs even though these trade agreements actually screw working people and force us to compete against desperate people in poorer countries? Bill Clinton.
repealing the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 — saying “the Glass–Steagall law is no longer appropriate.” — so big banks could destroy our economy in 2008? Bill Clinton. Who signed the billin 1999 — saying “the Glass–Steagall law is no longer appropriate.” — so big banks could destroy our economy? Bill Clinton.
in 1994 that helped create the mass incarceration, police brutality, and school-to-prison pipeline in communities of color? President Bill Clinton. Who signed a crime bill backthat helped create the mass incarceration, police brutality, and school-to-prison pipeline in communities of color? President Bill Clinton.
And don’t say I shouldn’t blame Hillary for the failings of her husband…That may be true with some political couples, but Billary Clinton have always been a package deal.
Sorry, Hillary, this new America you helped create isn’t working for us.
And then there’s that little thing about how nearly my entire life as a working adult has been spent either in or recovering from one damned recession or “jobless recovery” after another. Gen-Xers, Millennials and the younger baby boomers — over 50 years worth of cohorts spanning two-and-a-half generations — are worse off than their parents and have never known economic security.
Slammed by endless waves of layoffs — with each new round of jobs paying less than the previous ones — we barely manage to get our heads above water before the next recession hits.
You helped build that, Hillary Clinton. When the time came to fight for liberal principles and a future of peace, health, prosperity, and tolerance, you and your husband chose the path of moral cowardice and sought only to minimize the far-right’s encroachments instead of reversing them. That’s why so many of us have a hard time with saying something nice about Hillary Clinton.
Where the hell does Hillary Clinton think her husband — who was raised by a single mom and grew up poor — would be if he’d grown up in today’s America?
I also deeply resent Hillary Clinton because she’s part of that generation of white middle-class people who rose to power and wealth not just because of smarts and hard work, but because these people freaking had EVERYTHING — good public schools, access to affordable higher education, upward mobility, short commutes, cheap real estate, a surging economy, and a strong safety net.
She and the other Silents and Boomers who ran things chose not to share their gains with the next generations. Instead, they slashed budgets, tore up all the rules that keep corporations from preying upon us, pulled up the drawbridge, and left the Millennials, Gen-Xers and younger Baby Boomers with nothing but war, poverty, unelected corporate government, prison, student debt, and dead end jobs.
And that tone-deaf, hispandering B.S. about Hillary Clinton being just like your Abuela? What on earth was she thinking? Her campaign keeps trying to make her “warmer and more human,” but it never seems to work.
I’ll have to find something nice to say about Hillary Clinton if she wins the Democratic primary. In the meantime, I’ll do whatever I can to ensure this doesn’t happen. Like many of my fellow Americans, I’m sick and tired of a system that abuses us and a government that won’t listen to us. Unfortunately for Hillary Clinton, she’s part and parcel of that system.
Featured image: Hillary Clinton campaign/Facebook (NOTE: In the first version, a Facebook sticker was added).BJP legislator Ameet Satam said allegations are made when action is taken against wrongdoers.
In an incident that has gone viral on the social media, BJP legislator Ameet Satam is seen physically assaulting local hawkers and verbally abusing police officials present there.The BJP MLA from Andheri-West assembly constituency claimed that police officials failed to do their duty and demanded that their salary be paid to him as he is taking action against the hawkers."I have not committed any crime. A case may be registered against me if I am at fault. But, action should also be taken against police officials for allowing hawkers to operate freely," Mr Satam said.When asked to comment over the complaint filed by hawkers against him, Mr Satam said allegations are made when action is taken against wrongdoers.Condemning the incident, Shiv Sena spokesperson Neelam Gorhe questioned if this is the good governance BJP wants to implement in the state."If this is the style of certain BJP leaders, is this their style of good governance they want to implement? The hawkers policy has been finalised with guidance by the Court and it is the government's responsibility to implement it across the state," she said. "By abusing the police officers, the BJP MLA has insulted the police force. It is condemnable," Mr Gorhe added.Bringing Light & Colour To The Home With Celeste Interior Design
This week we teamed up with Christopher Claudio Skierka, a creative Interior Designer based in Manchester. His main ethos is to reflect his clients personality in the home; using colour, textures and lighting to help inject a full dose of charisma and individuality, truly making the home their own.
He takes an interest in the individual’s lifestyle, their character and how they want their home to feel. With this he goes away, wrestles with his thoughts, comes up with a plan and sources the goods before carefully implementing. His mixed origin of Polish and Italian roots give him the best of both worlds, claiming “Polish are well known to be into materials, such as soft furnishings, whereas Italians, well everything is art.”
With an impressive portfolio of both domestic and commercial interior design projects under his belt, Christopher is now in the notion of opening up his very own Interior Design studio in Macclesfield, just 16 miles down the road from his stomping ground in Manchester. His plan is to not only provide his Interior Design service to Maxonians and beyond, but also welcome visitors to an in-house art gallery and educational workshop.
Direct Trade Supplies are grateful for this aspirational gallivanter to take time out of his busy routine to share a few stories, projects and tips for us home-owners. So, with no time like the present, here it is…
Q&A Session With: Christopher Claudio Skierka @ Celeste Interior Design
Tell us a bit about yourself and the service that Celeste Interior Design provides?
In my teenage years I got involved in art but I was very unsure about what I exactly wanted to do, so for a number of years my profession was quite the opposite to what it is today. Eventually after carrying out a residential and coffee shop re-design in Italy, by accident actually, I decided to study design as well as art for a short time, then I just thought go for it. It probably wasn’t the best time to start after the 2008 credit crunch but I had and always will have the passion, persistence and a head full of ideas.
My service to you, your family’s needs or your clients (if it’s a commercial project), is to create a practical and beautiful interior. I hope to reflect individuality, through space planning, lighting and soft furnishings, also taking into account any architectural details and surroundings of the property as well as colour and designing bespoke furniture if required, the list is lengthy. I also help to source materials and project coordinate if you want me too. My price structure is very simple indeed.
Have you always had an interested in interior design or was it something you developed?
Well, for a long time I have been interested in looking at many different types of buildings and construction in general, including ships. I think you start in your mind from the exterior of an object and then work your way into the interior, I began to love light, colour and textures so much so I progressed into interior design. It was a natural progression, and I cannot think of anything else I would rather do.
Can you name a few of your most proudest and testing moments as a designer?
Apart from my first paid project, every project is my proudest. Everyone I have done work for has been so different in terms of their personality and expectations. The next project involves someone who is selling their home in ten years time but wants it to fit for a new family. So my mind tells me two things, to design it as a family home for the future but make sure it is perfect for the current occupier. It is very back to front, but I am going to love it and what’s more the owner is extremely high spirited so it’s double the fun. I recently designed a ‘Baroque’ style house for quite a private person, this was a 1 in 10,000 opportunity for me because I love Baroque but I know it isn’t to everyone’s taste.
What do you think are the most important factors to a successful project?
Well I think you have either got it, or you haven’t, no amount of education is going to make you complete unless you have that ‘thing’ for design work, and that is a vital ingredient for a successful project. The other is the client, the client needs to feel fully engaged and I need to understand exactly what they want. How? By literally sitting with the client talking, but more importantly listening; for as long as it takes and as many times as it takes. After all, I am recreating a place for human beings not statues. Passion and a care of people’s feelings is probably an easier way to sum it up.
Do certain types of projects excite you? What about the ones that daunt you?
Every project excites me, even the daunting ones, why? Well it is that challenge, a challenge to push them to a higher limit using just a little direction here and there. Soon they start to think and talk, and then their true unreserved feelings come out. Colourful projects excite me, I just want to add a shade of red somewhere but only if it fits. I never push them into anything, I never really have to because people eventually open up if you give them a chance.
I love rooms with big windows because then the colours are easier to introduce. On the other hand, dark spaces are also great, especially when the client learns to embrace the dark space and stops trying to brighten it with all too often white walls. There are other ways to make a room a room, even with low natural light.
You are based in Manchester, is there anything special about the area that sets it apart from the rest?
Manchester is a hub to other civilisations only a few miles out, the areas do differ, including the people, their needs and how they communicate. I’ve learnt that one has to be adaptable. For example I shall soon be working from my studio in Macclesfield.
Do you have any important ‘does & donts’ for our customers buying lighting?
Work out the amount of light you require, research it or just hire someone like me who knows a bit more than you do. It could save you a lot of money in mistakes as well as arguments.
Don’t always buy the cheapest; you may end up regretting it.
Try to create layered lighting especially in the family home, rooms such as kitchen and bedrooms will massively benefit from layered effects.
For locations that are hard to reach, try to convert to LEDs if you can, they require less maintenance attention since the bulb lasts a very long time.
Check out who you buy from, there are a lot of very cheap bulbs on the internet but don’t just rush and buy them, check out the supplier, it could be a dangerous or substandard quality.
Plan your lighting well in advance, if for example you are having an extension built then ceiling recesses are not always the best option. Even though it’s easier for the builder to install, bear in mind if they are over used they can become quite ugly.
Are there any tips you can provide the home-owner to help them improve their lighting?
Yes, think of all the users of the rooms and spaces. Try not to skimp on lighting even if it’s the cheapest thing to improve upon. Draw plans of each room, working out how much light you need and for what purposes. Light works well with all colours but bear in mind certain colours look different in bright or low light. You are probably better off getting the correct amount of light required and then changing a colour of the room appropriately.
Also certain colours have different effects on people’s moods. Work out your natural light first. If you study or have children that often do homework, then make sure the light they have is plentiful and their computer screens are in relation to the light source – their eyes are important.
How much time and energy do you spend on planning what lighting to use?
Without light you have no colour, that small sentence means the world. It is such an important factor not just for how things |
5
This tweet perfectly captures why it's appalling to blame refugees for the Paris attacks https://t.co/hRvuPiQNdv pic.twitter.com/TptqWIyPLO — Vox (@voxdotcom) November 13, 2015
In this post, allow me to introduce a very simple concept, as I will demonstrate with this Twitter exchange:
Yet why are they so often Muslim, though? https://t.co/Z0MBXPJCRY — JayMan (@JayMan471) November 14, 2015
What's the per capita rate for each? https://t.co/QdjWN9FIB6 — JayMan (@JayMan471) November 14, 2015
Let’s not forget this smart fellow here:
Will everything who is screaming
Terrorism has no religion
Please book a flight to ISIS land
& make me the beneficiary of ur life insurance — Room 101 (@suscitate) November 14, 2015
Perhaps what’s needed here is the idea of a terrorism quotient:
If there's such a thing as a "terrorism quotient," many Muslim populations score significantly higher than average. A big deal at extremes. — JayMan (@JayMan471) January 11, 2015
This is modeled after the “Amish Quotient” of Greg Cochran and Henry Harpending.
The idea is that there is a suite of behavioral traits that is more prevalent in many Muslim populations which makes them more likely to perpetrate acts of terrorism.
(Of course, every ethnic group has a group-typical suite of behavioral traits – an “x quotient” – see Predictions on the Worldwide Distribution of Personality.
Regression to the mean (in the statistical sense) explains why we all have many ethnicity-typical behavioral traits. — JayMan (@JayMan471) November 13, 2015
This is basic HBD.)
This is illustrated by the number of terrorist acts (defined here as instances of mass murder/assault/hostage taking) per capita for a given population. There is little question that this rate is incredibly high for many Muslim populations relative to other populations (and of course, there is a great deal of variation between Muslim populations) – even more so when you consider the sizes of the Muslim populations living in Western countries:
.@Paradigmian Also *9/11* (also Tim McVeigh, which would have helped their case). But what's the per capita rate? 3% for Chechen males. — JayMan (@JayMan471) June 26, 2015
Edit, 11/15/15 [And indeed, Emil Kirkegaard has found just that – from The general religious factor among Muslims: a multi-level factor analysis | Clear Language, Clear Mind:
In the review of a paper submitted to ODP some time ago, the issue of a general extremism factor in religion came up. … Specifically, the topic was if and how one could rank order Christian denominations on a more/less extremist scale. … I was recently reminded of the above due to re-seeing Pew Research’s large-scale study of the beliefs of Muslims in their home countries. The dataset is publicly available and is fairly massive: 250 variables and a sample size of 32.6k. The questions cover socioeconomic variables as well as a large number of questions about stuff like Sharia … A general factor seems confirmed. I hereby dub it general religious factor (GRF), hopefully no one has used that term or letter combination yet … Mean level by country (reordered):
Emil noted this in a tweet:
@JayMan471 terrorism support surely loads on GRF among Muslims. Just add the var and redo the analyses. https://t.co/B0ZPiFvmQl — Emil O W Kirkegaard (@KirkegaardEmil) November 15, 2015
All that’s left is to see how predictive this factor is of each country’s per capita rate of terrorist acts, and the “terrorism quotient” will be confirmed. ***End Edit***]
But the problem with Muslims in the West is hardly confined to terrorism, but plenty of regular old violence and other crime (especially in Europe – not so much in North America) – again from Peter Frost:
In France, Muslims make up 60% of all prison inmates, while being only 12% of the total population (Leclerc, 2014). Similarly, 7 out of 10 burglaries, assaults, and violent thefts are committed by first- or second-generation immigrants (Chevrier and Raufer, 2014). Most of these perps seem to be Muslim, although a third of them may be West Indians, Africans, and Roma of nominally Christian background. Muslims seem to be especially overrepresented in serious violent crimes that lead to prison sentences. Similar trends are developing elsewhere. Muslims make up 70% all prison inmates in Spain and 45% in Belgium (WikiIslam, 2013 see Note 1; Sudinfo.be, 2013). In England and Wales, the figure is only 14%, versus 4.7% of the total population, apparently because certain other communities are likewise overrepresented (Morris, 2014, see Note 2). A Danish researcher has studied the relationship between criminality and immigrant origin in Denmark, Norway, and Finland (Kirkegaard, 2014a; Kirkegaard, 2014b; Kirkegaard, 2014c; Kirkegaard and Fuerst, 2014). He found that the prevalence of Islam in the immigrants’ home country was the single best predictor of criminality both for “all crime” and for “violent crime,” being better than the home country’s mean IQ or GDP per capita and much better than its murder rate.
And let’s not forget Rotherham:
Report found 1,400 children abused between 1997 and 2013 in Rotherham
The figure is likely to be a conservative estimate of the true scale
Victims terrorised with guns and doused in petrol and threatened with fire
More than a third of the cases were already know to agencies
Author of the report condemned ‘blatant’ failings by council’s leadership
Action blocked by political correctness as staff ‘feared appearing racist’
Majority of victims described the perpetrators as ‘Asian’ [overwhelmingly Pakistani] men
Leader of Rotherham Council has stepped down with immediate effect
No council employees will receive disciplinary action, leaders state
This illustrates that the typical WEIRDO response to these crimes – such as pointing out (correctly) that only a small fraction of all Muslims commit these crimes, as true as that is, misses the point.
What’s more there is no reason to have large populations of Muslims in Northwestern European countries. It’s one thing when a group has a historic presence in a place, like American Blacks or the long-term Mexican residents of El Norte in the U.S. do. The country is as much theirs as it is that of the Whites living there. But the Muslim populations in Europe are overwhelmingly recent immigrants.
At the very least, one would imagine that it would be prudent to stop admitting more Muslims into these countries. As much as I am loathe to quote Ann Coulter:
Why does NO ONE say the obvious thing on TV?! It's insane. Don't want terrorism in US? Stop importing Muslims! — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) November 14, 2015
But there’s a good chance that that won’t happen. Much of what I say here – meant to jar Northwestern Europeans into prudent action to protect their societies – may end up falling on deaf ears. The reason why is explained by the very same HBD that explains why Muslims are so much more violent, on average – namely, Northwestern European universalism:
As we saw previously in my posts Clannishness – the Series: Zigzag Lightning in the Brain, there is a strong correlation between the size of the Muslim fraction in European countries and their scientific (and other intellectual) performance. A suite of behavioral traits found principally in Northwest Europeans – regard for all humanity, generosity, high-trust, the absence of kin-based social bonds – leads them to accept clannish migrants. See The Rise of Universalism:
Worse still, NW Europeans accept immigrants from the most incompatible corner of the world, the Muslim/Arab world:
In many respects, Muslim groups (especially Arab ones) are the polar opposites of Northwest Europeans. Northwestern European society is liberal, democratic, individualistic, secular, and high-trust. Arab society is illiberal, autocratic, collectivist, extremely religious, and low-trust. Social bonds in Northwestern European societies are primarily among non-relatives (at least past the nuclear family). Social bonds in Arab society are structured around kin. Institutions in NW European societies are rule-bound. Institutions in Arab societies are corrupt.
This is genetic in origin, the product of evolution.
For more, see these two key posts by HBD Chick:
big summary post on the hajnal line | hbd chick
community vs. communism | hbd chick
Because the differences between these groups of people is inherited, the result of centuries of natural selection in their respective environments, these features can’t be expected to change much. Northwestern Europeans and Arabs (and many other Muslim groups) are, as groups, largely incompatible. Social strife emerges when they are brought together as they are in modern Northwestern European countries.
To illustrate that Northwestern European universalism is responsible for the settling of large numbers of Muslims in Europe, note what you don’t see:
Edit, 3/22/16: [See also M.G.’s excellent data-rich post further illustrating the differences between Muslims and NW Europeans:
Those Who Can See: Why We Culturally Profile
***End Edit***]
Unfortunately, the very HBD that leads to these differences also makes it hard for Northwestern Europeans to see the folly in their immigration policies. In reaction to events like the Paris attacks, we get this:
As discussed by M.G. over at Those Who Can See: Reacting to Spree Killings, Progressively
Oh, and for the New Atheists out there that like to blame Muslim violence on their religion, it’s worth noting that the behaviors we associate with religion – including the religion itself – are all heritable:
The Atheist Narrative
Religion comes to the religious because that’s how their brains are wired. A believer cannot think any different … Believers literally have God/Earth spirits/Buddha on the brain. To such a person, their deities are as real as the Sun in the sky (since, after all, the believer’s brain is the only brain he’s got). Religiosity is highly heritable (as are all behavioral traits)… … This indicates that religious belief – or lack there of – is largely intractable. It is a futile effort to get people to give up religion en masse (or, for that matter, to get non-believers to believe). You may have some individual “successes”, largely because of changing the environmental context of people who already had the genetic potentialfor whatever belief you want to instill, but you’re not going to achieve broad change in the population. However, the “New Atheists” don’t seem to see it that way. Many of these speakers, including the likes of Richard Dawkins, or groups such as American Atheists proselytize atheism. Indeed, Dawkins, a self-described “militant atheist”, is very much an atheist evangelist. The belief that these individuals’ actions appear to be based is that by spreading atheism and getting people to give up their religious beliefs, society can be improved. As I have previous written, that is a foolhardy goal. The unsavory traits the New Atheists seek to change stem not from the religion, but from the people. Indeed, in the spirit of what HBD Chick would ask, where do religious beliefs come from? Sorry atheist zealots, you can’t get Muslims to behave like modern civilized (Northwestern European) people by getting them to give up Islam. You can’t turn the U.S. Deep South and Greater Appalachia into Yankeedom or the Midlands by getting the former two to give up fundamentalist Christianity.
So what to do, then? First and foremost, especially for Northwestern European countries, is to stop admitting Muslims en masse into Europe.
(It’s worth mentioning that the problem is much more acute for Europe than it is for NW European diaspora nations like the U.S. or Canada. Put simply, the Atlantic Ocean is a bigger barrier than the Mediterranean Sea. Europe gets a much more representative slice of the Muslim population. By contrast, immigrants to North America tend to be more select because of the demands of making the trip. Hence, here in the States we get higher IQ, less clannish Muslims. Of course, that’s not all that rosy – a smart terrorist is a much more dangerous thing than a stupid terrorist. But North American Muslims don’t have the incredibly high crime and poverty rates European Muslims do.)
At the very earnest, any attempts to address the problem should start with not making it worse. Even more troublesome, a loose, porous border allows radicalized Muslims to travel freely from terror hotspots in the Middle East to Western sites. France’s emergency reaction to close it’s border was the right step (but, on cue, there are calls for France to open its border once again –Why France Should Not Close Its Borders). Cutting the number of “refugees” granted asylum in Western nations would be next. (Most of whom are economic migrants anyway.)
That addressed new Muslims in the country, but what about the existing populations? I for one do not advocate mass deportations, nor do we need encourage Westerners to engage in mass persecution of their Muslim populations. That said, some steps can be taken to tackle the issue. For example:
Disallow entry for families of Muslim immigrants
Deport any immigrant convicted of a crime
Now, that said, for France – with it’s very high Muslim population and it’s much higher Muslim share of births in the country – there doesn’t seem to be an easy remedy. They’re in a hard position – and worst of all, they don’t even realize it, generally.
Unfortunately, I don’t see this matter headed to good places, neither for Europeans or for the Muslims and other foreigners that live in Europe. That last thing we need is to inspire backlash against the Muslim residents by the natives. One hopes that steps to address this issue in an orderly and humane way can be taken, but I have to admit, that’s just a hope.So I found a MUCH better way of getting around the Overlord crash. You just need to have the Extra Effects Quality turned up to any level (not OFF) before the game launches, then once it is running turn it back down to OFF. You can do this by turning them up before closing the game, or you can have an executable do it for you before you even run it (faster).
If you want to have the executable do it for you (how I do it) follow these steps. Otherwise just remember to turn them up before you exit the game each time.
Step 1: Setting up the preferences - Run the game, set the graphics to however you want them, MAKE SURE the extra effects are turned up!! (NOT OFF) - Apply and Ok out of the settings. Then hit the esc key and click "Exit Game" - don't use Command Q as theres a slight chance that the game won't finish saving the settings in time. this way it will finish saving before the game actually shuts down - Navigate to: ~/Library/Application\ Support/World\ of\ Tanks/Bottles/worldoftanks/drive_c/users/crossover/Application\ Data/Wargaming.net/WorldOfTanks - Copy the preferences.xml file to somewhere "safe", for me I used my desktop
Step 2: Setting up the Executable - Open text edit, create a new document, make it plain text (shift + command + T) - Copy and paste in the following code: rm -rf /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Library/Application\ Support/World\ of\ Tanks/Bottles/worldoftanks/drive_c/users/crossover/Application\ Data/Wargaming.net/WorldOfTanks/preferences.xml
cp -av /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Desktop/preferences.xml /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Library/Application\ Support/World\ of\ Tanks/Bottles/worldoftanks/drive_c/users/crossover/Application\ Data/Wargaming.net/WorldOfTanks
open /Applications/World\ of\ Tanks.app - If you didn't use your desktop as the "safe" spot for your preferences file, you'll need to change the file path from cp -av /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Desktop/preferences.xml. You can just delete the file path (leaving the cp -av part) and click/drag the preferences file from wherever you put it, into that spot. Make sure you drop it EXACTLY in the right spot though. There should be 1 space on each side of it, between the -av and the next big long file path - Change YOURUSERNAME to whatever your username is, then save and close - Make the text file executable by opening terminal, typing "chmod a+x " including the space and dragging in the text file - Right click it, get info, and delete the extension (.txt)
Now you have an executable, that when double clicking it will reset your settings to have a non-off extra effects AND launch the game in one swoop. All you need to do is remember to set the extra effects back to OFF when you get in-game to prevent the crash on Overlord.
Edit: Its possible that some users might not even need to have the extra effects settings turned up on launch. I need it but another user reported that simply launching the game, turning them up, applying, and turning it back down worked for him. Something you might want to try (in a training room) if you want.
Incase your interested I included the old way (much worse way)The Miami Hurricanes defeated the Florida Gators again on Saturday night to take the series from their in-state rival. With the game tied at two in the bottom of the sixth inning, freshman Zack Collins blasted a 3-run homer to give Miami a 5-2 lead, which turned out to be the game winner. Collins had been 0 for his first 17 plate appearances on the season before he took Gator reliever Danny Young deep over the right-field fence at Mark Light Field, his first career hit. Collins is one of several incoming freshman that comprise a recruiting class ranked #6 by Baseball America, and are expected to make an immediate impact as Miami begins this season with aspirations of reaching Omaha for the first time since 2008.
Bryan Radziewski started the game for Miami. The junior left-hander went 5-2/3 innings, giving up six hits and two runs, and getting a no decision. It's the second straight strong outing for Radziewski, who is still looking for his first win of the year.
Cooper Hammond came in to relieve Radziewski in the sixth, where he retired pinch hitter Zack Powers to get Miami out of a bases loaded jam and keep the score tied at two. Hammond was the pitcher of record in the bottom of the sixth when Collins put the Canes in front for good, thus earning his first win of the season. For the second night in a row, Bryan Garcia came in to shut the door and earn the save.
Garrett Kennedy also went deep for the Hurricanes for the second straight night, giving Miami a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth.
With the win Miami wins a series against Florida for the first time since 2009, when they swept the Gators in Gainesville.
The Hurricanes look to sweep the series tomorrow afternoon at 1pm at Mark Light Field. Junior LHP Andrew Suarez will take the hill for Miami.Government lawyers clash with those of hunger-striking detainee Abu Wa’el Dhiab, whose wheelchair and underwear were removed before procedure
Lawyers for a Guantánamo detainee argued in court on Monday that the US military’s forcible feedings of hunger-striking detainees were a method of punishment, not the medically viable procedure the government has long claimed.
In the first court challenge to the controversial force-feedings, lawyers and witnesses seized on the medical records of Abu Wa’el Dhiab, the Syrian long-term hunger striker who brought the case, to show that his wheelchair, back brace and even his boxer shorts were ordered removed by Guantánamo medical personnel.
“It looks like medical care is being withheld because of disciplinary status and that should never happen,” testified Sondra Crosby, a Boston University physician who examined Dhiab last month.
Dhiab, 43, has been detained at Guantánamo since 2002, despite being cleared for release in 2009. He has spent an estimated seven years of his detention protesting through hunger strike. Dhiab’s request for an injunction to make the feedings less painful and to end the forced cell removals represent the first time a hunger striker has challenged his treatment in federal court – treatment likely to be on grisly public display, now that the judge in the case has ordered the release of videotaped feedings.
Crosby testified that Dhiab believes Guantánamo guards have forcibly removed him from his cell more than 1,300 times, a procedure he argues, like the force-feedings themselves, is painful and abusive.
Holding a 110cm length of tube before Judge Gladys Kessler, Dhiab’s attorney, Eric Lewis, said Guantánamo authorities unnecessarily strapped him in a “five-point restraint” chair and repeatedly inserted and removed the feeding tube, part of a “get-tough strategy to shut down the hunger strikes”.
Lewis quoted a former Guantánamo detentions commander, army colonel John Bogdan, saying the administration of the cell removal and hunger strikes “incentivised” compliant behaviour.
But the Justice Department attorney Andrew Warden countered that the force feeding is not a “painful procedure” and is necessary for keeping Dhiab from serious injury or death – a rationale publicly cited by President Barack Obama in defence of the force feeding last year.
Warden said Dhiab’s restraints and his forced removal from his cell – said to involve guard’s feet on Dhiab’s back – was necessary to prevent harm to guards and medical staff.
Dhiab, who stands over 6ft tall but now weighs an estimated 152lbs, has “kicked” Guantánamo staff, “thrown urine and faeces” and used “abusive language”, Warden said.
Crosby testified that Dhiab has a “complex” medical history, involving a car accident before he got to Guantánamo, that has impaired his sense of feeling on his right side. Dhiab attributes his condition to Jinns, or “nefarious spirits”.
Crosby, who is not a psychologist, said she considered Dhiab to be expressing “psychosomatic stress” and questioned Guantánamo personnel’s removal of his wheelchair – said to be temporary – walker, back brace and other medical items.
“It helps explain why the trust has been undermined with the medical staff,” she said.
Stephen Xenakis, a retired army brigadier general and psychiatrist who also recently examined Dhiab, declined to offer a diagnosis, saying Guantánamo has insufficiently examined him neurologically, and considered Dhiab’s “Jinns” explanation metaphorical.
Xenakis said Dhiab is too physically weak to pose any threat to guards or medical staff, and questioned Guantánamo procedures calling for restraints on “non-compliant” detainees. “I wouldn’t recommend any restraints,” Xenakis said.
But the Justice Department attorney Ron Wiltsie, who impugned Xenakis’s credentials in tenacious cross-examination, said Dhiab had committed “five assaults since April 2014”. According to Guantánamo Bay spokespeople, verbal abuse counts as an assault.
The first day of testimony stretched over six hours, all without a single break to discuss classified information outside of public view. The Justice Department had argued that all testimony ought to occur in closed session lest national security be jeopardised, a contention Kessler dismissed as baseless last week. Testimony is scheduled to resume on Tuesday, featuring another witness, anticipated to discuss force-feeding standards.
On Friday, Judge Kessler ordered the US government to make public 20 videotapes showing Dhiab’s treatment. The Guardian was part of a media consortium suing for those tapes. Some of that footage was expected to be shown in closed court session on Monday ahead of redactions for public release.Brooklyn: To Voicer Ed Greenspan, who fears that Sheepshead Bay is beginning a downward trend: You are correct. I have witnessed many changes in the last seven decades, most for the better, but what is taking place now surely signals the death of my beloved neighborhood. Old single-family homes and small businesses are being replaced by high-rise luxury condominium buildings at such an alarming pace that roads and other infrastructure cannot accommodate them. Greedy and unscrupulous developers are transforming a sleepy fishing village into a crowded urban luxury center — and this comes with a steep price tag. The old guard is being driven out and replaced by those who are only interested in demonstrating how large and outrageously grotesque they can make their homes. Long lines at the checkout counter and overcrowded classrooms will only get worse as more buildings go up and the population keeps growing. On-the-street parking is no longer an option, and even walking on the sidewalk is a major task since new residents believe that it is perfectly OK to allow their pets to do their business on our sidewalks and lawns, and not clean up after them. Many classify what is happening to Sheepshead Bay as progress. As for me, I long for the days when you told people that you lived in Sheepshead Bay and they would say the beautiful words: "Where the heck is that?" Daniel ColónGovernor Wolf Announces “It’s On Us PA” Legislation
April 18, 2017
Harrisburg, PA – As part of his “It’s On Us PA” campaign to protect Pennsylvania students from a nationwide epidemic of sexual violence, Governor Tom Wolf today announced the introduction of six new pieces of legislation.
“These steps, along with those we have already taken to combat sexual assault, will strengthen the systems we currently have, and create better standards for reporting and responding to sexual assaults whenever they occur,” Governor Wolf said. “It is critically important that we continue the progress we’ve already made, and continue our work to ensure that our K-12 and postsecondary institutions have the tools they need to combat sexual assault.”
In January 2016, Governor Wolf launched the “It’s On Us PA” campaign, inviting education leaders and all Pennsylvanians to be part of the solution to protect students from sexual violence.
Convening four roundtable discussions across the state, and bringing together more than 150 students, educators, administrators, advocates, healthcare personnel, researchers, and policymakers, Governor Wolf and members of his administration heard diverse perspectives and comprehensive ideas on the roles each could play to end sexual violence in Pennsylvania. Thousands of Pennsylvanians, including university and college presidents from hundreds of institutions around the commonwealth signed the “It’s On Us” Pledge.
Additionally, in the 2016-17 budget the Wolf Administration secured $1 million in funding to support evidence-based sexual assault prevention, reporting, and response systems on college campuses. In November 2016, Governor Wolf announced awards to 36 postsecondary institutions as part of the “It’s On Us PA” Grants Program.
Based on the comprehensive “It’s On Us PA” round table discussions, there are six current items of legislation being proposed in the General Assembly:
Expand the scope, authority, and capacity of PDE’s Office for Safe Schools to support both K-12 and postsecondary institutions, as well as monitor compliance with existing federal and state requirements related to sexual violence prevention and response.
Publish an annual report card on sexual violence and harassment in K-12 and postsecondary institutions using existing data reported to the Department and/or other publicly reported data.
Amend PA School Code to create a consolidated, comprehensive anti-violence and anti-harassment policy for K-12 schools that aligns requirements related to bullying, hazing, sexual assault, sexual harassment, dating violence, and other issues.
Require postsecondary institutions adopt affirmative consent standards for responding to allegations of sexual violence, and expand K-12 health education standards to explicitly address areas of consent and healthy relationships in middle and high school.
Require that postsecondary institutions offer online, anonymous reporting options for students as part of their required reporting and response systems under federal and state law.
Establish amnesty policies protecting students who report sexual assault to postsecondary institutions from being disciplined for other policy violations, such as drug and alcohol use.
“I’m proud to stand with Governor Wolf today in support of the “Its On Us” campaign, and to introduce legislation requiring colleges and universities provide amnesty to those who come forward about sexual violence that they have experienced, or witnessed,” said Rep. Madeleine Dean. “Sadly, most instances of sexual violence go unreported. Beyond the difficulty of coming forward, victims and Samaritans should not fear further punishment for incidental infractions.”
“I am ready to get to work to pass this package of legislation, and to ensure that the state is investing our money as effectively as possible, and I believe that there is no better investment than the safety and security of our young people,” Governor Wolf added. “We cannot allow sexual assault in Pennsylvania to continue, and we will no longer tolerate its existence in our educational institutions.”A Flagstaff dog is being hailed a four-legged hero after helping rescue a man from an overnight snowstorm back on April 16.
His owner told 12 News his dog refused to come back inside, which alerted him that something was wrong.
Marley the dog’s non-stop barking was what caught the attention of his owner who then heard a voice crying out from the darkness behind his home.
"He was extremely persistent, I couldn’t get him to come back in," John Paul Roccaforte said.
It was a bitter cold and snowy Saturday morning when Roccaforte let his dogs Izzy and Marley out around 1 a.m. to go the bathroom
His backyard is at the base of Mt. Elden
"He’s really attuned to animals and stuff going on in the woods, but this time he was really barking a lot," Roccaforte said.
Marley was pacing and barking at the backyard fence and refused to go back inside.
Roccaforte said, "I heard a voice –- I thought. And so, in between him barking so much I did hear kind of a moaning and then I heard, 'help.'"
A man in his 20s suffering from hypothermia was lying about 75 yards away -- according to Flagstaff Police, that man turned out to be a lost hiker in distress who was only wearing a t-shirt and a pair of pants.
"He wasn’t walking on his own accord, but they were helping him walk out," said Roccaforte.
The man was then rushed to a nearby hospital.
"Really good job on Marley’s part. We’re just so proud of him," his owner said.
And Roccaforte believes his dog was paying it forward. Marley was a stray puppy set to be euthanized.
"He got rescued and now he got to do the same thing for somebody else," he said.
Roccaforte said his dog received a lot of treats as a reward for his heroic efforts.
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This is the shocking moment a fast food fan hit speeds of 129mph racing home to keep his McDonald’s warm.
Roofer Lee Rutherford, of Blyth, put the pedal to the floor along the A189 - also known as Spine Road - after picking up a McDonald’s in Ashington at 9pm on Saturday, February 6.
This footage shows the hair-raising chase captured by a Northumbria Police copper giving chase to the 32-year-old’s modified Renault Clio in treacherous conditions.
When questioned reckless Rutherford told officers he was in a rush to get home so he could eat his takeaway while it was still warm.
Rutherford pleaded guilty to making a false statement to obtain insurance, but denied dangerous driving.
He was later found guilty at a trial and sentenced for both offences on October 14.
Kyle Patterson, defending Rutherford, told Bedlington Magistrates’ Court: “Him driving at such a speed was because he’d been to McDonald’s and he wanted his food to still be hot by the time he got home.”
Mr Patterson asked magistrates to consider a non-custodial sentence, saying Rutherford was not “swerving” dangerously on the road. Instead, the lawyer argued, Rutherford’s speed, almost double the 70mph limit, was “just daft”.
He added: “It’s a lad in a high-powered car who sees an open road in front of him at a clear time of day and he puts his foot down.”
Lynne Russell, prosecuting, told the court how a police officer in an unmarked car followed Rutherford before stopping him.
She said: “Taking into account the conditions, the officer felt the standard of driving fell far below the standard of a competent driver in those conditions.”
He had failed to tell his insurance company that the hatchback had been modified.
The modifications, Mr Patterson told the court, included a new air filter and adjustments to the exhaust.
Rutherford bought the car so he could learn how to drive and has held a licence for under two years. The court heard he has a previous conviction, in 2004, for a drink driving offence.
Rutherford, of Twelfth Avenue, Blyth, has since sold the Clio.
David Gunn, chairman of the bench, said: “The most serious offence is the dangerous driving. We’d say it was excessive speed, in particularly in relation to the conditions on a wet road.”
Mr Gunn said magistrates considered sending Rutherford to prison straight away, but the bench settled on a 20-week custodial sentence, suspended for one year.
Magistrates banned Rutherford from driving for 18-months and revoked his licence, as he has only held one for under two years. Rutherford will have to take an extended driving test to be allowed behind the wheel again.
He was fined £500 and ordered to pay £620 in costs.The NSA's data-collection activities are so resource-intensive, the agency can't complete its new server farms fast enough. But when it does, a significant share of what gets held on those servers could wind up being worthless spam.
We now know the NSA collects hundreds of thousands of address books and contact lists from e-mail services and instant messaging clients per day. Thanks to this information, the NSA is capable of building a map of a target's online relationships.
Sometimes, however, that process goes awry — such as when one Iranian e-mail address of interest got taken over by spammers. The Iranian account began sending out bogus messages to its entire address book. This included a number of Yahoo Groups addresses that in some cases represented thousands of other e-mail users. So the NSA dutifully flagged not only the fake messages that got sent out, but also the inboxes of all the thousands of people who were receiving the spam. And then the NSA started downloading information on them, and their inboxes, and their address books even if they weren't of interest. Worse, the spam that wasn't deleted by those recipients kept getting scooped up every time the NSA's gaze passed over them. And as some people had marked the Iranian account as a safe account, additional spam messages continued to stream in, and the NSA likely picked those up, too.
This caused huge amounts of unimportant information to flow through the NSA's systems, according to a chart in a top secret NSA presentation. Every day from Sept. 11, 2011 to Sept. 24, 2011, the NSA collected somewhere between 2 GB and 117 GB of data concerning this Iranian address. The exact numbers aren't clear because details of the chart have been redacted.
(NSA / The Washington Post)
Industry reports show spam accounts for an overwhelming share of all e-mail. Other internal NSA documents obtained by The Post's Barton Gellman appear to agree. If what the NSA is downloading is at all reflective of the broader Internet, then it's fair to conclude the agency collects a significant amount of spam and has little choice but to store it — meaning that of the "alottabytes" of storage the NSA brags about in its Utah data center, a heap of them will be filled with junk.Ridley
2nd Panel
Young Link - The Legend of Zelda
PKMN Trainer - Pokemon
Roy - Fire Emblem
Snake - Metal Gear Solid
Pichu - Pokemon
Ice Climbers - Ice Climbers
3rd Panel
(Top Row)
Geno - Mario RPG
Shantae - Shantae
Shovel Knight - Shovel Knight
King K. Rool - Donkey Kong
(Bottom Row)
Excitebike Racer - Excitebike
Chorus Kids - Rhythm Heaven
Sceptile - Pokemon
Krystal - Star Fox
Isaac - Golden Sun
4th Panel
Shrek - Home Depot
Goku - Home Depot Z
Big changes are coming.For those unaware, Nintendo's actually hosting a ballot for the next fighter to be included as DLC for Smash Bros. Surprising, ain't it? You can vote forthe next character here! cp.nintendo.co.jp/us/ (Just be reasonable with your suggestions. You know what I'm talking about.)And since people are probably going to ask what characters are who, here's a list of them in order along with their respective series:The New England Revolution announced the signing of 2004 MLS SuperDraft pick Jeremiah White on Friday.
It only took eight years.
White, the Revs third round pick (23rd overall) in the 2004 Major League Soccer SuperDraft, opted to try his luck in Europe rather than sign in MLS. The speedy winger’s whirlwind tour across the pond saw him play in Serbia with OFK Beograd, Greece with Panserraikos, France with FC Gueugnon Denmark with AGF Aarhus, Saudi Arabia with Al-Ettifaq, and most recently in Poland with GKS Belchatów.
White’s best spell came with Aarhus from 2007-2010 where he registered seven goals and 12 assists in 80 matches. He also made an appearance with the U.S. National Team in 2008.
Other than that period, White, 29, struggled to stick with a team for longer than a season.
Now White – after an extended trial this preseason – is finally set to join the team that drafted him.
“Jeremiah is an out-and-out attacking player who we believe can help us stretch defenses with his speed and ability to beat defenders in one-on |
on the street and I hear the shelling really loud. People left the streets. It feels scary.”
The 10th grade girl who wrote the message, Diana Fomenko, lives in Shchastya, a small town in eastern Ukraine caught in the crossfire of the war between the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian rebels. In Shchastya, a town whose name translates to “happiness,” and nearby city Popasna, Vlasova is documenting youth living in the Ukrainian war zone.
“War is not only soldiers and trenches,” says Vlasova, who has covered the front lines since 2014, but grew tired of only photographing the fighting. It’s also local people who need to continue—and in the case of the youth—build, their lives in the midst of conflict. Vlasova says the teenagers haven’t let the war prevent them from being kids. At the same time, when a balloon suddenly breaks during a school ceremony they all hit the floor, accustomed to dodging anything that mimics the sound of gunfire.
With only one café, one Wi-Fi place, and not a single cinema, shopping mall, or nightclub, in Shchastya they live like teenagers did 20 years ago, observes Vlasova. They hang out in courtyards, go to their smoking places, dance, sing, and go to high school football games. Cell phone service is spotty and Vlasova doesn’t see the teenagers buried in their phones often. “They’re really speaking to each other,” she says, “for young people I think it’s easier to find happiness in this grim situation because they stick less to the material world.”
They fall in and out of love. Last year at summer camp 16-year-old Oleh Vilkov fell for a girl from Svitlodarsk, the scene of one of the war’s deadliest battles. To commemorate his love he tattooed her name on his chest. Then, because of the distance between them, he broke up with her.
They worry about what mom thinks, too. Oleh is still waiting for his mom to notice the tattoo so he can stop hiding it. They hold their cigarettes between sticks instead of their fingers so their hands don’t smell when they get home.
Vlasova, who is 24 years old and grew up in Kherson, a small town in southern Ukraine, relates closely to the lives of the teenagers. She didn’t have trouble being welcomed into their group. With teens, she says, you’re either accepted or you’re not. “I just wanted to hang out with them and photograph,” Vlasova says, “I was completely transparent.” This included being clear about when she was acting as a documentarian and acting as a friend, even though the overlap was a challenge. “There were moments I would not photograph at all, especially in the evenings when I would see that they just wanted to hang out and speak to me as a friend and not as a grown up,” she says.
An image of 16-year-old Alyona Kryshchenko taken on a sunny afternoon encapsulates the emotional complexity Vlasova hopes the series reveals: the beauty of youth and of being a teenager who is insecure and courageous all at once. “Her eyes are closed and to me this symbolizes the uncertainty of her future and who she’ll be,” explains Vlasova.
“When you’re young you don’t want to be depressed all the time,” says the photographer. The reality, though, is that many of the teens take sedatives to sleep. At 15 and 16 years old “they’re supposed to be having typical teenage romances and drama.” And they do, but then you go to a football match and a girl tells you a story of when she was visiting her aunt in Luhansk and a main died in front of her at the boarding crossing from fatigue and overheating, recalls Vlasova. For the teenagers, living in a war zone is a combination of horrible and joyful events and it would be easy to let the anger and grieving consume you, but “they’re choosing life in this situation,” says Vlasova.
View Images A view of a school window blocked with sandbags in case of shelling in Verkhnyotoretske, Donetsk area. Photograph by Anastasia Vlasova
Vlasova and the teens keep in touch while she’s away documenting other aspects of the war. When she hears about a shelling in their area, which at the moment is nearly every day, Vlasova gets in touch to make sure they’re safe. “Guys, are you at home, are you safe, are you alright?” she writes in a group chat. “I’m home, it’s quiet now, it’s fine, it’s okay,” she’ll hear back. In Shchastya and Popasna, the bond between Vlasova and the teens is strong and she feels humbled she can be a role model. “Look,” she says to the teens, “I come from a small city and I got my education in Kiev and built a career. I'm on my own and this is what I do. You also can do that, there's always a chance no matter what messed up situation you come from.”this piece here.
Tinkerbell: The main part I struggled to convey through illustration was the multiple layers of chiffon in her skirt. Its big and poofy and the ankle-length panel at the back should have a pretty long train. It should look really floaty! I wanted to create a dress that looked like it had been dipped in fairy dust. So I would choose a chiffon that's already studded with gems, then add some thick gold beads at the end. Heck, throw in a layer of irridescent organza in there too! Just go to town on it. The flowers on her bodice are constructed with layers of chiffon. I would even bother hemming them - fairies always strike me as wearing dresses that are little frayed and wild looking. There's feather on the tops of her shoes :3 Also, just go to town on the flowers in her hair. Again, she needs to look like she's rolled out a magical woodland, ahah!
------------------
You're welcome to cosplay any of these designs! If you do, you can tag me on Instagram ( hannah
Here are the final three of my Disney Princess Series! Tiana > Anna > Tinkerbell-------------------------------Construction Notes - (Please keep in mind these are vague estimations of how to construct these pieces - the designs are concepts!!)-------------------------------Tiana: I hated Tiana's original dress. That leaf monstrousity did not do her justice imo. Sorry if you disagree, but I did not like it at all! So when recreating that dress I decided to take inspiration from 1920s-30s dress designs. 20s dresses are heavy on the embroidery. Tiana's dress looks heavy on top (in fact, 20s dresses often were heavy from embellishment!!) but it should blend nicely into the fabric as it is all in shades of green. There's a heck of a lot of beading work going on here. The skirt is dip dyed chiffon. There's feathers in the headpiece, it's pretty similar to. All the diamontes across her upper chest are glued onto skin coloured, sheer netting/fabric. The little flower on the corset part of the bodice is a broach.Anna: Ah, much requested Anna. She was a lot of fun to do! I took a few elements from her coronation dress as well as her'main' dress. In an ideal world her braid would be fishtail braids. I pictured the dark section of the dress as velvet, but there's no way you can dipdye that, so just go for some heavy duty cotton for the stiff look. The underskirt is ombre chiffon. Her cape thingy is sheer - maybe something like organza? The gloves are those kind that cut off half way down he hand. They feel weird to wear but they look so cool imo. You could make her headdress with embellished lace, secured to the head with elastic of bobby pins. It wraps all the way round the back of her head. It look similar toLife as a Chinese government official just ain't what it used to be.
Officials pinched so many pennies last year amid an austerity push that they didn't spend all of their travel and entertainment budget.
Spending on these perks -- travel, vehicles and entertainment -- came in 15% below budget at 5.37 billion yuan ($830 million), according to the Ministry of Finance.
"Various departments strictly implemented the savings requirements," the ministry said on its website.
President Xi Jinping has been leading a widespread anti-corruption and austerity campaign since 2013. The crackdown has continued to spread, affecting government agencies and state-owned enterprises. It has netted officials, prominent businessmen and even journalists on corruption charges that range from rumor-mongering to insider trading.
Related: Beijing to officials: You can't start a business
Ordered to rein in excess, officials have tightened their belts, spending less on things like high-end fashion and gambling. A number of luxury brands, including Louis Vuitton (LVMHF), Hugo Boss (BOSSY) and Burberry (BBRYF) have all noted weaker sales amid the anti-corruption drive.
Earlier this month, Prada (PRDSF) reported a 26.6% fall in net income for 2015, blaming weak sales in China for the slump.
Macau, a special administrative region of China where gambling is legal, suffered a 20% contraction in its economy last year as many high-rollers stopped coming to gamble in the city's casinos. Top casinos, such as Sands (SCGVX) and Wynn (WYNMF), have also taken a hit.
The Chinese government has cracked down on other activities, forbidding Communist Party members from accepting memberships to expensive golf clubs for free and asking officials to throw less lavish banquets.
Earlier this week, Beijing also expanded a pilot program that restricts the private business affairs of relatives of government officials.State Sen. Chris Larson was elected Senate minority leader Tuesday, as legislators convened for the first time since the November elections.
Larson, whose district includes Oak Creek, succeeds Mark Miller of Monona.
"I am humbled by the confidence my fellow senators have in me by electing me their leader," Larson said in a statement. "Wisconsin voters spoke loud and clear on November 6. They want Democratic and Republican lawmakers to move the state forward with programs and policies that reflect our shared values. For the sake of Wisconsin's future, I encourage members of the Legislature to work together as Wisconsinites by casting off our partisan labels and setting aside any politically divisive agendas."
Larson said he looks forward to tackling the state's challenges — among them, creating jobs, supporting public schools and making sure taxpayer dollars are wisely invested.
He also expressed his desire for the state to implement "comprehensive, functional" health care exchanges in compliance with the federal Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare.
"With the support and confidence of my Democratic colleagues, I look forward to tackling these difficult but important issues with the governor and Republican legislators," he said. "However, such efforts will only succeed if as fellow badgers we dig deep and work together to create a brighter future for our family, friends, and neighbors."
According to a Wisconsin State Journal reporter, Republicans were happy to hear the news: new Assembly Speaker, Republican Robin Vos, said after announcing Larson's election, "Sometimes God gives you a gift."
Larson is an outspoken Democrat whose views oftentimes are at odds with conserative-leaning Oak Creek. He especially drew fire last February when he and other Senate Democrats left the state during deliberations over Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair bill.
Larson was later a vocal supporter of the effort to recall Walker.
The 32-year-old was first elected to the Senate in 2010 after defeating incumbent Democrat Jeff Plale in the primary.Obama authorizes arms supplies to Syrian rebels
President Obama canceled the provision of the federal law designed specifically to prevent arms supplies to terrorist groups. The move was made to give the U.S. an official way for military aid to the Syrian rebels, most of whom are radical Islamists, The Washington Examiner said.
The president made the announcement on September 16, stating that he was lifting restrictions in sections 40 and 40A of the law on the control of arms exports related to transactions of the kind.
In these sections, it goes about the ban on arms supplies to the countries indicated in paragraph 40(d) - the ones that the State Department may find suspicious in supporting acts of international terrorism.
U.S. law allows the president to cancel the above-mentioned restrictions, if "the matter is necessary in the interests of U.S. national security."
Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee said that the US intelligence had accurate information on whom to support. He acknowledged that one could make mistakes, and a part of the weapons would be given to those who should not receive any weapons at all. But in any case, the United States should do everything to support the opposition free Syria, he added.
According to IHS Jane's, from 100,000 Syrian rebels about 80,000 are Islamists, and 50,000 of them are radical Islamists.While we have see HDMI sticks that run versions of Windows in the past, the team at InFocus have just announced a new portable desktop PC that has a few extra features. The InFocus Kangaroo can run a full version of Windows 10 Home, yet still fit in the palm of your hand, and costs just $99.
VentureBeat got a chance to go hands-on with the Kangaroo, which goes on sale later today at NewEgg.com and will be sold via the Microsoft Store site in November:
The pitch is simple: Kangaroo offers the power of a cheap full-sized computer with the convenience and mobility of a cell phone. The black satin aluminum device is powered by an Intel Cherrytrail (Z8500) SOC, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage (though only about 18GB is free when you first start it, but storage is expandable via a microSD card), and an on-board battery (up to four hours of "casual use"). The standalone Kangaroo Dock, which you can swap out for other future docks, includes an HDMI port and two USB ports."
Besides the on-board battery, another difference between the Kangaroo and a Windows-based HDMI dongle is that the Kangaroo can be connected even to an iPad. It includes a dock that can connect to other monitors and it even has a fingerprint reader that supports Windows 10's Windows Hello security feature. InFocus plans to release more add-ons for the Kangaroo, including a monitor and more dock adaptors.
Buy the InFocus Kangaroo Windows 10 PC from NewEgg / $99
Source: VentureBeat
This post may contain affiliate links. See our disclosure policy for more details.$ 11.99
Fidget to focus with the original fidget toy!
The Tangle Jr. is so much fun to twist and turn - it's hard to put it down! Tangles are the ultimate creativity tool for kids and adults alike. After 37 years and over 150 million units sold worldwide, Tangles can be found everywhere with loyal fans who LOVE their Tangles! From the classroom to the boardroom and everywhere in between, the fun and creativity never stops when you've got a Tangle in your hand.
Collect and connect with your friends!
Please note:
- Colors may vary.
- When coiled, the Tangle Jr. measures 1.5" x 2" x 1.5"
- Extends to 7" when uncoiled.
- Each Tangle Jr. is comprised of eighteen 1" curved sections.
- Due to the separating sections, the Tangle Jr. is a choking hazard for children under the age of 3.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Roman Catholic bishops stepped up their battle against President Obama’s contraceptives policy on Friday by urging Congress to use its fiscal debate to free religious employers from a mandate requiring insurance coverage for birth control.
In a letter to all 535 members of Congress, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore suggested two provisions to extend existing federal conscience protections to the contraceptives mandate and strengthen the ability of opponents to seek vindication in federal court.
“The federal government’s respect for believers and people of conscience no longer measures up to the treatment Americans have a right to expect from their elected representatives,” wrote Lori, who chairs the Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“I urge you in the strongest terms possible to incorporate the provisions... in the upcoming legislative proposals to fund the federal government,” Lori added.
The conference also plans to send out an action alert via email and text message calling on supporters across the country to visit local congressional offices next week when lawmakers are home on break.
Obama’s 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires employers to provide health insurance coverage through group coverage plans for all contraceptives approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, including the so-called “morning after” pill.
The archbishop’s letter underscored a growing sense of urgency among church leaders over the birth control coverage rules that are due to take effect on August 1 for religiously affiliated employers including universities, hospitals and charities.
The bishops have tried several times to get Congress to act over the past year, amid numerous protests and more than 40 lawsuits by religious groups and employers. But Lori’s letter marks their first attempt to use the debates over deficit reduction, the debt limit and government funding.
“To many people, this looks like the main must-pass vehicle going through Congress this year,” said Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the conference’s Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities.
The new healthcare law contains an exemption for houses of worship but has come under attack from Catholic leaders, Protestant Evangelicals and other social conservatives who also want religious nonprofit organizations and religious business owners exempted.
The Catholic Church regards contraception as a sin and birth control products like the morning-after pill a form of abortion. In a development that could intensify the debate, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported this week that growing numbers of American women are using the morning-after pill.
The Obama administration offered its opponents a compromise on February 1 by proposing new regulations that would allow religious employers to avoid paying for birth control coverage for their workers. Instead, insurers would provide the benefits free through separate coverage plans.
The president of the bishops conference, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, rejected the plan as inadequate last week.
Doerflinger said church efforts to get favorable language on contraceptives included in funding legislation follows a congressional precedent for including conscience provisions in appropriations bills in the U.S. House of Representatives.
But he acknowledged that the bishops could face an uphill fight on Capitol Hill. “The pressure everywhere is for just trying to address the money issues,” he said. “That’s why we need to remind members of Congress that these issues of fundamental rights are also pending and won’t go away.”Seoul, June 29 (IANS) North Korea Sunday fired two short-range ballistic missiles into waters off its east coast, a South Korean military official said.
"North Korea fired each missile from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon Province, at about 4:50 a.m. and 4:58 a.m. into the East Sea," Xinhua quoted the official as saying.
"Their range was about 500 km," the official added.
According the official, North Korea fired the missiles without designating no-sail zones, which the South Korean military view as a clear provocation.
"The missiles landed in international waters north-east of the East Sea," the official said.
The launch came three days after North Korea fired three short-range projectiles into the East Sea.
It also marks North Korea's 11th firing of short-range missiles and the fourth ballistic missile launch this year.
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.If you were expecting more drama between UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson and company president Dana White, guess again.
Johnson and White had a public spat several weeks ago when Johnson complained about his working conditions, to which White rather vigorously disagreed.
But in his first interview since winning the ESPY award for Best Fighter, Johnson says that he and White will soon hash out their differences, and it won’t be done over the Internet.
Johnson and White will meet in Anaheim during UFC 214 fight week to hash out their differences and move forward.
“I don’t think it’s fair when you have two grown men bicker on the f*cking Internet,” Johnson said on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “You know what I mean? We’ll end up like Blac Chyna and Rob Kardashian. Grown men, they sit down and talk about it, and that’s what we’re going to do in two weeks.”
While things got heated there for awhile after Johnson, who has been flyweight champion since 2012, balked at the notion of defending his title against former bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw, the champ now believes it was all a matter of miscommunication.
“It was just a big misunderstanding and we’re going to meet with Dana White,” Johnson said. “Dana White’s a grown-ass man, I am too, he’s got kids, I got kids, we’re going to sit down and get on the same level and go from there and see what options we have.”
Johnson, who for the bulk of his career went without a full-time manager, preferring to take advice from trainer Matt Hume, has decided the time’s right to hand off managerial duties. As such, he recently signed with Malki Kawa of First Round Management, which represents fighters such as Jon Jones and Yoel Romero.
“Me and Matt both felt it was time to be managed by, to get a manager, tou know what I mean?” Johnson said. “It’s time in my career to bring in somebody who’s going to focus on that part of business, so me and Matt can focus on what we do best, which is get ready for the fight. Matt’s always been a great manager and helped me get ready for my fight and is one of my main training partners, now it’s time to put that responsibility on somebody else.”
One bit of advice Johnson took straightaway was to stop rushing into things. His next title defense will mark his 11th, and if he wins, he’ll surpass Anderson Silva for the all-time UFC title-defense record. Johnson recently had stem-cell treatment done on a hand and wants to fully recover before moving forward.
“They’re ‘you’re always in a rush to fight,” Johnson said. “You’re always fighting, fighting, fighting. you fight three times in 2013, you fought three times in 2014 you just f*cking fought in April. So relax, let your hand heal, and that way when you’ll have your best performance when you’re going up against the record, this record will probably never be broken again. So let’s relax, let’s get through this, let your body heal, let your hand heal, and we’ll go from there.”
But Johnson, who expects to fight Ray Borg next, doesn’t plan on sitting around for too long.
“I’m fighting this year,” Johnson said. “There’s money to be made, and I want mine.”We are all guilty of it, some more than others. Running down our city, that is.
A columnist who makes the mistake of citing some of Toronto’s positive virtues is bound to get a reader response pointing to a deficiency. It’s a natural reflex, yes, though one that seems to find succor in expansive numbers across the region.
“Maybe we are like Woody Allen’s movie persona — too neurotically self-critical,” says David Naylor, president of the University of Toronto.
In a speech last month to the Toronto Board of Trade, calling on Torontonians to “get over ourselves” and start celebrating the “remarkable municipalities that together make up the Toronto metropolitan region,” Naylor terms this self-deprecation as “chronic hypochondriasis,” a fixation on illness.
It doesn’t help when your political leaders — the ones who, by definition, are expected to be the biggest boosters — turn out to be the biggest busters of a city’s pride.
For more than a year, Torontonians have been bombarded with messages that the city is a fiscal basket case. Waste is everywhere. Taxes are evil — and too high. And it’s essential to take the axe to social, community, cultural and artistic services as they may be “nice to haves.” Haven’t you heard what’s happening in Greece?
Our economic indicators suggest this is gross fear-mongering. The latest report, out now, shows a positive outlook in every indicator for the City of Toronto proper. For example:
• The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 8.8 per cent in March (above the rest of Canada, but trending downward). Some 27,000 more people are employed in the city than a year ago.
• Toronto continues to lead all North American cities or city regions in the number of high-rise construction projects (185), more than Mexico City (88) and New York (85) combined. And they are not just condos. Donald Trump officially opened his luxury hotel Monday; commercial activity is up; industrial construction is strong; and institutional buildings continue to rise.
• The city’s value of building permits was $720 million in February, galloping ahead of last year, and higher than the combined numbers across the 905 region.
• Office vacancy rates have been trending downwards for two years and now stands at 5.5 per cent, even as a number of large downtown office buildings open up.
• If you’ve heard that new immigrants are bypassing Toronto for better prospects out west, look at the numbers again. Almost four in 10 choose the GTA, one in five coming to the 416 area.
• And a huge number of people find city life attractive. About 45 per cent of all housing starts in the Toronto region are in the city proper.
• Google is opening its Canadian headquarters on Richmond St. W. Coca-Cola Canada’s new HQ is coming to King St. E. And everywhere you look, the potential here is great.
Speaking to the board of trade, Naylor listed the city’s virtues. Spreading it across the entire metropolitan region, he reminded his listeners that Toronto is top ranked in Canada for entrepreneurship, the health sector, food and beverage sector, manufacturing, financial services, information and communication technologies, the culture and creative sector, legal services, cultural diversity, share of top-100 startups in Canada, innovation and the like.
Internationally, Toronto is ranked lowest in risk for employers, second in opportunity and as “smart city on the planet;” third for quality of life; fourth for innovation, livability, rates of entrepreneurship and as a “city of the future;” sixth in business competitiveness, 10th as a finance centre; and way down the ladder (59th) as an expensive city.
“Put simply, we are good at everything because we are good at everything,” said Naylor.
Worth repeating.
Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: rjames@thestar.caTo live a long healthy life, food plays a main role. We know that fast-food and too much sugar are bad for us, and lean protein and vegetables are ideal.
But there’s one food item that can actually reduce mortality – whole grains.
Although bleached and white breads are not good for us, whole grains on the other hand offer us many nutritional benefits. Whole grains contain all the essential nutrients from the grain and have undergone little to no processing.
When foods go through processing and refining, many of the nutritional benefits become lost or devalued, so keeping the grain intact is essential for good health. In fact, a single serving of whole grains can help lower your risk of dying – of cardiovascular disease in particular – by up to 10 percent. That’s according to new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Looking into whole grains and cardiovascular disease
Harvard School of Public Health recently examined the health data of more than 2.7 million people: About 74,000 women from the Nurses’ Health Study and more than 43,000 men from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. They completed questionnaires about their diet every two or four years between the mid-1980s and 2010.
Researchers adjusted for a variety of factors, such as age, smoking, body mass index, physical activity and overall diet except for whole grains. Over 25 years, they compared participants’ whole grain intake with mortality data.
They learned that for every daily serving of whole grains you eat – roughly 28 grams – your risk of death declines by as much as 5 percent. What’s more, that same kind of healthy eating every day decreases your risk of developing cardiovascular disease by as much as 10 percent. Even swapping refined grains and red meats with whole grains can help lower mortality, according to researchers. All it takes is replacing one serving of refined grains or red meat each day with one serving of whole grains.
Swapping out refined grains could mean an 8 percent lower mortality; swapping out red meat could lead to a 20 percent lower mortality. On the other hand, researchers found no link between eating whole grains and lowered cancer-related deaths.
Previously, eating more whole grains was linked to a lower risk of chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, but there haven’t been many studies on whole grains and mortality.
Whole grains versus refined grains
So why is consuming whole grains considered healthy eating? Well, whole grains fill you up without ever increasing your blood sugar and insulin levels. Generally, whole grains are made up of fiber, magnesium, phenolic acids, and other nutrients and phytochemicals. They’re quite different from refined grains like the ultra-processed ones you find in white bread, crackers and pretty much all snack foods.
Ways to eat more whole grains and lower your risk of cardiovascular disease
Of course, oatmeal isn’t the only path to healthy eating. You can also try brown rice, whole grain bread and pasta, and quinoa. But if you really want to get the healthiest whole grains and lower your risk of cardiovascular disease, consider purchasing unprocessed grains, not those mixed or baked into other foods. That means whole rolled oats instead of sugary instant oatmeal. Basically, as I’ve mentioned, the less processing or preparation your whole grains have undergone, the better.
Interestingly, Harvard School of Public Health backs the current dietary guidelines that promote whole grains as one of the major healthful foods for prevention of major chronic diseases. Based on existing health research, your goal should be three or more servings, about 28 grams, daily.
So if you can add a big bowl of oatmeal, quinoa, or bulgur to your everyday diet, you’ll be on the right track to healthy eating and possibly a longer life.
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Odds are you won’t die from this disease after all…
This may be a familiar story: A man in his 70s has taken blood pressure medication since he was 50 because of high blood pressure and the associated risk of heart disease. At 50, the man was also told to change his diet, cut down on the salt and saturated fat, and make sure to get regular exercise.
You are definitely at risk for heart disease if…
Diabetes and heart disease are two issues you may not have considered go hand in hand. They do. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), diabetes deaths are set to rise by more than 50 percent in the next decade alone. Gaining awareness about this disease and your risk factors has a special importance with such staggering numbers, and now new research could help you do just that.
9 Amazing benefits of chia seeds
In our busy lives it’s often hard to get all the nutrients our body requires to stay healthy. It’s suggested you eat a variety of foods in order to get…Read more
Health benefits of quinoa
The buzz surrounding quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Quinoa has been hailed a superfood and for good reason, too. Its high protein and fiber content, along with being gluten-free, has given it quite the star power. Continue reading…A woman was stabbed in the butt and attacked Wednesday on the same block as the Dragon’s Gate entrance to Chinatown, police said.
The assault appears to have been retaliation for an argument the victim was in with another woman.
Police said the second woman’s boyfriend went to the victim at Bush Street near Grant Avenue just before 6 p.m. The boyfriend confronted her, punched her in the face several times and then stabbed her.
The woman, 46, was taken to San Francisco General Hospital with stab wounds to her buttocks and abrasions to her face, police said. She’s expected to survive.
The unidentified attacker, also believed to be 46 years old, rode away on a black bicycle before police arrived. No arrests have been made.
Read more criminal justice news on the Crime Ink page in print. Follow us on Twitter: @sfcrimeink
Click here or scroll down to commentThe 42 bills also include legislation to scrap wind farm subsidies, end the ringfence for foreign aid spending and rename the late August Bank Holiday “Margaret Thatcher Day”.
Britain’s relationship with Europe features prominently in the action plan, with draft laws setting out how the UK would leave the European Union and a Bill to prevent Bulgarians and Romanians winning new rights to work, live and claim benefits here from next year.
All of the proposals were laid before the House of Commons last night after the Tory backbenchers hijacked an obscure Parliamentary procedure by camping out in Westminster for four successive nights.
Many of the less controversial policies – including legislating for a transferable tax allowance for married couples and making the Coalition’s introduction of same-sex marriage subject to referendum – are known to be very popular amongst Conservative MPs.
Those MPs behind the alternative legislative programme say it is a “genuine attempt” to show what policies a future Conservative government could deliver.
Peter Bone, the MP for Wellingborough and one of the architects of the document, said: “This is serious attempt to deliver policies that the British public really want. There are ideas here that could form the basis of a future Conservative manifesto.”
When asked what he thought David Cameron would make of the policies, Mr Bone: “I think the Prime Minister will be pretty relaxed about this.”
One of the proposed Bill’s would privatise the BBC, with all license-fee payers awarded shares in the corporation. A separate bill would de-criminalise non-payment of the licence fee.
The programme also includes plans to abolish the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister – a post currently occupied by Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader – as well as legislation to abolish the Department of Energy and Climate Change and reintroduce national service.
All of the 42 proposed Bills may now be subject to debate in Parliament over the coming months after members of the group staged a four-day sit-in at a committee room the House of Commons' Public Bill Office.
In order to be first in the queue to put down their private members’ bills yesterday (Thursday) morning, members of the Tory grouping first appeared outside the office at 10pm on Sunday evening.
In order to keep their place in the queue the four members of the group adopted a rota, with the Kettering MP Philip Hollobone agreeing to spend four nights crashed out on a camp bed with little but a flask of coffee for company.
Mr Hollobone said: “It was four nights in a rather hot, square stuffy room right under Big Ben – so not conducive to a good night’s sleep. But it ensured that we were first in the queue when the slots for Private Members’ Bills were given out.
“This is a way for us as MPs to ensure that these popular policies wanted by so many of our constituents get Parliamentary airtime over the months ahead.”
David Nuttall, the MP for Bury North, and Christopher Chope, who represents Christchuch, also took turns to keep the group’s pole position.
The vigil ensured that all of the 42 policies proposed in the Alternative Queen’s Speech have made it on to the House of Commons Parliamentary Table and are set to be heard as Private Members’ Bills between now and May next year.
Details of the alternative Queen’s Speech came as another major Conservative rebellion loomed with a former minister amending the Finance Bill to give MPs a vote on whether to give stay at home mums a marriage tax break
Education minister Tim Loughton tabled an amendment to Finance Bill later on Wednesday to bring into law a transferrable tax allowance for married couples.
The amendment, which will be voted on by MPs, could force the Government to ask its MPs to vote against a Tory manifesto Coalition agreement commitment.
Scores of Conservative MPs expected to support the amendment, which would initially limit the allowance to couples with a child aged under the age of five, when it is voted on early next month, although it is likely to fail because of opposition from Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
The Daily Telegraph understands the whips sent veteran backbencher Sir Edward Leigh to beg Loughton not to table the amendment. But he has ignored their pleas.
Mr Loughton said: "The Prime Minister has reiterated his huge enthusiasm for marriage. It is long overdue for him to put our money where his mouth is and honour the longstanding Conservative pledge to restore a transferable married couple’s tax allowance and send out a clear message that we value marriage and family socially and financially.
"More than three years on from our manifesto commitment to bring in a transferable tax allowance, ratified in the Coalition Agreement, it appears no nearer and the patience of many hardworking home based parents is being severely stretched.
"Time is running out to make good on our very clear commitment and the Report Stage of the Finance Bill presents one of the last opportunities to put this important measure on the statute book before the next election.
"My amendment gives the Chancellor maximum flexibility to do this and I hope he will seize this late opportunity.
"Hardworking parents who are trying to do the best by their children and saving the State a fortune in the process are relying on us to produce the goods.
The amendment would come into effect from 2015 and be available to all married couples or those in civil partnerships with at least one child living at home below the age of five, allowing the Chancellor to alter the age qualifications at subsequent Budgets.
The amount of the allowance which can be transferred between spouses would be decided by the Chancellor and subject to a parliamentary Order.
Mr Loughton added: "The Government has rightly made a priority of supporting hardworking families in these difficult economic times.
"But there are also many hardworking married families or in civil partnerships where one of the parents is working hard at bringing up children in the home.
"Yet almost uniquely amongst Western economies they receive no recognition in |
body that conforms more toward what we think it should look like... I would given anything for this not to have been done to our child. I don't want it to happen to anymore kids."
According to ABC News, about 1 in 2,000 children born each year are classified as intersex, one of dozens of disorders of sexual development (DSD).
And M.C. is not the first child to have irreversible surgery as a baby, only to later realize doctors chose the "wrong" gender.
Advocates for Informed Choice (AIC) is working with the SPLC on behalf of the Crawfords. The AIC is an organization that specializes in advocating for the rights of intersex children, according to its director and founder, Anne Tamar-Mattis.
Tamar-Mattis told The Huffington Post in a phone interview that these surgeries have been going on for years, but that parents were not necessarily willing to talk publicly about it, let alone explore possible legal options.
The issue is personal for Tamar-Mattis, whose partner and friends are intersex.
"People I care about [have] been deeply, deeply hurt by these surgeries, and I want to make sure it doesn't happen to other children," she told HuffPost.
She said the problem is often that doctors aren't following "accepted standards for authorized consent."
When a child is 16 months old -- the age M.C. was when he was operated on -- "doctors shouldn't be making that decision at all," she said. They need to "wait until the mature child can make the decision, with full information and the participation of the parents."
However, doctors who perform these procedures have argued that it can be beneficial to assign a clear gender sooner, rather than later.
"There haven’t been any studies that would support doing nothing,” Larry Baskin, chief of pediatric urology at the University of California, San Francisco, told The New York Times in 2006. “That would be an experiment: don’t do anything and see what happens when the kid’s a teenager. That could be good, and that could also be worse than trying some intervention.”
A representative for defendant the South Carolina Department of Social Services wasn't immediately available for comment. However, the Medical University of South Carolina released this statement to local station WISTV:
MUSC's general counsel and leadership will review the lawsuit through standard operating procedures for legal matters. MUSC will not be able to offer further comment on this pending litigation.
But Tamar-Mattis said the "harm" in this case is clear, and she has no idea how the state is going to try to defend itself.
"[The defendants made a] permanent, irreparable decision that compromised the civil rights of the child," Tamar-Mattis said. "They took it upon themselves to play god, and try to force this child into the body they thought he should have."
Clarification: An earlier draft of this article referred to M.C.'s operation as "gender assignment surgery." As per the SPLC, which is bringing the lawsuit, the term has been changed to "sex assignment surgery."Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
NEW YORK – The US-based clothing website Teespring is selling T-shirts and sweatshirts branded with swastikas, aiming to make them a “symbol of love and peace.”
The designs, created by KA Designs and sold on the site, all display large swastikas in the front. One shows the Nazi-associated symbol in rainbow colors with the word “peace,” another one with the word “zen,” one reading “Love” and a third design, in black, shows a spiral of swastikas. They range in price from $20 to $35.
“Here at KA we explore boundaries. We push them forward,” the company wrote as a description for the products. “Let’s make the swastika a symbol of Love and Peace. Together, we can succeed.”Before being used by Hitler’s German Nazi regime, swastikas were commonly known as an ancient sign used by Hindus and Buddhists carrying positive associations such as auspiciousness and good fortune. KA Designs is attempting to revert the now negative sign to its origins.The company even made a promotional video claiming that the Nazis “took the swastika, rotated it 45 degrees, and turned it into a symbol of hatred, fear, war, racism, power.”“They stigmatized the swastika, they won, they limited our freedom, or maybe not?” the video continues. “The swastika is coming back.”On some of the tee shirts sold by KA Designs, the swastika remains turned by 45 degrees, similarly to the Nazis’ use of the symbol.In a Facebook post on Sunday, executive director of the Israeli-Jewish Congress and pro-Israel activist Arsen Ostrovsky called the shirts “obscene and disgusting.”“It may have been a symbol of peace,” he wrote. “That most certainly is not what it is primarily associated with today.”Ostrovsky also pointed a finger at Teespring for seeking “to profit off of this in the name of art, trying to turn this irredeemable Nazi symbol of hate and murder into a symbol of ‘love and peace.’”“They are not unique in this, however, with a disturbingly growing pattern in recent years of other clothing companies seeking to do similar,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “This is not only highly naïve, but grossly offensive. What's next, using ISIS symbols to promote gender equality?”“Hopefully management will understand the magnitude of their mistake and offense caused, and discontinue these items immediately,” Ostrovsky concluded.The issue has also been discussed online by the YouTube channel “The Open Debate.”“When I initially saw it, I assumed that it was just a joke,” the person in the video said. “There are some things that just aren’t going to happen. When some people view this symbol, they don’t feel anything and can recognize it as whatever they’d like. For others, this symbol has a very deep history of hate, pain and suffering.”The attempt to re-brand the swastika, he added, will “most likely evoke a lot of emotions.”Teespring.com has sold several swastika-branded shirts in the past, all referring to the Hindu meaning of the symbol.Teespring and KA Designs have yet to respond to the Post’s requests for comment.
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>Last year, Dethklok/Metalocalypse fans had been campaigning for one final season of the show. Back in April, the show's television home, Adult Swim launched a petition to…make Adult Swim sign the petition… to bring back Metaloclypse, as well as a a live video feed, of the official fax machine, with all entries going directly into a recycling bin.
In essence, the joke was indicative of how seriously Adult Swim took the requests from fans for more Metaloclypse, as creator Brendon Small revealed in a new interview with Loudwire. He mentioned Adult Swim had no interest in bringing the show back, in-spite fans' demand:
“There was no debate, there wasn’t even a returned phone call. It was a hard ‘no.’ It was about as hard of a ‘no’ as you could possibly get … It’s basically like a crappy relationship at the end where we should probably break up, but they kept on dangling the idea of doing this thing in front of me and then dangling other TV show ideas and stuff like that. “What I think really happened was [‘Metalocalypse Now’ campaigners] drove Adult Swim insane. I think Adult Swim, for some reason, took it very personally. The truth was that people were saying, ‘Hey, what the hell? Where’s our show? We’re here for this show, can you give it to us? We’re gonna watch it like crazy,’ and [Adult Swim] said no. I think somebody’s thin-skinned and somebody got their feeling hurt.”
Here's the entire interview clip:
Subscribe to Metal Injection on
We spoke with Brendan last year, during the viral campaign and he gave us some thoughts on what a final special could have possibly been:
Subscribe to Metal Injection on
We also had a chance to speak to Metalcolypse director Mark Brooks on the Livecast a few weeks ago, who shared fun anecdotes about recording the show. Listen to that here.
Related PostsNewly discovered minuscule nanocrystals that glow different colors may be the missing ingredient for white LED lighting that illuminates homes and offices as effectively as natural sunlight, and thus provide a boost to this already surging sector.
Light-emitting diodes, better known as LEDs, offer substantial energy savings over incandescent and fluorescent lights and are easily produced in single colors such as red or green commonly used in traffic lights or children's toys.
Developing an LED that emits a broad spectrum of warm white light on par with sunlight has proven tricky, however. LEDs, which produce light by passing electrons through a semiconductor material, often are coupled with materials called phosphors that glow when excited by radiation from the LED.
"But it's hard to get one phosphor that makes the broad range of colors needed to replicate the sun," said John Budai, a scientist in ORNL's Materials Science and Technology division. "One approach to generating warm-white light is to hit a mixture of phosphors with ultraviolet radiation from an LED to stimulate many colors needed for white light."
Budai is working with a team of scientists from University of Georgia and Oak Ridge and Argonne national laboratories to understand a new group of crystals that might yield the right blend of colors for white LEDs as well as other uses. Zhengwei Pan's group at UGA grew the nanocrystals using europium oxide and aluminum oxide powders as the source materials because the rare-earth element europium is known to be a dopant, or additive, with good phosphorescent properties.
"What's amazing about these compounds is that they glow in lots of different colors—some are orange, purple, green or yellow," Budai said. "The next question became: why are they different colors? It turns out that the atomic structures are very different."
Budai has been studying the atomic structure of the materials using x-rays from Argonne's Advanced Photon Source. Two of the three types of crystal structures in the group of phosphors had never been seen before, which can probably be attributed to the crystals' small size, Budai said.
"Only the green ones were a known crystal structure," Budai said. "The other two, the yellow and blue, don't grow in big crystals; they only grow with these atomic arrangements in these tiny nanocrystals. That's why they have different photoluminescent properties."
X-ray diffraction analysis is helping Budai and his collaborators work out how the atoms are arranged in each of the different crystal types. The different-colored phosphors exhibit distinct diffraction patterns when they are hit with x-rays, enabling researchers to analyze the crystal structure.
"What that means in terms of how the electrons around the atoms interact to make light is much harder," Budai said. "We haven't completely solved that yet. That's the continuing research. We have a lot of clues, but we don't know everything."
The knowledge gained through their atomic-scale analysis is helping the research team improve the phosphorescent crystals. Different factors in the growth process—temperature, powder composition, and types of gas used—can change the final product. A fundamental understanding of all the parameters could help the team to perfect the recipe and improve the crystals' ability to convert energy into light.
Advancing the material's luminescence efficiency is key to making it useful for commercial LED products and other applications; the new nanocrystals may turn out to have other practical photonic uses beyond phosphors for LEDs. Their ability to act as miniature "light pipes" when the crystal quality is high enough could lend them to applications in fiber-optic technologies, Budai said.
"You can keep growing the crystals and measuring them, or you can understand why it's doing what it's doing, and figure out how to make it better. That's what we're doing—basic research. We have to figure out nature first."
The team's most recent study is published as the inside front cover article in the April 25 issue of Advanced Functional Materials as "New Ternary Europium Aluminate Luminescent Nanoribbons for Advanced Photonics."
Budai and use of the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne were supported by DOE's Office of Science. Zhengwai Pan was funded by the National Science Foundation.
The Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory is one of five national synchrotron radiation light sources supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science to carry out applied and basic research to understand, predict, and ultimately control matter and energy at the electronic, atomic, and molecular levels, provide the foundations for new energy technologies, and support DOE missions in energy, environment, and national security. To learn more about the Office of Science X-ray user facilities, visit http://science.energy.gov/user-facilities/basic-energy-sciences/.
DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. -- Courtesy of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy.US Congressman Claims Earmark Ban Prevents Congress from Defending America from Nuclear Holocaust
According to Texas Congressman John Culberson, Congress’ current “earmark” ban—which is about as porous as they come— gravely endangers the national security of the United States, since it prevents Congress from “fully protecting the U.S. against the North Korean ICBM threat.”
Earmarks, also known as “pork-barrel spending”, are when a Congressman allocates additional funding onto an unrelated bill for a specific project in his district. For example, earmarks often help pay for infrastructure, or other pet projects.
Basically, earmarks are how Congressmen bribe their constituents and buy votes—of course, some earmarks do go towards worthy causes, but the majority are utter wastes of federal taxpayer money.
For example, one earmark requested $400,000 to help fund a Teapot museum in Sparta, North Carolina. Bizarre, or in the very least self-serving, spending habits are the norm when it comes to earmarks.
Back to Congressman Culberson. This claim is not a joke.
From the Congressman’s website:
Five years ago, we put in place an earmark ban with the best of intentions. Today, it is clear that the earmark ban has resulted in less transparency and an abdication of our constitutional duty.
Among many other problems, the current earmark ban prevents Congress from:
1. deepening U.S. ports to handle the larger ships that can now run through the widened Panama Canal
2. fully protecting the U.S. against the North Korean ICBM threat.
I support reintroducing targeted spending in order to allow Members to authorize projects in a geographically specific location for federal, state, or local governments that:
· Have a clear federal nexus;
· Are authorized by law; and
· Do not increase spending beyond the 302(a) allocation.
Introducing targeted spending will restore Congress’s constitutional duty and allow us to more effectively use the power of the purse to rein in the Administration and unelected bureaucrats.
Attached below is an image, in case the original link is edited or removed:
One does wonder how earmarks could save America from an ICBM strike—perhaps the Congressman believes that every senator will earmark millions of dollars to build local fallout shelters and stockpile bottled water and Twinkies?
Your editor is at a loss.
And what is more bizarre is the fact that Congressman Culberson describes himself as a fiscal conservative. According to his biography:
As a fiscally conservative “Jeffersonian Republican,” Congressman John Culberson is committed to Thomas Jefferson’s vision of limited government, individual liberty, and states’ rights. Simply put, John Culberson believes in “Letting Texans Run Texas.”
We find this claim hard to believe. More likely, the Congressman is simply naive. Perhaps he does intend to do good work with his earmarks, but the problem is that most other Congressmen are not so noble—money will be wasted, and the good will not balance out the bad.Image caption A mannequin turned into a life-size game of operation featured at the Mini Maker Faire
The younger generation of makers were much in evidence at the Mini Maker Faire held at Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry over the weekend.
The two-day show gave home hardware hackers, tinkerers and hobbyists a chance to show off some of the projects they have worked on in their spare time.
Ten-year-old Jake Addelman, the youngest UK maker at the Faire, filled his exhibit space with scale models of steam engines he built using parts from the popular K'Nex construction kit.
"They are all based on real engines," he told the BBC, adding that each was a copy of one of the many engines he had seen during trips to industrial heritage sites.
The working parts of each engine, despite being built out of the spindly rods in the K'Nex set, demonstrated the mechanical innovation key to that machine, the youngster added.
Some, such as James Watt's pioneering engine, were well known, he said, but others were more obscure.
One, known as the grasshopper engine for the distinctive movement of its crankshaft, was only built to get around the patent Watt had on his own design, he said.
"I understand how they all work so it's easy to make them," he said.
Another young maker who made home hackery look easy was 13-year-old Amy Mather, who took an Arduino-powered volcano to the Faire.
The Arduino micro-controller is a popular gadget for many makers because it simplifies the job of dictating what electronic components will do.
Earring aid A plea for old earrings was issued at the Maker Faire by artists Lauren Sagar and Sharon Campbell. The pair, who usually work with glass, are planning to make a chandelier from 5,000 lost earrings and have currently collected about 1,000. The pair will also be using social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to get donations of earrings. The Chandelier of Lost Earrings will be constructed inside the glass summer house they built as another project at Manchester's St Mary's maternity hospital. Ms Campbell said many people donating earrings had a story to tell about what happened when the other one of a pair was lost. "The stories are the human thread that runs through this work," she said.
Ms Mather created the volcano, which uses LEDs and a small text display to explain what happens when one erupts, for a school geography project (for which she won a commendation).
The first version took two weeks to put together but Ms Mather has been tinkering with it ever since.
A late addition, on the night before the Faire, was a speaker so the volcano plays music as it cycles through its eruption sequence.
"Getting the sound to come on at the same time as the lights was the trickiest part," she said.
Ms Mather is not just skilled at using and programming the Arduino micro-controller. She has been using the Scratch click-and-drag programming tool to make games and is on familiar terms with HTML and Javascript.
"I'm also learning Python so I can use the Raspberry Pi I've just got," she said.
Man maker
Many of the other projects on show at the Faire were designed to catch the attention of children to fire an interest in electronics and home hacking.
"Games are a great way to engage people because everyone knows what they are," said Alex Lang of the Manchester hacking collective Hac:Man.
Hac:Man's success with a giant Etch-a-Sketch at a Maker Faire in 2011 got the group thinking about a follow-up, said Mr Lang.
"We decided we would pick a family game we could use to inspire kids and that they could have fun with," he said. "We chose Operation because its reasonably simple to implement."
Converting the shop dummy to a full-size version of the Operation game took about two months of work, said Mr Lang. It uses metal spaghetti tongs in place of the tweezers in the original and players can try to use them to remove the mannequin's brain, heart, gut or femur.
The most complex part of the build was etching the printed circuit boards that spotted when a body part or the tongs touched the live edges of the hole it was in, said Mr Lang.
A Raspberry Pi computer sat beneath the mannequin playing robotic screams when a body part was removed too roughly.
Image caption Jake Addelman showed off a formidable collection of scratch built steam engines
Maker Chris Ball brought along a more melodic sound-making machine in the shape of a framed laser harp.
Mr Ball, an accomplished musician, picked the harp as a beginner's project and managed to make the instrument out of spares and over the counter parts for less than £100.
As its name implies, the laser harp has beams of light rather than strings which are "plucked" and a note sounded when an object, such as a hand, blocks one of the beams.
"I've seen people make smaller versions in shoe boxes," he said, "but I wanted to make one that's actually musically useful."
Figuring out how to wire up the 14 laser diodes, sensors and accompanying electronics turned out to be a tricky project. Not least, he said, because he wanted it to detect the force with which people were "plucking" the beams of light and adjust the strength of a note accordingly.
"A laser beam has a width," said Mr Ball, "If you measure how long it takes to go on and off you can work out the force put into it."
Mr Ball is now working on a series of other instruments and eventually hopes to use them all in a musical maker band.The largest police union in the U.S. demanded that Amazon remove a shirt from a third-party vendor that supports the Black Lives Matter movement.
The Fraternal Order of Police wants the online retailer to follow Walmart and remove a shirt that sports the words “Bulletproof: Black Lives Matter” across the chest, The Guardian reported Friday. Walmart removed the shirt from its store after the union called it “offensive.”
FOP President Chuck Canterbury wrote in a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to support the union in “increasing the bonds of trust between the men and women of law enforcement and the communities they serve.”
As of Monday morning, the shirt was listed on the Amazon website, but was “currently unavailable.”
Canterbury told The Guardian that he wasn’t surprised that Amazon wouldn’t remove the listing and called the website a “pretty liberal marketer.”
WALMART STOPS SELLING ‘BULLETPROOF: BLACK LIVES MATTER SHIRTS ON ITS WEBSITE
He added that the issue was still important because of the “amount of violence demonstrated at Black Lives Matter marches and the fact that eight police officers had been assassinated while protecting Black Lives Matter protests,” – referring to the police killings in Dallas and Baton Rouge over the summer.
Canterbury sent a letter Tuesday to Walmart CEO Douglas McMillon, asking the company to remove the “offensive” shirts from the store.
“I urge you to prohibit the use of the use of the Walmart name and website for the retail sale of these products,” the letter read.
Time reported that the shirts were being sold through Walmart’s website by Old Glory Merchandise.
“Like other online retailers, we have a marketplace with millions of items offered by third parties that includes Blue Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter merchandise. After hearing concerns from customers, we are removing the specific item with the ‘bulletproof’ reference,” Walmart said in a statement.
Canterbury told The Guardian that the union would continue to pressure retailers who sell the Black Lives Matter merchandise until the group makes it clear that don’t approve of anti-police violence.
Click for more from The Guardian.D’Angelo Russell’s game-winner against the Sixers’ summer league team was electrifying, but that shot wasn’t the most intriguing thing he showed Sunday night and ultimately, all of summer league. He has started to show signs of leadership, taking directive and giving out commands for the betterment of the people around him.
Becoming a leader is tough. Being D’Angelo Russell makes that even tougher, clouded by controversies from his rookie year that hurt the team’s ability to trust him. It’s evident that this will be a hefty challenge for the 20-year-old entering his sophomore season.
“And throughout the game, we started slowly creeping back, playing Laker basketball, playing the way we know we can play. At the end of the game, before the shot, before all of that, I was just preaching, we were going to win this game,” Russell said.
Even with that difficulty, Russell is taking steps forward to that role as he told reporters following the game against the Sixers. His constant communication with teammates, even ones who probably won’t make the Lakers’ training camp, is visible. It showed on Monday night against the Warriors. Russell started talking with Nance at 6:29 mark of the third quarter, working on improving after Nance fouled Keifer Sykes on a layup. He’s keeping his head on his shoulders and pushing the team forward.
Russell’s insistence to focus on his teammates bodes well for the franchise, but it also showcases the next step for Russell as a leader on the court; controlling and setting the pace of the game as he wills. The ability that belongs to elite point guards like Chris Paul and Mike Conley can dismantle humming defenses and disrupt fast-paced offenses from hitting their stride. Russell will take some time before becoming a leader for Los Angeles, but he has the individual talent to take him where he wants to go.
Anthony Brown on Russell: “His confidence is at an all-time high … We all know how talented he is … He can pretty much control the game.“ — Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) July 12, 2016
D’Angelo Russell is a living Swiss army knife, able to take smaller (occasionally bigger) defenders and post them up with a lot of success. He is quick on fast-breaks, dominant on pick and rolls, and excellent at handling players on his hip. Add in stretching the floor and forcing defenders to tighten up and give space in the middle of the floor gives Russell’s playmaking a grand stage to dazzle crowds. He isn’t a shooting guard that can pass, Russell is a guard who embodies the best qualities of both guard positions.
Summer league doesn’t mean much as it pales in comparison to the difficulty of the NBA regular season, but Russell isn’t worried about that. He knows that the retirement of Kobe Bryant leaves a void, and a challenging journey that Russell is already preparing for.Certified Cigar Nut – The Journey from Cigar Newbie to Cigar Nut
Help, I am a Certified Cigar Nut
It’s amazing how you’ve progressed from a cigar newbie, to a budding aficionado, and into a veteran cigar smoker. Now you’ve smoked everything and have even circled back to previous loves you might be asking yourself: “What’s next? Where do I go from here?”
Well, honestly I can’t tell you that because it’s your own journey. You just have to keep searching and keep smoking. I don’t believe there is an end point in the journey for a cigar smoker. There is only the beginning and the journey itself. I know that sounds awfully philosophical, but it’s true. I can’t tell you where to go now, and truthfully you probably wouldn’t listen to me anyway.
All I can tell you is to keep smoking and keep exploring. Every year there will be new releases to try, new blends to smoke and new brands to root for. That’s the great thing about this industry, it will always be there for you ready and waiting with something new.
Become a BOTL / SOTL
I can tell you what I’m doing in my journey as I have officially become a cigar nut. I’m trying to find ways to further this hobby and love of mine. I’m out there constantly talking with other brothers of the leaf (BOTL), I’m always learning more about the tobacco and the process.
I’m finding things that I like, hate, and absolutely love. That’s the favorite part of this journey so far. To me there are very things out there that are as much fun as sitting down and enjoying a cigar with good friends. I’m constantly trying to bring more people into the fold of cigar smoking. I’m trying to show them it’s more than just puffing on some tobacco. It’s about camaraderie it’s about being social and together with people in a time when that’s increasingly more difficult to do.
As much as I’m online talking to people on a daily basis, I have a huge need / desire to actually sit down and talk with my friends. What better way to do that than with a cigar! That’s 2 hours of uninterrupted personal time with people I care about. It honestly doesn’t get better than that.
Track down some HTF Cigars
Another thing I’ve started getting into is tracking down HTF or Hard to Find cigars. These are the cigars that are limited releases, or vintage sticks that you can only read about it. It’s fun to connect with people in forums and figure out who has what and try to find a way to swap something they have for something you have.
For me it’s not about trying to find a good deal on some vintage sticks. I just want to try and get some of these HTF cigars and smoke them for the experience. Just like I’m sure you don’t go pay for a vacation and not go out and enjoy it. I’m not about paying for vintage cigars and not enjoying them! Right now I’m the research phase of this adventure and I’m always looking for things that are out there and available. I haven’t found anything that has really piqued my interest yet, but it sure is fun to look!
I’ve been spending a lot of time on some of these awesome forums below to track down some HTF cigars:
BOTL Trading Zone
By the way, if you don’t frequent these forums then you definitely should start! There is a wealth of knowledge to be had, and a lot of time to be wasted as well, but hey at least you’re wasting time on something you love right?
Time to Give Back
This is the exact reason that I started this website. I love smoking cigars, drinking spirits, and I love writing. I feel like I’ve gained an immense amount of knowledge in all of these aspects and I try to give that information back to you all as much as I can.
I have a philosophy when it comes to learning. I feel like if I can’t adequately explain something to you, then I obviously don’t completely understand it myself. That’s why I write some of these posts. I feel like in order for me to fully understand the subject I have to be able to explain it to you all. Therefore, I’m giving back to you and hopefully you’re getting something out of it as well.
That’s the purpose to all these reviews, I’m trying to convey what I experienced with the cigar and describe to you. You may or may not agree with it, but hey, we all have different palates and different experiences.
That leaves me to my final request from this series. It’s time for you to give back to this cigar community. Go out and do something that helps promote this industry that we all love. You can do something as simple as joining the CRA, join some cigar forums and welcome newbies, or hell you can even start your own cigar blog! I’ll even help you if you don’t have a clue about how website work.I think we can all give something back to this community that gives so much to us.
Ok, I’m stepping down off my soapbox and I’m ending this series of The Journey from Cigar Newbie to Cigar Nut. I hope you’ve all enjoyed it and hopefully learned something from it.
Now, it’s time to get back to reviewing some cigars and giving back more to you, the cigar smokers!
Thanks,
EricA few men got a glimpse of what their girlfriends experience when they're not around, and what they saw got them fired up.
In a video from Cosmopolitan, three men watched footage of their girlfriends being catcalled on the streets of New York City that was recorded using a hidden GoPro camera. Needless to say, they weren’t too happy with the pick up lines and offensive language directed at their girlfriends.
"Look at this prize here," one catcaller said in one of the video's tamer examples of street harassment. Another calls one of the women a "bitch" when she doesn't respond to his initial catcalls.
After watching the footage, one woman's boyfriend said what he saw was "so messed up."
Another man was disgusted at the footage and wondered how the catcallers would feel if the tables were turned.
"You’re somebody’s daughter, you know, somebody’s sister," he said. "I’m sure if somebody did that to one of their -- their mother or their cousin or something they wouldn’t appreciate it."
Exactly.
Also on HuffPost:BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Six out of 10 Europeans are “not that interested” in the European Parliament elections later this month, according to a poll released on Thursday, despite huge efforts by campaign managers to make the ballot more relevant.
The survey of nearly 9,000 people in 12 EU countries found 62 percent were either “not at all” or “not so much” interested in the May 22-25 vote, which will decide the leadership of the European Union for the next five years.
Only 35 percent of respondents said they would definitely vote, substantially below the 43 percent average turnout at the last election in 2009.
The greatest enthusiasm was registered in Belgium (53 percent), where voting is required by law, followed by France (44 percent) and the Netherlands (41 percent). The lowest was in Britain (27 percent) and Poland (20 percent).
Far-right groups are expected to do well or even win the elections in both France and the Netherlands, potentially making them a powerful force in the next European Parliament. The right-wing UKIP party is also expected to do well in Britain.
The survey also provided some interesting views on Europe’s leaders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was the most recognisable and has the highest approval rating, with 51 percent either “very positive” or “fairly positive” about her.
Britain’s David Cameron came second, with 35 percent of those surveyed broadly positive. The least popular was French President Francois Hollande, with only a 20 percent positive rating and 32 percent negative - the highest negative score of any European leader by far.
The elections will not only decide the 751 deputies who will sit in the European Parliament from 2014-2019, but more than likely determine who leads the European Commission, the EU executive that holds the right to propose legislation.
Europe’s main political groups - the centre-left Socialists, the centre-right EPP and the Liberals - have each nominated a top candidate for the Commission and hope that if they win, their candidate will become the next Commission president.
But in a worrying sign for all three campaigns, which have worked hard to boost the visibility of their candidates over the past two months, the survey showed more than 60 percent of people do not know who any of the candidates are.
The survey was conducted by Ipsos-MORI during April. A total of 8,833 people were polled in Belgium, Britain, Croatia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden.SOUTH SIDE (KDKA) – Pittsburgh Police made four arrests early this morning after two separate incidents on Carson Street, on the city’s South Side.
Michael Small, 21, of Peters Twp., Destinee Knox, 23, of Washington, Pa., and Zachary Willis, 21, of Finleyville, were arrested in one incident outside Mario’s South Side Saloon.
The trio was charged with assault and resisting arrest.
As police were trying to arrest Small, who they said was fighting with another man, Willis tried to intercede, and started pushing one of the officers.
As Willis was being taken into custody, Knox tried to get involved, and she allegedly tried to kick one of the officers before being arrested.
In the other incident nearby, police said they saw Evan Blodgett throwing punches at an employee from another bar.
When ordered to break up the fight, Blodgett reportedly kept swinging his fists. When he was subdued, officers said they found a bag of frozen sliced potatoes under the right pants leg, near his ankle, and a frozen bag of Mrs. T.’s Pierogies under the pants of his left leg.
The items were reportedly stolen a short time earlier from a business called Bar Local.
The fight between Blodgett and the bar employee started when they saw him in the restricted area of the kitchen and told him to leave.
He described Blodgett as “highly intoxicated, and disorderly.”
Join The Conversation On The KDKA Facebook Page
Stay Up To Date, Follow KDKA On TwitterAs Factual adds more data and features to its APIs, it’s important that developers have it easy. So we’ve put our heart into releasing client side drivers that matter. Yes, we’ve got drivers like the Java driver and the PHP driver and stuff like that, if that’s what you need. But we’ve also fielded a few drivers that matter in their own special ways:
Python
Python is the greatest scripting language ever created. It does “everything-is-an-object” and gets it right, has a general feel of solid design, and is an unmitigated joy to hack with. Grab Factual’s Python driver (it’s in PyPI), authenticate, and get going:
from factual import Factual factual = Factual(YOUR_KEY, YOUR_SECRET) factual.table("places").search("sushi santa monica")
That gives you businesses in Santa Monica that match a full text search for “sushi”. Select one and use Factual’s Crosswalk to get more info from other respected web authorities:
factual.crosswalk().factual_id("110ace9f-80a7-47d3-9170-e9317624ebd9").data()
BAM! Tasty data, check it out:
{ "url": "http://www.allmenus.com/ca/los-angeles/69110-california-pizza-kitchen/info", "factual_id": "110ace9f-80a |
seasons as a pro. If Gallman goes pro next spring, odds are good that Sean Payton will want him in black and gold.
Round Four, 10th Pick (108th Overall): DT Lowell Lotulelei, Utah
The New Orleans Saints’ defensive line has made huge strides thanks to the additions of Sheldon Rankins, Nick Fairley, and David Onyemata, as well as the growth of Tyeler Davison. The team’s switch to a one-gapping, disruptive front has quickly paid dividends but improvements should still be made.
John Jenkins was drafted a few years ago to be a long-term fix at nose tackle, but he’s struggled to stay on the field and has been largely ineffective at holding up against the run or getting after quarterbacks. Unless he’s going to reinvent himself in 2016, I don’t see him getting re-signed next spring. Davison was recently named the new starter at nose tackle, so he’ll probably need a backup next year.
That’s where Lowell Lotulelei, the younger brother to Carolina Panthers standout Star Lotulelei, comes in. The bearded 6-foot-2, 310-pound defensive tackle isn’t as mean and talented as his older sibling, but you can see the family resemblance in his style of play. Lotulelei is a force against the run, consistently winning his blocks at the line and disrupting opposing offenses. He does a great job of occupying blockers and freeing up his teammates to make plays.
For your pleasure, here's Lowell Lotulelei blowing up a left guard on 3rd and 1. @GuntherKFAN pic.twitter.com/3UGAF9HBc1 — Ben Anderson (@BenKFAN) October 19, 2015
Lotulelei’s 2015 numbers aren’t world-beating by any measure (12 solo tackles, 14 assists, 5 tackles for loss, 1 sack, 1 pass deflection, and 1 forced fumble) but that’s as good an indication as any that there’s more to playing defensive line than bagging big sack totals. Lotulelei’s lowkey demeanor and quiet statline betrays a monstrous defensive lineman patiently waiting to make his impact.
I believe Lotulelei is an NFL-ready run defender with some upside in the right scheme; he’s logged 9.5 tackles for loss and five sacks in two years as a starter while not being asked to be the guy getting upfield. The Saints could strike oil here by putting him in position to wreak havoc and disrupt plays himself more often.
Pairing Lotulelei with Davison at nose tackle could result in a great combination. Some analysts are picking Lotulelei to rise up draft boards this fall, and that’s certainly possible. But the NFL hasn’t put a premium on players like Lotulelei who are primarily run defenders and don’t create their own pressure, so if things break their way the Saints may fall into a bargain next spring. First, he needs to enter the draft; the 21-year-old is only a junior, and has another year of eligibility left for 2018.
Round Five, 9th Pick (148th Overall): Traded
Traded to Washington along with the New Orleans’ 2016 Round Five pick (152nd overall) in exchange for Washington’s 2016 Round Four pick (120th overall), which was used on defensive lineman David Onyemata.
Round Six, 8th Pick (183rd Overall): WR Josh Reynolds, Texas A&M
The New Orleans Saints receiving corps looks to be in much better shape now than it did a year ago, but that shouldn’t mean we can get complacent. There isn’t much to find confidence in after the top three receivers – Brandin Cooks, Willie Snead, and Michael Thomas – though a young undrafted guy in Tommylee Lewis is flashing. Other hopefuls like R.J. Harris and Brandon Coleman have had their moments.
What’s troubling is that while each of the three main receivers has their talents, the Saints still don’t have a dedicated deep threat. Cooks is one of the fastest wideouts in the game but rarely picks up yards after the catch, limiting his value as a vertical specialist. Snead is an underrated receiver when working underneath coverages on flat, slant, and curl routes. Thomas comes from Ohio State with a savvy understanding of running himself open with nuances to his routes.
Josh Reynolds thrived in that role as the “burner”, reeling in 103 catches over the last two years for a combined 1,749 yards and 18 scores (averaging 17.1 yards-per-catch). Per Pro Football Focus, Reynolds converted 11 of his 20 long targets in 2015 into completions to the tune of 450 yards and a pair of touchdowns. He consistently got separation downfield and showed off an ability to make catches with his hands rather than his body.
Josh Reynolds working on Cyrus Jones here. 6-4 and lean but super quick and can elevate. pic.twitter.com/yZPgGmY4GF — Justen Gammel (@gamscout) June 28, 2016
That’s not to say that Reynolds succeeds in spite of his physical tools. If anything he’s got untapped athletic potential. Reynolds is listed on Texas A&M’s roster at 6-foot-4 and 195-pounds, and reportedly ran a 4.46-second 40-yard dash in his senior year of high school.
Reynolds has the potential to go much higher in the draft than the sixth round, with some draft analysts comparing his possible rise in draft stock to former West Virginia wideout Kevin White (Chicago’s first round pick in 2015) and Josh Doctson (Washington’s 2016 first round pick). Neither White nor Doctson were projected first round picks until late in the draft process, and they didn’t break out until they were 22 and 23, respectively. Reynolds turns 22 this upcoming February and has already shown he can play at a high level.
Round Seven, 7th Pick (228th Overall): OG Danny Isidora, Miami
I’ll go on the record now and say that I’ll be stunned if Danny Isidora is a seventh round pick next year. Surprisingly, the longtime Miami Hurricanes right guard is flying under the radar among preseason scouting agencies despite having built a strong resume during his 26 consecutive starts en route to his senior year.
Isidora (listed at 6-foot-4, 325-pounds) has been the unquestioned leader of Miami’s line and its only real bright spot for almost two full years now. He’s earned praise from his position coaches for his consistency and leadership in practice this summer, and credits new head coach Mark Richt’s emphasis on sports nutrition and conditioning for helping him grow further as a player.
Miami Hurricanes offensive line coach Stacy Searels gushed about Isidora’s performance earlier this year:
“The most consistent lineman this spring has been Danny Isidora. I really like the way the whole group has grown as a unit. I think Danny’s sort of taken a leadership role. He has graded as the most consistent in all the scrimmages. He’s been the most consistent in practice, he’s the most consistent in drills, so I’m really pleased with the way Danny is working.”
There aren’t many technicians with more polish at this position than Isidora. He looks very comfortable coming out of his stance at right guard and clearly knows his role on every play. Isidora competes on every snap and rarely looks like he’s not in control of his battles.
That’s not to say Isidora is a perfect prospect. If that were the case his draft stock would be higher. A disastrous outing at right tackle last year against Clemson removed any possible value he could have in a future position-switch. He lacks top-end athleticism and doesn’t seem to have very long arms, which could leave him vulnerable against long, twitchy edge rushers in the NFL. But Isidora compensates with quick feet and great spatial awareness to work with the linemen around him.
I would like to see Isidora move better in space and have a more physical presence at the line of scrimmage. He doesn’t pick up a ton of pancake blocks or block guys out of the TV screen. However, he is consistently stout from one snap to the next, and could be part of the impetus needed to move Andrus Peat to right tackle full-time. For now he’s a sleeper to watch and see if he can rise throughout the predraft process.Susan Burke supported the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, during the 2008 US presidential campaign. But now that Obama is in office, she finds her views diverging widely from his.
Obama is opposed to investigating the excesses of the administration of his predecessor, former President George W. Bush. Burke, an attorney, favors an investigation. Obama has thus far avoided answering the question of whether the US Constitution was violated in Bush's so-called "war on terror." Burke wants an investigation to focus on precisely this question. Obama is looking forward, while Burke is looking back.
What Burke sees when she looks into the rearview mirror is indeed ugly. She sees 17 dead, including women and children, lying on Nisoor Square in Baghdad, killed on Sept. 16, 2007 by mercenaries working for Blackwater, a private American security firm. She sees Blackwater employee Andrew Moonen who, after a Christmas party in 2006, drove through Baghdad, heavily armed, and shot a man for no reason. She hears the shot, fired from a Blackwater helicopter, that killed an innocent man on Baghdad's Wathba Square on Sept. 9, 2007.
But most of all, Burke sees Erik Prince, Blackwater's founder and former owner. In her suit, she refers to him as a "modern-day merchant of death," and she alleges that the 40-year-old created a "culture of lawlessness and unaccountability" at Blackwater, where the "excessive and unnecessary use of deadly force" was commonplace. In her motion, Burke also accuses Blackwater of war crimes. The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, in Alexandria, Virginia, will now decide whether to take on Burke's civil suit.
Committed In the Name of America
The political world will also have to make some decisions. The first question is whether the US government will make public on Monday the most comprehensive report to date on the treatment of terrorism suspects. That alone would trigger a political hurricane in Washington, says former CIA Director Porter Goss. It would also make it much more difficult for the government to rebuff calls for it to finally investigate all the alleged illegal activity carried out in the fight against terrorism.
It was not until the end of June that US Attorney General Eric Holder read the report, which was prepared by the CIA's inspector general in 2004. But then he spent a full two days in his office in Washington D.C. studying the document. When he had finished reading it, he apparently stood at the window for a long time, staring out at Constitution Avenue. Horrified over what had been done in the name of America, Holder looked into the possibility of appointing a special prosecutor. Sources in Washington say that he has now achieved his goal, which puts him more squarely in Burke's camp than Obama's.
Blackwater characterizes Burke's accusations as "scandalous and baseless," and claims that the cases she cites were isolated incidents. According to Blackwater attorneys, "no diplomat under the protection of this service died or even was injured during the entire duration of the contract."
Symbol of an Era
Prince, who earlier in his career claimed to have "the heart of a warrior," is intent on preventing the civil suit from going to trial. To that end, he has hired a team of lawyers working for the law firm of Mayer Brown, which also represents 89 companies on Fortune magazine's list of the top 500 US companies ranked by revenues.
Peter White, the head of the Mayer Brown team, plans to convince the judges in Alexandria this week that the Blackwater case isn't a case at all. In his written response to Burke's lawsuit, White argues that any public disclosure of Blackwater's methods would endanger its personnel in war zones, and her suit should be dismissed.
White also argues that if there is any culpability, it rests with the individuals who committed the acts in question, not the entire company. He points to unsuccessful lawsuits that were filed against US corporations after the Vietnam War, including the case of Vietnamese plaintiffs who tried and failed to sue the US multinational corporation Dow Chemical, the manufacturer of the defoliant Agent Orange. In one respect, the comparison is apt: Blackwater has become a symbol of an entire era, just as Agent Orange was a potent symbol of the Vietnam War.
Outsourcing War
After the al-Qaida attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney began using large numbers of private security contractors for the first time. The mercenaries were intended to make up for a lack of manpower, especially in the area of personal security, as well as to perform the dirty work, such as interrogating detainees, thereby leaving US military personnel untainted. Erik Prince's company turned into an empire practically overnight, collecting more than $1 billion (700 million) in revenues from US taxpayers. Seventy percent of Blackwater's contracts with the government were no-bid contracts.
The company's most important personnel, its fighters, who were known internally as "shooters," were recruited around the world, including from places like the Philippines and Latin America. In 2007, the company proudly changed its name to Blackwater Worldwide.
The advantage of privatizing the war was obvious for the Bush administration. Blackwater contractors are cheaper than regular US soldiers. When they were killed, their widows received only minor compensation, while the US military pays lifelong survivor benefits. Besides, Blackwater employees died quietly -- in other words, they were never part of the official death statistics, which was convenient for the president.
With the end of the Bush administration, Blackwater received fewer contracts and the company changed its name to Xe Services. But its founder's most determined adversary, Susan Burke, continued her fight.
'A Christian Crusader'
Burke now plans to call 40 witnesses to testify against Prince. If the court agrees to hear her suit on Friday, eyewitnesses to the various killings will be summoned from Baghdad. In the United States, Burke, who made a name for herself defending detainees subjected to abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, will ask the court to subpoena several former Blackwater employees, including a former executive.
Two affidavits that have been filed in the Alexandria court contain serious allegations against company founder Erik Prince. The men who signed the affidavits, fearing that their lives could be put in danger if their identities were revealed, are identified anonymously as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2.
In his affidavit, John Doe 1, who served in Iraq, writes that he "personally observed multiple incidents of Blackwater personnel intentionally using excessive and unjustified deadly force."
John Doe 2, who worked for Prince, writes that the former head of Blackwater "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe." He claims that company employees treated the killing of Iraqis as sport.
The Blackwater attorney questions the validity of these witnesses, saying that much of what they claim is based on hearsay. The fact that the witnesses are remaining anonymous, says White, makes it impossible to verify their credibility. He calls the tactics "unfair" and highly prejudicial to defendants.
But the key witnesses' fear of retaliation is considerable, which also has something to do with the fact that Prince has powerful friends in the government, particularly inside the CIA.As the Tories’ lead in the polls narrows, and Theresa May’s malfunctioning android interview technique exasperates journalists and the public alike, I’m beginning to feel something resembling hope. I am aware that this is not good. It’s the hope that kills you, in the end.
Corbyn gained an edge in this debate, even if he hasn’t forged an alliance | Zoe Williams Read more
More notable even than May’s incompetence in this general election campaign has been Jeremy Corbyn’s affable brand of charm. While May is swerving the TV debates and looking wooden around members of the public, Corbyn is sharing Pringles with them and passionately declaiming about food banks to audience applause. Seeing the things I always admired about Corbyn – first and foremost his commitment to a more equal society – translating surprisingly well on to our screens has been a strange experience.
Over the past year, I have become what you might call a shy Corbynite, and I suspect I’m not the only one. I went from embracing him enthusiastically at the outset and voting for him as leader in the first contest, to feeling deflated about his performance in the referendum and sceptical of his ability to properly lead the party. When I voted for him a second time in the leadership election, I didn’t spread it about. The reframing of Corbyn as a doddery old fool whose politics belonged in the 70s or 80s and whose incompetence would result in a Tory landslide was so complete that I felt somewhat embarrassed about the previous two years. What was I thinking? Was I high?
I had become so used to political commentators popping up every time I expressed admiration for Corbyn’s principles to call me naive or a narcissist or an Islington-dwelling champagne socialist or a loony lefty, as though we were in some pompous game of whack-a-mole, that I began to sort of believe it. But I never did stop believing in the same things Corbyn does – in equality, social justice, social mobility and peace. Nor did I ever doubt that families such as my own would be much better off under a Labour government than a Tory one. Which is why I’m going to vote for him again.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Why should any young person cringe at voting for a party that has committed itself to tackling generational injustice?’ Supporters wait to hear Jeremy Corbyn speak in Basildon. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images
It’s time to ditch the shame. It was always astonishing how rarely the “don’t slag off the voters” mantra applied to Conservatives and Brexiters was extended to Corbynites. Instead, people like my mother, who is on benefits after struggling to find full-time employment after years of caring for my disabled brother, and has been canvassing for Labour in Cheshire, are branded fools by some commentators.
But she isn’t a fool, and nor are any of the other people I know who are voting for him. They are ordinary, decent people, who don’t live remotely near Islington, but who see the wealth gap widening and want a society that works for everyone. The sort of society that the Labour manifesto – the most inspiring lots of us can recall ever seeing – actually offers.
Much of this election has been about Brexit, and who is best to sit around the negotiating table. What Corbyn recognises, and May ignores, is that the vote for Brexit didn’t spring from nowhere, but came after years and years of brutal cuts to benefits and frontline services. Why should anyone feel embarrassed to back an anti-austerity politician in this context? Why should anyone who cares passionately about the NHS remaining safe from being transferred into private ownership feel ashamed to support a politician who is committed to it? Why should any young person – most of whom seem to be voting for Corbyn – cringe at voting for a party that has committed itself to tackling generational injustice?
Play Video 1:28 Corbyn rules out coalition deals if Labour fails to win majority – video
This isn’t nose-peg time, it’s time to get behind the Labour that we have been offered and to endorse it without shame as the only real alternative to a country that is set to crash out of the EU to become a corporate tax haven that treats its vulnerable people as though their suffering is of their own making. In all likelihood, we’ll be waking up on 9 June to a Tory victory and five more years of brutal cuts.
It’s easy to understand why many voters feel disengaged and hopeless. Since Brexit, the country has appeared to become so right wing that many of us barely recognise it. If believing in the same things as Corbyn made you a crank in 2015, then what are you in 2017? The narrative has shifted so much in the Tories’ favour, to the point where to announce you’re voting Labour feels subversive and threatening – like telling your nan over Sunday lunch that you’re a fan of Throbbing Gristle.
Readers on why they've decided to vote Labour for the first time Read more
The frame has moved, but we still have the same brains, the same hearts, and the same guts. And my brain, my heart, and my gut are telling me that I would never forgive myself if I didn’t back Labour at this crucial time. There’s a line in the Billie Holiday song It Had to Be You that I’ve always felt perfectly summed up relationships: “With all your faults, I love you still.” It’s also how I feel about the party. It has to be Labour. And I’m not ashamed of it.
Getting romantic about a party led by a man with an enthusiasm for manhole covers? Well, yeah, I’ll admit: that’s embarrassing. But it also feels right.In 2012, a Veterans Day sermon posted online by then-Chaplain (1st Lt.) Chris Antal that said the U.S. had "condoned extrajudicial assassinations," among other controversial statements, nearly killed the Unitarian Universalist minister's military career.
A little more than three years later, Antal pulled the plug himself.
Now a captain in the Army Reserve, Antal resigned his commission in a letter to President Obama (via Army Human Resources Command) last month, citing opposition to the administration's use of drone strikes, its policy on nuclear proliferation, and what he called the executive branch's claim of "extraconstitutional authority and impunity for international law."
"I could have gone quietly, I realize that," Antal said Friday in an interview near his Wappingers Falls, New York, home, about a 40-minute drive north from West Point.
"But I decided to submit a resignation in protest because I want to use the opportunity to raise public awareness, to generate a public conversation, and to hold the administration accountable."
Antal's resignation remains in process, Capt. Eric Connor, a spokesman for Army Reserve Command, said in a statement. Antal said his unit, the 354th Transportation Battalion, was drilling Friday, but that after some conflicting orders from the unit and Chaplain Corps leadership, he was not expected to attend.
"We would hope that all of our talented soldiers would want to continue serving this great nation and not resign their commission, but if they choose to do so, all service members are encouraged to follow the proper procedures we have in place for such actions," Connor said.
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Chaplain (Capt.) Chris Antal said his inability to speak out on issues such as drone policy and nuclear proliferation while in uniform led him to resign his commission last month in a letter to President Obama.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Chris Antal
"If I didn't have that, I think I would've stayed in the military longer," he said. "I feel passionate about addressing the pain that so many of our veterans are carrying. I've found another avenue to do that, as a VA chaplain. I'm not walking away from the pain."
He is walking away from uniform, however. And it's not the first time he's considered doing so.
Test of faith
Antal never thought about military service until he was serving as a missionary in South Korea at the time of the September 11 terrorist attacks. He wanted to contribute to the war effort and saw his faith as the right way to make that contribution.
He soon ran into a problem – a self-described pacifist in his younger years, Antal had refused to register for Selective Service. He thought that would scuttle his military career, as did his recruiter, but years later, after reading about a chaplain shortage, he tried again, this time with the New York National Guard.
"They offered me the option to request a waiver, so I did," he said. "It took a few years for it to be granted, but eventually I was granted a moral waiver – to serve as a chaplain."
Chaplain Christopher Antal opens the warriors rite ritual during the retreat held for the deploying soldiers from the New York Army National Guard, 101st Expeditionary Signal Battalion held at the Holy Trinity Retreat Center in El Paso, Texas, from September 19-20, 2012. The warriors are joined by members of the community who offered their various talents of healing and counseling to the deploying soldiers.
Then Chaplain (1st Lt.) Chris Antal opens the warriors rite ritual during the retreat held for the deploying soldiers from the New York Army National Guard, 101st Expeditionary Signal Battalion held at the Holy Trinity Retreat Center in El Paso, Texas, in September 2012.
Photo Credit: Capt. Leticia Ortiz, U.S. Army
Four years later in 2012, after being activated and sent to Kandahar, Afghanistan with 101st Expeditionary Signal Battalion, the minister found himself "in a U.S. Army uniform, with a flag on my right shoulder and a cross on my chest in a Muslim country, thinking, 'My God, how did I get myself into this?' "
Antal established a small gathering of Unitarian Universalists at the base on Sundays, in addition to other chaplain duties, and would change his career course about two months after landing in country, when he delivered a sermon he called "A Veterans Day Confession for America," which he also posted on a religious-outreach blog. Some passages:
"We have made war entertainment, enjoying box seats in the carnival of death …"
"We have made our veterans into false idols, blood sacrifice on the National Altar of War."
"We have sanitized killing and condoned extrajudicial assassinations: death by remote control, war made easy without due process …"
He posted the sermon online so other ministers could draw from it for their Veterans Day remarks, he said – a difficult topic for many clergy, especially those with Unitarian Universalist flocks that may skew anti-war.
His superiors did not agree with his tactics. An Article 15 investigation began with Antal still in theater and ended in January, with a general officer memorandum of reprimand from Brig. Gen. Scottie Carpenter, head of 311th Sustainment Command. Carpenter called Antal's sermon "a politically inflammatory message," chastised the chaplain for "outrageous remarks" and offered "serious concerns as to whether you possess the qualities needed for continued service as a commissioned officer."
Antal successfully lobbied to have the letter filed locally, kept outside his Official Military Personnel File in a move that could save his career. But his next officer evaluation report mentioned the reprimand, effectively including it in his permanent record, and included a "do not promote" recommendation.
"I thought, 'F—k the Army,' " he said. "And I was just going to resign. I consulted with some of my closest colleagues, as well as my congregation. … I had a lot of support from people who thought I should stay in, that I should push back."
Chris Antal offers a sermon on drone warfare in December 2014 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Rock Tavern, N.Y.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Chris Antal
Antal refused to sign his OER. He enlisted the help of New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and after months of paperwork and a move from the Guard to the Individual Ready Reserve, he was assigned to a chaplain detachment in the Army Reserve and promoted to captain in May 2014.
About a year later, he was moved to his current Reserve unit. In March 2015, he also became the minister for the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Rock Tavern.
'It's time for me to get out'
The investigations were over, but the causes Antal championed hadn't gone away. A 2016 report card on U.S. drone use by the Stimson Center said the government had done next to nothing to improve accountability for or oversight of the drone program. In a 2015 opinion piece for a local newspaper, Antal wrote that drones "make killing too easy; and just because we can, does not mean we ought."
The chaplain's hope that the administration would scale back on nuclear weapons took a serious hit with the launch of the long range standoff, or LRSO, missile program, an Air Force project capable of delivering nuclear payloads.
Antal, who visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 70th anniversary of the atomic bomb drops and delivered a personal written apology to survivors of the blasts, said in his resignation letter that he "refuse to support this policy of terror and mutually assured destruction," and that U.S. drone use amounted to "unaccountable killing."
These and other opinions, he said, were too important to suppress – something he would have to do if he continued to serve.The MMQB is on the road to Super Bowl 51. Follow along on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat (@TheMMQB), and find all of our Road to Houston content here.
SCOOBA, Miss. — For two years, LeGarrette Blount’s life was mostly contained within a distance not much longer than a few football fields.
The campus of East Mississippi Community College can be lapped in about five minutes by a good miler, and when Blount was a student here he slept in a dorm so close to the football stadium that it’s barely out of range of a wide-right field goal. His home was Sullivan Hall, a two-story brown brick building with olive green doors that looks like a roadside motel. Blount made a name for himself right across the street at the old Sullivan-Windham Field, a plot of grass flanked by a chainlink fence and seven rows of bleachers.
EMCC’s football games were, and still are, played on Thursday nights. With no classes on Fridays, students flock out of this tiny town (population less than 1,000) for the weekends. Plus, in this part of the country, Friday nights are for high school lights, and Saturdays are reserved for the SEC. In the fall of 2006 and 2007, the grand stage of Super Bowl Sunday couldn’t have felt farther away for Blount than it did in this tiny town near the Alabama border marked by a single flashing red light.
This is just the second four-way stop on U.S. 45 in the 55 miles from Starkville, Miss., so says one campus employee. Scooba’s “downtown” consists of a pair of gas stations at the intersection, catty-corner from a sign that announces: “Birthplace of World Champion Turkey Caller Jack Lewis Dudley.” The big news in town right now is the pending opening of a Dollar General store right behind Scooba’s main restaurant, the Subway at the Chevron station.
Scooba’s other claim to fame. John DePetro/The MMQB
“If you are going to Scooba, Miss.,” says Roger Carr, who was Blount’s head coach at East Mississippi, “you are going there just to find it.”
Or, to find something. Coming out of high school in little Perry, Fla., Blount didn’t receive the attention, or have the grades, to play big-time college ball. So he came to the even smaller town of Scooba, where, as one current East Mississippi coach puts it, the only things for students to do are “ball and books.” The bruising running back who scored 18 touchdowns and rushed for a career-high 1,161 yards for the Patriots this season at age 30, has followed a far from straight path to his second Super Bowl. Here on this campus, at 19 years old, was where he navigated the first major detour of his football career.
“There were probably times he was lonesome,” Carr says. “This wasn’t bigtime. No one knew a whole lot about him, or us, at the time. But, it didn’t take long.”
* * *
In the past five years, East Mississippi has won three junior college national titles, built a new 5,000-seat stadium and been featured on the Netflix series Last Chance U. But none of that existed when Blount enrolled here. The players’ lockers were old castoffs from a high school where the head coach’s son used to work with, and the coaching staff was responsible for cutting, striping and irrigating the football fields. The one and only recruiting tool was the chance for a guy like Blount to continue playing football.
The dorms at East Mississippi. The MMQB
Recruiting was different in those days. There was no social media, and no video platform like Hudl for coaches to scour game film. It was still possible for a player like Blount, who was a man among boys on his small Florida high school team, to fly under the radar.
When Blount was coming out of school, the head coach at East Mississippi was Carr, who played receiver for the Baltimore Colts, coincidentally, at the same time Bill Belichick took his first coaching gig as a $25/week gopher for Colts head coach Ted Marchibroda. The way Carr tells it, his son, John, was on his East Mississippi staff, and got a call from a buddy he’d coached with at a high school in Lousiana: Steve Ensminger, the former LSU quarterback, then an assistant at Auburn. The Tigers had found a running back, a good one, but he wasn’t going to have the grades to qualify for Division I. His name was LeGarrette Blount.
Junior colleges in Mississippi can sign eight out-of-state players on their 55-man rosters. Blount came as one of those players in the summer of 2005. He promptly suffered a high ankle sprain that would surely claim much of his first juco season, so he went back home to Perry, Fla., and returned in January 2006, so he could get two full seasons in at that level. East Mississippi was trying to run a spread offense, out of the shotgun formation. By the second game of Blount’s first season, once the coaches realized what they had, they scrapped the spread offense.
Blount rushed for 2,292 yards in two seasons at East Mississippi. Courtesy East Mississippi Community College
“There was one game he carried the football I think 16 or 17 straight times,” recalls Carr, who is now a pastor at Chapel By The Sea Baptist Church in North Myrtle Beach, S.C. “We were playing Itawamba Community College on their homecoming. Their guys couldn’t tackle him. He just kept running over them. After the game, their coach said to me, ‘I want you to know he knocked out both of our starting linebackers and our free safety.’ That was the kind of guy he was in this league. They knew he was getting the ball, and they still couldn’t stop him.”
That will sound familiar to anyone who watched Blount carry seven Steelers with him to the goal line on an 18-yard run in the AFC Championship Game. Even back then, the only thing that could stop Blount was himself. He’d come back from school breaks 10 or so pounds overweight. Carr lived on campus, like the coaches do today, right across from Sullivan Hall. He had a key to Blount’s room, and he recalls going in at 6 a.m., pulling his player out of bed and walking him about 30 yards to the treadmill in the outdated weight room. Blount never resisted—he just needed that activation energy to get him going. On the field, on the other hand, his challenge was not letting his adrenaline carry him away.
EMCC team photo. Blount, No. 4, first row, left.
His first season at East Mississippi, he got kicked out of a game. His early success had made him a marked man in Mississippi’s junior college league. The opponent was Coahoma Community College, recalls former East Mississippi offensive coordinator Alan Hall, and at the end of a run Blount was speared by a defender four or five yards out of bounds. The opposing player was flagged, but Blount set out to even the score on his own. He ran after the guy and shoved him hard. Blount was tossed out.
The next year, Hall recalls, East Mississippi was hosting Coahoma for its homecoming game. East Mississippi had a third-and-long, backed up deep in the its own territory, and Blount caught the corner on a toss play, running the ball out to the 30-yard line. Coahoma’s safety caught him and drove him all the way into the fence. Hall could see what was about to happen next, so he took off down the sideline to stop a repeat of the previous year. East Mississippi’s quarterback got to his teammate first and tackled Blount to the ground. The coaches sat Blount for a play or two, and he was fine to go back in. He just needed someone to snap him out of it.
“What makes him so special is what got him sidetracked early on,” says Hall, who is now the principal of San Jose Prep in Jacksonville, Fla. “He is a very fierce competitor that is also very emotional. It was learning how to channel that.”
* * *
East Mississippi wasn’t the last time Blount would have to restart his football career.
In two years in Scooba, Blount carried the ball 367 times for 2,292 yards, attracting notice from the top Division I programs he’d so badly wanted to play for out of high school. Scouts from his home-state Seminoles visited Scooba multiple times. But he was drawn to Oregon, where he connected with the team’s longtime running backs coach, Gary Campbell. It also didn’t hurt that after two years of wearing the most basic uniforms imaginable at East Mississippi—solid-color Rawlings jerseys—he was upgrading to the Ducks’ flashy Nike threads.
John DePetro/The MMQB
His East Mississippi coaches were paying attention when he rushed for a school-record 17 touchdowns in his first season at Oregon, and they were paying attention the following year when, after a season-opening loss to Boise State, he punched an opposing defender and the teammate who tried to restrain him. Blount was suspended for eight games. Another detour.
“The kid paid dearly for that choice,” Hall says. “He could have been a first- or second-round draft pick, compared to an undrafted free agent. You’re talking about millions of dollars, not to mention being a joke for eight months. I give him credit for where he’s at today. He could have said, Forget this, man, but he didn’t do that. No different mentality than he took |
3, 1912 United States of America Territorial Alaska July 4, 1912 – July 9, 1927 United States of America Territorial Alaska
State of Alaska July 9, 1927 – January 3, 1959
January 3, 1959 – Present
See also [ edit ]Version 3.0 of the FireFox browser has "too many" bugs, and only 20 percent of them will be fixed before the software is released next year, according to Mozilla.
Mozilla has asked developers to prioritise bugs in the upcoming Beta 1 of the software, so that the most important can be fixed. But according to notes from a status meeting this week, that will leave about eight in 10 bugs untouched.
"We have 700 bugs currently marked as blockers," the notes read. "That's too many. We're asking [requiring] component owners to set priorities on blockers, as a first pass of what bugs should be Beta 2 blockers. You want it to be about 10 percent of blockers, or what you can get done in four weeks."
Mozilla usually refers to a bug as a "blocker" when it is serious enough to justify postponing a release.
"We'll be doing pretty much the same thing for Beta 3, which means that something like 80 percent of the [approximately] 700 bugs currently marked as blockers will not be fixed for Firefox 3," the meeting notes continued. "The hope is that by 'fixing the most important blockers' several times, we'll get to a point where we can cut the rest without feeling bad about the quality of the release. And if we do feel bad, we can add an extra beta or two."
Developers have until late today to prioritise the blockers in their areas.
They should judge each bug, said Mozilla, "largely on how much the bug would 'prevent users from browsing the web on a daily basis.' This allows bugs to be compared on equal footing whether they are crashes, regressions, Leopard bugs or even long-standing bugs that we had hoped to fix in Firefox 3."
The exception is any security bug, which should automatically be considered important and fixed.
Mozilla has spelled out bug-triage plans several times since last week, when Mike Beltzner, Firefox's interface designer, asked developers to focus on fixing memory-leak, performance and web-compatibility issues, as well any major regression errors - bugs unintentionally introduced to the code of Firefox 2.0.
Firefox 3.0 Beta 1 was stress-tested last week and will be again tomorrow. While plans haven't been officially outlined, it's clear from the Mozilla wiki that there will be at least two betas, and possibly a third, before the browser is ready for release.
Firefox 3.0 is months behind schedule. Mozilla said this summer that it would reach Beta 1 in late July, move into second beta in September, with a final release by the end of the year. Now, the company's website alludes to getting Beta 2 ready before Christmas.The final roster for the Vancouver Whitecaps is starting to take shape, with new additions and bubble players trying to squeeze into the lineup.
The core players have already settled into their probable roles for the upcoming season. I mean, lets face it, no one is going to bump Demerit, O'Brien or Lee from their places. Gershon Koffie and Daigo Kobayashi are safe and sound, and Camilo, Kenny Miller and Darren Mattocks are obviously going to stick around for the opening kickoff.
However, there still remains two blatant question marks. First, who will take the goalkeeping position and run with it, and secondly, what to do with Alain Rochat?
I've already given my thoughts on the goalkeeping position (Knighton = younger, cheaper, more upside), but let's touch on arguably the Whitecaps most consistent player.
We all know that Rochat is dynamite on the backline, a pillar of strength when things get scrambly. If the Whitecaps were to place him back in his old spot, the Whitecaps would boast a formidable three headed monster back there, with Jay Demerit, YP Lee and the aforementioned Rochat. That's a pretty damn good defense core, and one that would easily be the backbone of the squad.
However, Martin Rennie had that option last season, and he chose to use Rochat in a defensive midfield role, bumping Jun-Marques Davidson to the bench. Despite having to adapt to a new position midway through the MLS regular season, Rochat didn't miss a beat. In fact, he proved to be a significant upgrade from the limited Davidson, who excels when the game is simple. Davidson rarely made an attacking move, instead focusing on short passes and slowing the match down to the best of his ability. Rochat used his offensive instincts in his new role, using forward passes instead of short back or side strokes.
I think that when the 2013 campaign kicks off, you have to stick Rochat back in midfield, but only if Head Coach Martin Rennie wants to use the 4-4-2 lineup that he favored for most of last season.
Why? He provides an offensive upgrade which I've already gone over, but also complements Gershon Koffie quite well. Koffie doesn't have to be the only offensive threat in the 'Caps mid, and adding a steadily improving Matt Watson and the creative Daigo Kobayshi to the mix should take most of the load off the talented young ghanian's shoulders.
Jordan Harvey, while he did struggle in Arizona during the pre-season, was quite solid in his role last season. Is he spectacular? No, but when he is on his game, he's an above average, serviceable defender that can be counted on to make the smart play. *Note: When he is on his game.
With increased depth on the backline, Rochat isn't needed direly, and he can instead focus on giving great through balls to Darren Mattocks. If there is an injury back there, Davidson comes off the bench, and you shuffle Rochat back to the defender role. Hell, you could even keep Rochat up there and try Brad Rusin full time, if Rochat is playing like he was last season.
What do you think? Where should the Whitecaps plug Alain Rochat?On March 2, 2008, while his Mother was serving overseas, Jamiel "Jas" Shaw II (17), was killed by a gangbanger in USA illegally. Jas was just 17 years young & a Football Super-Star when his life was taken. According to Former LA County Sheriff Baca, jas was murdered because he was black. Jas (known to classmates as Jamiel & to teammates as "Wilshire"), was a Junior at Los Angeles High School & was already being looked at by Rutgers, Stanford & other Universities. Jas lost his life just three doors from his home. Jamiel's Law was written in 2008 by former mayoral candidate Walter Moore. Jamiel's Law is supported by Americans all across the country and all around the world. Jamiel's Law is a bipartisan law. It is supported by democrats and republican politicians in the USA. We are supported by some law enforcement, some Military and many people of all races. For detailed information about what happened to Jas: http://tinyurl.com/jmc6kas; https://youtu.be/f8nAveziGKY and at www.JamielsLaw.com. Thank you for supporting us. God bless you, God Bless us and God Bless the United States of America!!UK's biggest force signs up to code of conduct after discovery that quarter of searches last year may have been illegal
The UK's biggest police force has pledged to publish data on all outcomes of controversial stop and search measures by its officers under a Home Office scheme.
The Metropolitan police service, which employs more than 31,000 officers, has signed up to the "best use of stop and search code of conduct", previously announced by the home secretary, Theresa May, who has admitted the power was being misused.
The changes are being brought in after Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) found that 27% of stop and searches did not contain reasonable grounds for suspicion, meaning more than 250,000 of the 1m searches conducted last year could have been illegal. In addition, black and minority ethnic members of the public were up to six times more likely to be searched than white people.
Under the scheme, forces who sign up voluntarily will agree to more limits on blanket Section 60 stops, used on the anticipation of serious violence without suspicion a person is carrying weapons, while better records will be kept of each instance and published online. The Met said it was introducing those two elements of the new plan from Tuesday and comes after Section 60 searches were used as a tactic in combating violent crime at this year's Notting Hill carnival.
Last year, 47,141 arrests were made as a result of stop and search, representing 20% of total arrests by the Met, and of the 251,161 people who were stopped and searched from August 2013 to July 2014, 115,270 (46%) were white, 72,016 (29%) were black and 34,267 (14%) were Asian. Men accounted for 94% of all searches.
Cdr Adrian Hanstock, the force's lead for stop and search, said: "The best use stop and search scheme supports the Met's ongoing drive to make stop and search more intelligence led and effective.
"The Met has made significant improvements to stop and search over the last two years to not only reduce the total number of people we search, but also to ensure that our officers focus on those areas and types of crime that the public are most concerned about.
"As a result, we are arresting more people than ever before following the more targeted use of stop and search and routinely find people in possession of weapons and stolen items.
"We recognise the impact stop and search can have on individuals and communities. Our work with communities and monitoring groups is helping to ensure we are more transparent than ever in how stop and search helps to reduce crime and keep people safe, but we of course recognise there is much more to do to improve confidence across all communities in the use of the powers."
Speaking in the House of Commons when announcing the shakeup in April, May said misuse of the power damaged public trust in the police. "While it is undoubtedly an important police power, when it is misused stop and search can be counterproductive.
First, it can be an enormous waste of police time. Second, when innocent people are stopped and searched for no good reason, it is hugely damaging to the relationship between the police and the public. In those circumstances it is an unacceptable affront to justice."metaGameGods Profile Joined March 2013 Australia 38 Posts #1
metaGameGods (mGG) is a SEA-based, community-run clan with the goal of furthering the Starcraft 2 scene at all levels of involvement. We are proud to present our first pro-level tournament with is a SEA-based, community-run clan with the goal of furthering the Starcraft 2 scene at all levels of involvement. We are proud to present our first pro-level tournament with The SEANA Trials.
This is the first of 2 qualifiers for our $1000+ cash Finals event!
At this stage, invites are extended to teamed/sponsored players only. We regret to have to turn to this, but we must avoid smurfs and hackers at all costs, especially in a size-limited bracket. All teams/sponsored players are eligible. All unsponsored teams/clans are still invited to apply for eligibility below, but we reserve the right to prioritise professional players over semi-professional/amateur players if the bracket becomes full.
At this stage,. We regret to have to turn to this, but we must avoid smurfs and hackers at all costs, especially in a size-limited bracket. All teams/sponsored players are eligible., but we reserve the right to prioritise professional players over semi-professional/amateur players if the bracket becomes full. Please ensure you read the FAQ section further down to make sure you are eligible to play!
Date & Event Start
Friday, Jun 07 10:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00)
Location
BATTLE.NET - NA REGION
1st Place
$50.00 + FINALS INVITATION
2nd Place
$30.00 + FINALS INVITATION
3rd Place
FINALS INVITATION
As this is a qualifier, the top 3 players will receive an invitation to our final event in mid July where over $1000 in prizes will be on offer. You can find out more information here: The SEANA Trials - Full Information
As this is a qualifier, the top 3 players will receive an invitation to our final event in mid July where overin prizes will be on offer. You can find out more information here: Bracket Format
64 PLAYER - DOUBLE ELIMINATION
Round of 64 through to Finals
BEST OF 3
Grand Finals
BEST OF 3 EXTENDED SERIES
NOTE: All rounds must be played out in full to assign seeds. Players forfeiting/throwing games to avoid showing builds may be disqualified from the tournament and have their invite revoked.
MAPS & VETOES
The Starting Map must be played first in each round. Each player has one veto to use, with the loser picking the next map. A map may only be used once per round.
Specific starting maps will be published with the brackets
Can I play in the qualifiers? PLEASE READ ALL OF THIS SECTION
Players must be a resident of a country of North, South or Central America. This means you're a permanent resident or a full-time student. Players who are citizens of an eligible country but currently residing short term in another country may also be eligible, but should explain your circumstance below before assuming you can play.
At this stage, invites are extended to teamed/sponsored players only. We regret this but we must avoid smurfs and hackers at all costs, especially in a size-limited bracket. All sponsored teams/players are eligible. All unsponsored teams/clans are invited to apply for eligibility below. We reserve the right to prioritise professional players over semi-professional/amateur players if the bracket becomes full.
How do I sign up?
Reply to this thread with:
* Full in-game name.number including tag (e.g. [mGG]DrGooSe.266)
* Team/clan
* Country
* Race played
Sign-ups will close Friday, Jun 07 7:59am GMT (GMT+00:00)
Walkovers
The first round will be extended a 15 minute walkover period before players are forfeit.
For further rounds a 10 minute walk-over rule will be enforced.
Battle.net groups & reporting results
SEANA Results: reporting results to admins
SEANA Chats: general chat
Please note, these are groups and not channels. If you aren't in these groups and your opponent can't find you, you may be walked over.
Admin
[mGG]Alpha, [mGG]DrGooSe, [mGG]BasementCat, [mGG]Nemesis.
Rules: Disconnects, Replays, Observers, Matches, Cheating
+ Show Spoiler + DISCONNECTS
In the event of a disconnect, players will use the recover game feature to continue their game. If the same player disconnects again, the player shall lose that game. In the event that the game can not be recovered, please contact an admin and they will advise on how to proceed.
REPLAYS
All replays should be saved for up to one week after the event. This is of benefit not only to the admins, but for players as well in the scenario that issues arise regarding the legitimacy of a game or player.
OBSERVERS
No observers shall be in the game other than the official stream observer, casters and admins.
RACE SWITCHING
Race switching is not allowed. Please make sure you sign up with the correct race.
PLAYING OUT YOUR MATCHES
Players MUST play all their matches, including the finals. If you fail to play out your games, you may have prizes, invites and other privileges forfeited. This is just good sportsmanship.
CHEATING, INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR & OTHER NONSENSE
This doesn't need to be explained. If you aren't going to play fair & nice, then you aren't going to play.
Stream
http://www.twitch.tv/metaGameGods Players must be a resident of a country of North, South or Central America. This means you're a permanent resident or a full-time student. Players who are citizens of an eligible country but currently residing short term in another country may also be eligible, but should explain your circumstance below before assuming you can play.* Full in-game name.number including tag (e.g. [mGG]DrGooSe.266)* Team/clan* Country* Race playedSign-ups will closeThe first round will be extended a 15 minute walkover period before players are forfeit.For further rounds a 10 minute walk-over rule will be enforced.reporting results to adminsgeneral chatPlease note, these areand not channels. If you aren't in these groups and your opponent can't find you, you may be walked over.
We'd like to sincerely thank our sponsors for assisting us and enabling this event to happen. If you have the opportunity, send them some love and let them know how much their support is appreciated!
VroomVroomVroom
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All rounds must be played out in full to assign seeds. Players forfeiting/throwing games to avoid showing builds may be disqualified from the tournament and have their invite revoked.We'd like to sincerely thank our sponsors for assisting us and enabling this event to happen. If you have the opportunity, send them some love and let them know how much their support is appreciated!O faces from a forgotten era. via.
Remember boy bands? Those groups in the late 90s and early 2000s that were weirdly sexualized, made annoyingly catchy songs and existed only to stoke the hormonal fires of puberty riddled teen girls? They were the product of a time when major label executives swam in pools of ill-gotten gains from $20 CDs that only had one good song on them. Boy bands were an overwhelmingly American and British phenomenon—but that doesn’t mean Canada didn’t try to cash in on all the (again, weirdly sexualized) teen flesh. Remember B4-4?
B4-4 was one of the few Canadian boy bands that I can remember from that time because they had a hit song called “Get Down” that was unquestionably about going down on girls and then getting blowjobs in return. The video was just as memorable—since it featured a kid who finds a magic ViewMaster that gets him laid at the beach, makes him dominate the basketball court, and then becomes a pimp while the members of B4-4 stare at the camera like they’re about to coerce you into a hair gel filled fourgy. Remember, this was all aimed at teen girls.
Anyway, last week I gave Ryan and Dan Kowarsky a call, the twins who made up two of the three spiky haired weirdos in B4-4. They’re currently writing, producing, and performing in Las Vegas with Shania Twain under the name RyanDan. They were so optimistic about everything it was almost sickening. I couldn’t tell which twin I was talking to at any point (strangely, much like the ATL Twins) so for ease of reading I’ve converted their two voices into one voice: RyanDan.
VICE: So let’s talk about B4-4, because that was pretty crazy.
RyanDan: Yeah, that was a crazy experience. Do you know Lou Pearlman?
Not personally, but he managed every pop singer in the 90s right?
Yeah, we were signed to Lou Pearlman. He did Backstreet Boys and ‘NSync and Britney. Lou was very big on saying, “Little girls are never going to stop loving the guys.” It’s always like that, exactly. He’s now in jail for 25 years. It was a big ponzi scheme he got caught for.
Cool.
Yeah, we were with him right before he got arrested and put in jail so we weren’t involved with any of that stuff. But the whole B4-4 thing was a great experience for us. It was a learning experience.
How did B4-4 get started?
We were in our car and we stopped on the side of the road and we asked a taxi driver, “Where is Sony Music?” We didn’t know anything, we just knew the name Sony. It’s a big name so why not go there? So he ended up giving us the address, we walked in there, ended up singing for the top engineer and the vice president at the time and they brought us in to sing for the president and we got a deal, like, the next day. It all happened overnight. We released our first single, “Get Down,” and then we went triple platinum in Canada.
Let’s get this straight. "Get Down" is about blowjobs, right?
The record company was quite scared back then. They didn’t want to release “Get Down” first. And they also wanted to make sure that in interviews we didn’t say that it was about sex. We said it was about the give and take in a relationship.Looking back at it, the song is about sex. The song is about oral sex, obviously, there was nothing to hide. You know, that’s something that we do regret, it’s better to just be honest and say what the song is about and be real.
We had mothers not so happy because their daughters were singing, “If you get down on me, I’ll get down on you.” The truth is they were probably right to a point. I don’t know how good that was to have all those young kids singing lyrics like that.
Well it must have been a blast to sing that live all the time, wasn’t it?
Yeah, it definitely was. The crowds went crazy and it was just so much fun to get up on stage and do that.
My friend Julia said she saw you guys when she was nine, and you were performing in a Walmart parking lot.
I remember those days. We did a Walmart tour. They would set up a stage outside of all these different Walmarts and there were thousands of people who would come out to all these little events that we did. It was a lot of fun.
Really? The Walmart parking lot tour was fun?
Yeah, we had a blast. It was crazy. We had a great time.
That’s pretty optimistic. There must have been some bad shows, weren’t there?
We did a school tour in Germany. That was one of the worst periods. Some of the guys in those schools in Germany were throwing things on stage, they would say nasty things, they would boo. That was the most negative. But you know, there will always be negative people who will try to bring you down.
Didn’t you come across a lot of negativity like that?
For the most part it was pretty positive. I had one bad experience—I’ll never forget it—in a movie theatre once. Some guy came up to me and said, “I love your music, nice to meet you. Can I have an autograph?” I said yeah, I gave him an autograph and he took the autograph and he crumpled it and ripped it up and threw it in my face.
That’s pretty harsh.
I was upset. Ryan got a little more upset. (Ryan: It hurt me and upset me when Dan called me and told me that.) Listen, there are bullies out there and people are cruel and try to show off in front of their friends. I truly think it’s insecurity in somebody to do that. They don’t feel good about themselves and need to bring other people down. So, you know, these things happen.
Let’s change the pace a little. Did you guys have a lot of groupies?
Yeah. Girls would camp outside of our houses. I remember one time in Germany we went into our hotel and into our hotel room and there were two girls in the shower waiting for us. So we’ve had some crazy experiences with that for sure.
Do you still get groupies now?
We do get some groupies now, especially with the whole Shania thing. It’s calmed down a lot though, for sure.
You’re performing as RyanDan in Las Vegas with Shania Twain. How’s she doing?
We’ve become really close to her. We’ll have some drinks and we’ll sing until 3, 4 o’clock in the morning in her hotel room or in her dressing room. We’ll just sit and talk and sing together. We have a lot of in depth, deep conversations with her. She’s very down to Earth. It’s a dream to be here. Elton John is here as well and we’re all on the same stage, Jerry Seinfeld is also here for a few days.
Tell Jerry I say what’s up.
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The Noisey Canada Show: Fucked Up’s Long WinterAccording to a Farsi report by ISNA the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is close to the Syrian opposition, has confirmed the news, saying the city has been fully recaptured by Syrian army troops and that ISIS terrorists have fled to desert areas.
Abu Kamal was the last major urban area under the control of the ISIS terrorist group in Syria. Last week, the Syrian army announced it had managed to take control of the city, but apparently it had to retreat to within a few kilometres of the city due to a massive counteroffensive by ISIS.
On Friday, Syrian army troops secured control of several neighbourhoods in Abu Kamal, and fully retook the city on Saturday, putting an end to ISIS’ four-year occupation of cities in Syria.
Currently, the terrorist group only has control over some desert areas, especially in central and eastern Syria, adjacent to Iraq’s borders. It apparently will not take long to purge those areas of terrorists, as well.
Although large parts of areas on the common border between Iraq and Syria in north of the country are under the control of US-backed Syrian Kurds, and Washington itself has set up a base in Altanef region controlling the southern parts of the border areas, Abu Kamal plays a key role in the transport of troops and commodities between Iraq and Syria as it is the main route linking Baghdad, Qaim and Damascus. With the liberation of Abu Kamal, the common borders between Iraq and Syria will practically come under the Syrian government forces’ control or effective influence.
Due to the strategic importance of Abu Kamal, there had been a tight race in recent months between Syrian army forces and its allies on the one hand, and US-backed Kurdish troops on the other, to take control of the city. Now, with the Syrian army having gained control of the city, the United States can practically be regarded as the loser of this rivalry.The US economy added a robust 255,000 jobs in July, the Department of Labor announced on Friday, shaking off economic headwinds that had been expected to make the jobs market stumble and increasing the likelihood of an interest rate rise. The unemployment rate remained steady at 4.9%.
The positive figure comes after the labor market faltered in May, adding only 24,000 jobs. Hiring rebounded in June with a net gain of 292,000, but recent economic figures and a faltering European economy had suggested another slowdown. Economists had expected a growth of about 180,000 jobs in July and for the unemployment rate to reach 4.8%.
“US businesses have now added 15m jobs since private-sector job growth turned positive in early 2010, and the longest streak of total job growth on record continued in July,” Jason Furman, chairman of the White House’s council of economic advisers wrote in a blog post.
The job figures are being closely monitored by the Federal Reserve as it weighs another interest rate hike. The Fed raised rates for the first time since the recession last December, but has since held off amid mounting economic uncertainty in Europe following Britain’s referendum vote to leave the European Union and continuing signs of a slowdown in the Chinese economy.
Capital Economics is now forecasting a 50/50 chance of a hike around the turn of the year.
Alongside July’s strong growth both May and June’s reports were revised up. The labor department said the economy had added 18,000 more jobs over the two months than it had first calculated.
The gains were widespread. Hospitality and food, leisure, professional business services, financial activities and healthcare were the strongest sectors. The government added 38,000 jobs, a strong uptick after years of cuts. But from June to July the number of people working part-time but looking for full-time jobs increased by 100,000 from 5.84 million to 5.94 million.
Wages rose 8 cents, up from just 2 cents in June, suggesting the economy has added higher-wage jobs. Over the year, wages went up by 2.6% - highest since the start of the recovery, according to Chris Lu, the deputy secretary of labor.
“We always like to see jump in wages,” he told the Guardian, noting that the recent increase does not make up for the wage stagnation experienced by US workers over the past decade. “We need to do more on this front.”
Harry Holzer, former chief economist of the US Department of Labor, said: “The July employment report is very broadly positive. Payroll jobs rose by 255,000, after the outstanding number of 292,000 in June; the three-month average is now 190,000, which is much higher than previously anticipated.”
Economists are now divided on whether the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates before December. In July, despite its expectations that the job market would continue to strengthen, the Fed decided to leave the US interest rates unchanged for the fifth time this year.
The US central bank described the 287,000 jobs added in June as “strong” gains, but raised concerns over “soft” business investments. Cutbacks in business spending have also been blamed for the lower-than-expected growth in gross domestic product (GDP) during the three months ending on 30 June. During that time, the US economy grew at an annualized rate of 1.2%, compared to the 2.6% expected by economists.
Before Friday, it was unclear whether cutbacks in spending by businesses extended to jobs.
Earlier this week, figures released by the payroll company ADP showed that private employers added 179,000 jobs this month – about 9,000 more than expected. And while jobless claims rose by 3,000 last week to 269,000, the number has fallen 5% over the past 12 months.
“Claims remain low, albeit not quite as low as they were a couple of weeks ago, but those lower readings likely reflected seasonal adjustment issues relating to annual plant shutdowns in the auto industry,” according to Jim O’Sullivan, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics. “The data remain consistent with no major slowing in the trend in employment growth.”
Ford considers closing factories and raising prices in Europe in wake of Brexit Read more
It is not unusual for the carmakers to shut down their plants for a week or two in July due to a slowdown in demand. This year, Ford shortened the shutdown at some of its facilities even as it warned that it might consider closing its UK factories after its residents voted to leave the EU. When announcing its second quarter results this month, Ford lowered its estimates for full-year industry sales in the US and said next year’s sales will be even weaker.
The auto industry is not the only one showing signs of a slowdown. Earlier this week, oil prices dropped below $40 a barrel for the first time since April. On Thursday, a report released by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that about 95,000 jobs were cut by energy firms in 2016.
Coal mining industry lost more than 13,000 jobs over the past 12 months. In Kentucky, coal jobs dropped by 6.9% from April to June. The 6,465 coal jobs remaining in Kentucky as of 1 July mark the lowest level since 1898, according to state’s officials.
Manufacturing added 9,000 new jobs this month.That's what MacInnes chooses to believe, she said, and if people want to call her naive or stupid, they still can't take that belief away from her.
"He’s very compassionate. He has a deep respect for all living things," she said. "I’m sure some people are out there saying, 'Yeah, right.' But he literally would not hurt a fly."
She works the overnight shift in a substance abuse clinic. She said her son had his own struggles with addiction. And he did have a problem with anger, MacInnes said, but he would not hurt innocent people.
"I've only been in the Berkshires for a little over seven years," MacInnes said in an interview. "I miss the ocean, but I love the mountains."
Ciccolo's parents divorced when he was in grade school. For a while, he lived with his mother on Cape Cod. When he was about 14, he moved closer to Boston and lived with his father and stepmother. There were ongoing custody battles, with each parent accusing the other of doing a poor job raising their son.
After Ciccolo's arrest, his father made a single statement to the public. His mother has kept an even lower profile — until recently.
Ciccolo's father is a Boston police captain and was among the first responders at the 2013 marathon bombing. He was the one who tipped off federal officials his son was becoming “obsessed” with ISIS. That led to an FBI sting, where Ciccolo described to a government informant his plans to explode pressure cooker bombs in a crowded place.
Alex Ciccolo has been in federal custody since July 4, 2015. The 24-year-old man from the western Massachusetts town of Adams is charged with attempting to commit domestic terrorism. He's pleaded not guilty.
"I'm so glad that he's imprisoned rather than going out somewhere, if he were planning to do that, I don't know, and getting killed."
Yet, when Ciccolo was first arrested, and he stabbed a nurse at the jail with a pen, that shocked her. She thinks he was disoriented. It was halfway through Ramadan. Ciccolo, who'd converted to Islam a few years ago, was fasting.
"And he regrets that [stabbing]," MacInnes said. "He really has remorse for that."
And that stabbing is the one wrong act MacInnes directly acknowledged her son committed. Still, she's relieved he's not on the street.
"I'm so glad that he's imprisoned rather than going out somewhere, if he were planning to do that, I don’t know, and getting killed," she said.
Keeping Her Faith In God — And Her Son
MacInnes is leaning heavily on her Catholic faith, giving all this trouble up to God, she said. And she's learning about her son's beliefs. Several books on Islam are piled on the table in the compact A-frame house she shares with her second husband.
It takes about an hour from Peru to get to Springfield, and it’s a drive she and her husband take for almost every one of Ciccolo’s appearances in federal court. She visits her son, in a federal prison in Rhode Island, about twice a month.
“We actually get as much time as we want," she said. "There are visiting hours. They’re different during the weekday and during the weekend."
Ciccolo's Decline
Since Ciccolo was arrested in 2015 quite a bit has been reported about his early life. According to court records obtained by several media outlets, in his teens, Ciccolo was suspended from school for threatening another student. And then something happened at his father's home in 12th grade. Things got a little physical, MacInnes said.
In this courtroom sketch, Alexander Ciccolo, second from right, is depicted with his attorney David Hoose, right, during a bail hearing in 2015. (Jane Flavell Collins via AP)
"And Alex, you know, in anger, I guess... it got pretty aggressive," she recalled. "So then his father decided to call the ambulance, and he was placed in the psychiatric unit."
After Ciccolo got out, MacInnes said he refused to take medication. He dropped out of high school, left his father's home, stayed at friends’ houses or slept in his car. He was drinking and doing drugs.
MacInness said she knew people who ran a Buddhist peace pagoda in New York state and her son agreed to go there. He found a mentor and stayed in New York for about a year. And eventually, he made his way to western Mass., not far from his mother.
"He worked little odd jobs here and there," she said. "I think it was construction or landscaping."
Plans For Terror
Two weeks before the arrest, MacInnes said her son was reclusive and anxious. He told her everything was fine. But she said he was in despair and angry "about the situation the here in the U.S. and the Middle East, and all around the world — what was happening to his Muslim brothers and sisters, getting killed, how they're being treated."
Guns that prosecutors say Alex Ciccolo received from a cooperating witness. (Courtesy U.S. attorney's office)
According to the U.S. attorney's office, Ciccolo is a supporter of ISIS. He's accused of attempting to provide the terrorist group with material support. And there is physical evidence against Ciccolo. He received firearms from a person who was cooperating with law enforcement. Several partially constructed Molotov cocktails were found in his apartment. And in recorded conversations, Ciccolo describes plans to commit acts of terrorism including setting off explosives where a large number of people congregate, like college cafeterias.
MacInnes won't condemn her son for any of these alleged plans. She has empathy for him. That's being a mother, she said.
Knowing about the allegations, we asked, is there any way she thinks Ciccolo was trying to do something good by taking the alleged steps he took?
"Absolutely," she replied. "There's no doubt in our minds that he felt it was his duty — and in the eyes of God — to step forward and and try to do his part. Do something. And I think he didn't know what to do. And I think if he had some confusion or second thoughts... I think maybe it got to a point that he didn't know who to go to."
In the past, MacInnes said, her son told her everything. But she said she had no clue about any of his alleged plots. And whatever her ex-husband knew |
Patrick "Pat" and Eleanor Elizabeth "Ellen" (née Quigley) Doheny. The family was Irish Catholic. His father was born in Ireland, and fled Tipperary in the wake of the Great Famine. Patrick tried whaling after reaching Labrador.[2] His mother was born in St. Johns, Newfoundland, and was a school teacher.[3] After Patrick and Ellen married and moved to Wisconsin, Doheny's father became a construction laborer and gardener.[4]
Doheny graduated from high school in his fifteenth year, and was named the valedictorian of his class.[5] Following his father’s death several months after his graduation, Doheny was employed by the U.S. Geological Survey. In 1873 he was sent to Kansas with a party to survey and subdivide the Kiowa-Comanche lands. The following year he left the Geological Survey to pursue his fortune prospecting, first in the Black Hills of South Dakota,[1] and then in Arizona Territory and New Mexico Territory.
Early career [ edit ]
Doheny is listed in the 1880 United States Census as a painter living in Prescott, Arizona.[6] Later in 1880, he was in the Black Range in western Sierra County of south-western New Mexico Territory, living in the rough silver-mining town of Kingston (about 10 miles (16 km) west of Hillsboro), prospecting, mining, and buying and trading mining claims. He worked in the famed Iron King mine, just north of Kingston, which drew men to the area. In Kingston, he met two men who later played important roles in his life: Albert Fall, the future Secretary of the Interior, and Charles A. Canfield, who became his business partner.[7]
Doheny and Canfield together worked the former’s Mount Chief Mine with little success.[7] In 1886, Canfield prospected further in the Kingston area, leasing and developing with great success the Comstock Mine (not to be confused with the Comstock Lode of Virginia City, Nevada). Doheny declined to join him in this venture, but Canfield made a small fortune from it. Doheny was eventually reduced to doing odd jobs (including painting) to support his family.[8]
In 1883, in the Black Mountains town of Kingston in the New Mexico Territory, Doheny met and married his first wife, Carrie Louella Wilkins, on August 7.[9] Their daughter, Eileen, was born in December 1885.[9]
In the Spring of 1891, Doheny left New Mexico and moved to Los Angeles, California, attracted by Canfield’s success in real estate there. Canfield had previously left New Mexico with $110,000 in cash from his Comstock Mine venture, which he parlayed into extensive real estate holdings during the Los Angeles boom of the later 1880s. With the collapse of the speculative fever, Canfield lost his wealth and land holdings and, by the time Doheny arrived in Los Angeles in 1891, he was deeply in debt.[10]
The two men briefly tried prospecting in the San Diego County area of Southern California, forming the Pacific Gold and Silver Extracting Company there—but without achieving success, they soon returned to Los Angeles.[10] By 1892, Doheny was so poor he could not afford to pay for his boarding room.[11]
Doheny's daughter Eileen was a frail child and died at age seven on December 14, 1892. Her death was caused by heart disease stemming from rheumatic fever, as well as a lung infection.[12] Edward and Carrie's marriage was fragile, owing mostly to the harsh reality of mining life and their many financial problems.[13] Eileen's death further strained the marriage. Nearly a year after Eileen's death, on November 6, 1893, Carrie gave birth to their only son Edward Jr., known as Ned.[14]
Oil wells and success [ edit ]
While in Los Angeles, Doheny found out that there were local reserves of natural asphalt, which in places came to the surface—notably at the La Brea Tar Pits. Doheny obtained a lease near downtown with $400 in financing from Canfield, who had made some money from the mining industry. In the fall of 1892, Doheny dug a well with picks, shovels, and a windlass, looking for asphalt, from which oil could be refined. When the well (6 by 4 feet (1.8 m × 1.2 m) wide) reached 155 feet (47 m), Doheny devised a drilling system involving a eucalyptus tree trunk.[11] When completed in 1893, the well reached 225 feet (69 m) and produced 40 barrels per day (6.4 m3/d). (The discovery of this well appears in John Jakes's novel California Gold,—as do Doheny and Canfield, as partners with the novel's fictional protagonist, Mack Chance.)
Edward and Carrie Doheny divorced in 1899, when Ned was six years old.[15] Edward gained custody of their son, and remarried. Unable to cope with her losses, the following year Carrie Doheny committed suicide.[16] Doheny married his second wife, Carrie "Estelle" Betzold, inside the private Pullman car of Santa Fe Railway executive Almon Porter Maginnis ("Car 214").[17] It was held on the siding in New Mexico Territory on August 22, 1900.[18] Though she bore no children, Carrie raised Ned.[19]
The first well dug in Los Angeles was in 1863, on Hoover Street between Seventh Street and Wilshire Boulevard, by a man named Baker. However, in his book Petroleum in California: A Concise and Reliable History of the Oil Industry of the State, Lionel V. Redpath says the Los Angeles oil industry began with the Doheny and Canfield well at the corner of Patton and West State streets. The well was a small producer, but it pumped steadily for three years, and during that time Doheny and others sunk about three hundred more wells.[20] Doheny and Canfield soon made a fortune by drilling in the area and selling the oil to nearby factories. Later, they helped spur the California oil boom of the early 1900s by persuading railroads to switch from coal to oil to power their locomotives.[11]
Doheny was also a pioneering oil producer in Mexico. In Tampico his company drilled the first well in Mexico in 1901. He expanded operations during the Mexican Revolution, and opened large new oil fields in Mexico's "golden belt" inland from Tampico. It also drilled Cerro Azul No. 4 well—which, in February 1916, became the world's largest-producing well, pumping 260,000 barrels per day (B.P.D.). When the well—drilled by Herbert Wylie—came in, the sound could be heard 16 miles (26 km) away in Casiano, and it shot a stream of oil 598 feet (182 m) into the air, sending oil in a two-mile (three-kilometre) radius. Over the next fourteen years, the well produced over fifty-seven million barrels.[21]
Big Business and Teapot Dome Scandal [ edit ]
Doheny formed the Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company (P.A.T.)—part of which later became the Mexican Petroleum Company (Pemex)—to hold his two Mexican companies (Mexican Petroleum and Huasteca), his Atlantic and Gulf Coasts facilities in the United States, and his California holdings.[21] The company owned 600,000 acres (2400 km²) of land worth about $50,000,000 and secured an additional 800,000 acres (3200 km²) in Mexico in October 1919.
In 1919 the Colombian Petroleum Company, a P.A.T. subsidiary, bought a 75% interest in the Barco oil concession in Colombia.[22] Doheny was also interested in plans to develop the oil industry in Venezuela, and in building a pipeline from Colombia to Venezuela to make it more economical to export the Barco oil from the west coast of Lake Maracaibo.[23] In 1920 Pan American was the largest oil company in the United States, ahead of Sinclair Consolidated Oil Corporation and the Standard Oil Company of Indiana. Automobile production was booming and oil prices were high. The Mexican Petroleum Company was the largest in Mexico, and Mexico was the largest oil producer in the world.
In 1922 Albert B. Fall, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, leased the oil field at Elk Hills, California, to the Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company. Around the same time, the Teapot Dome Field in Wyoming was leased to Sinclair Consolidated Oil Corporation. Both oilfields were part of the US Navy's petroleum reserves. Neither lease was subject to competitive bidding. In 1924 rumors about corruption in the deals escalated into the Teapot Dome scandal.
Doheny's reputation was somewhat tainted by a bribe paid to the Secretary of the Interior, Albert B. Fall in 1921. He made the "gift" of $100,000 in connection with obtaining a lease of 32,000 acres (130 km²) of government-owned land used for the Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve near Taft, California. The resulting scandal broke soon after that, over similar bribes Fall accepted for leasing Teapot Dome in Wyoming. Doheny (his son Ned, who had delivered the money, and his assistant Hugh Plunkett, were also indicted) was charged with bribing Fall but, in 1930, was acquitted. Nevertheless, Fall was convicted of accepting the bribe.[25]
Edward L. Doheny and his granddaughter, Lucy Estelle, c. 1928 and his granddaughter, Lucy Estelle, c. 1928
Doheny sold a majority of the family's shares in Pan American Petroleum & Transport to Standard Oil of Indiana, in April 1925, but retained all California assets, which he formed into a new company, Pan American Western Petroleum Company. Pan American Eastern Petroleum (the Mexico holdings, the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts holdings in the U.S., refineries, pipelines, and thirty-one tankers), which held the non-California assets, was sold to Standard. Pan American Western returned to its roots as an "upstream" exploration and production company.[26]
At the end of 1925, in order to exploit the oilfields in Lake Maracaibo Pan American Western gained control of Lago Petroleum Corporation from C. Ledyard Blair's Blair & Co. The transaction became the subject of a stockholder action in 1933, which alleged that the bankers, who were represented on the Pan American board, conspired to make excessive profits. In 1926, Venezuelan Eastern Petroleum Corporation reorganized as a subsidiary of Pan American Eastern to buy and develop Venezuelan oil properties.
In the midst of the Teapot Dome scandal, Doheny gave Greystone Mansion (designed by Gordon B. Kaufmann after a design competition) to his son, Edward (Ned) L. Doheny, Jr., and his wife Lucy Marceline Smith (the couple married on June 10, 1914).[30] He built the 46,000-square-foot (4,300 m2) house in 1928, at a cost of $3,188,000, and sold the property and accompanying 400-acre (1.6 km2) ranch to his son for $10.[31]
When a second criminal trial for bribery began to loom for Doheny and Fall in 1929, the pressure on all parties reached a breaking point. The Dohenys tried to persuade Hugh Plunkett to be committed to a mental institute so that he could not then be made to testify against them. On February 16 an argument broke out at about 10pm between Ned and Plunkett, Ned shot Plunkett and then himself.[32] There were rumours that the two were having an affair.[33] The full story was never clear. The police were not called until three hours after the shots had been fired, despite several members of the family being at home and having heard the yelling. The Los Angeles authorities immediately blamed Plunkett in the murder-suicide. In addition to the indictment of Edward Doheny in the Teapot Dome scandal, both Doheny and Plunkett had been indicted in the alleged bribe of Albert Fall—as Ned (accompanied by Plunkett) had delivered the money. They had already gone through some trials.[34] Raymond Chandler, a former oil man, included a thinly veiled account of this event in one chapter of his novel The High Window, presenting it as a bygone, hushed-up case. He had started work for the Dabney Oil Syndicate in 1922 as a bookkeeper and auditor, but was fired a decade later.[35]
Beset by shareholder lawsuits in the wake of Teapot Dome, and the death of Ned, Doheny became a recluse and invalid.[36] When she realized her husband needed an undisturbed home away for a while after the Teapot Dome travails and Ned's death, Carrie Estelle asked architect Wallace Neff to design and build the Ferndale Ranch complex on their Ojai, California property.[37] Hundreds of workers completed the 9,000 square feet (840 m2) house in less than six weeks, including Neff's blueprints, by working day and night.[31][38]
Edward L. Doheny died at his Beverly Hills townhouse on September 8, 1935, of natural causes, a month after his seventy-ninth birthday.[1] His funeral was in St. Vincent's Church in Los Angeles.[39] That year "Estelle Doheny, Doheny's widow, burned hundreds of letters and business documents," what biographer Margaret Leslie Davis describes as the "written remnants of Edward Doheny's life" (p. 4)."[34]
Philanthropy [ edit ]
Doheny contributed money to foundations. He helped fund the construction of St. Vincent de Paul Church. After the shooting death of his son, Edward Jr., he donated $1.1 million in 1932 to University of Southern California (USC) to build the Edward L. Doheny, Jr. Memorial Library.[40] His second wife, Carrie Estelle Doheny, donated her rare book collection to St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, California.[citation needed]
The Doheny Mansion, three miles south-west of Downtown Los Angeles, is the centrepiece of the Mount St. Mary's College Doheny Campus.
Doheny, Sr., meanwhile, lived in his own mansion, which he had purchased in 1901.[41] It was part of Chester Place, a gated community of Victorian mansions, and by his death in 1935, Doheny ended up owning most of the houses, as well as the street.[31] Built in 1899 in the French Gothic architectural style, this three-story, twenty-two-room residence was damaged in the 1933 earthquake but was repaired. It is within Mount Saint Mary's University's Doheny campus, where it houses college departments, runs docent tours, and hosts chamber music concerts by The Da Camera Society.[citation needed]
The Dohenys also owned a great deal of coastal land in Dana Point, California, which they donated to the State of California for Doheny State Beach as a memorial to Edward's murdered son Ned. They also donated the funds for the construction of St. Edward the Confessor Roman Catholic Church at its original site. It has since moved to a bluff-top location overlooking Doheny State Beach. The original building is now home to San Felipe de Jesus Roman Catholic Church.[citation needed]
After he began basing his Mexican oil operations near Tampico, Tamaulipas in 1902, Doheny donated much money toward the construction and maintenance of the Cathedral of Tampico there. Also known as The Temple of the Immaculate Conception, it is located in Plaza de Armas in the city. The Doheny Estate has donated money to Loyola Marymount University for the construction of buildings and residence halls, and the land for one of the campuses of Mount St. Mary's College south of downtown Los Angeles.[citation needed]
Doheny took his yacht, the Casiana (named after his first major producing oil well in Mexico, the Casiana No. 7), to Martinique to pick up a friend's brother who worked as a farmer on the island and who was seriously ill. Doheny brought him back to New York City; the steam yacht made the trip in only five days.[citation needed]
In 1944, his widow Carrie Estelle Doheny suffered a hemorrhage that left her partially blind. Realizing the value of good vision, she created and funded the Doheny Eye Institute,[42] which has become a world leader in vision research. She became a major cultural philanthropist in Los Angeles, California as well. When commissioning new buildings for these civic projects, she often chose the renowned Southern California architect Wallace Neff. On her death, she left antiquities and funds to St. John's (Roman Catholic) Seminary located in Camarillo, in Ventura County.[citation needed]
In 1954, Estelle Doheny provided funds and "a quantity of her precious collections in the library building" at St. Mary's of the Barrens seminary in Perryville, Missouri.[43] By November 11, 2000, the Vincentian Fathers signed a contract with Southeast Missouri State University to use the library building. So, "the Doheny treasures were sold."[43]
Family [ edit ]
Doheny and his first wife, Carrie Louella, had a daughter, Eileen, who died in childhood.[44] Their son, Edward L. ("Ned") Doheny, Jr., was the owner of Greystone Mansion and the namesake of Doheny Library at the University of Southern California.
Through Ned's children, Doheny is the great-grandfather of science fiction writer Larry Niven[45] and singer-songwriter Ned Doheny.[46]
Legacy [ edit ]
Numerous place names in Southern California are named for him:
Representation in popular culture [ edit ]
Doheny's payment to Albert Fall and the scandal inspired Upton Sinclair's novel, Oil!, based in part on Doheny's life. [11]
, based in part on Doheny's life. Reference to Doheny Beach, in the Beach Boys song "Surfin' USA". Lyrical verse, "...all over Manhattan and down Doheny way, everyone's gone surfin', surfin' USA.."[47]
References [ edit ]
Bibliography [ edit ]
Ansell, Martin R. (1998), Oil Baron of the Southwest: Edward L. Doheny and the Development of the Petroleum Industry in California and Mexico, Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, ISBN 978-0-8142-0749-9 ; a standard scholarly biography
; a standard scholarly biography Davis, Margaret Leslie (1998), Dark Side of Fortune: Triumph and Scandal in the Life of Oil Tycoon Edward L. Doheny, Berkeley: University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-22909-9 ; a standard scholarly biography
; a standard scholarly biography La Botz, Dan (1991), Edward L. Doheny: Petroleum, Power and Politics in the United States and Mexico, New York: Praeger, ISBN 978-0-275-93599-3 ; poorly received by reviewers who noted many errors and oversightsMosques and flats have been stormed by 800 Austrian police in a bid to break the network of a preacher suspected of brainwashing teenagers to fight for ISIS.
Authorities say 11 people have been arrested after the huge anti-terror raids which took place across Graz and in the capital Vienna.
Officers entered apartments and unofficial mosques in the two cities as part of the crackdown, which targeted people from the former Yugoslavia suspected of establishing a jihadist network in Austria, according to Austrian media.
Mosques and flats have been stormed by 800 Austrian police in a bid to break the network of a preacher suspected of brainwashing teenagers to fight for ISIS (file picture)
The raids were reportedly not connected to last week's arrest of a suspected 17-year-old Islamist extremist in Vienna.
Instead, police said the raids allegedly focused on the network of a Muslim preacher from Bosnia who was jailed for 20 years last July in Graz for recruiting young fighters to ISIS.
The accused, known as Ebu Tejma, is thought to have 'brainwashed' dozens of people aged between 14 and 30 and enlisted a number of them to fight for ISIS in Syria.
Tejma fled from Bosnia to Vienna following the break-up of Yugoslavia and preached in various Austrian and southern German cities, becoming a 'key figure' in pushing IS propaganda, according to the prosecution.
Several people have been arrested after the huge anti-terror raids which took place across Graz (file picture) and in the capital Vienna
He was arrested during a far-reaching crackdown on Austrian jihadist networks in 2014 and has denied the charges against him.
Eight men were initially detained, including three Austrians 'with a migration background', two Bosnians, a Syrian, a Bulgarian and a Macedonian, all aged between 21 and 49, a spokesman said.
Four of the arrests were in Vienna and four in Graz. A further three suspects from the Balkans were later also arrested in Graz.
Austria has so far been spared by the string of attacks by Islamist extremists in other European countries in recent years.
But around 300 people have either left or were intercepted trying to leave Austria to fight in Syria, according to the interior ministry. Around 40 have died there while some 90 have come back.
On Friday, police detained an Austrian national of Albanian origin for allegedly planning a terror attack in Vienna.NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has proposed a rule change that will mean that defensive players will no longer be allowed to sack the quarterback next season.
The rule, which is meant to aid the safety of the players, has been greeted with great enthusiasm from Broncos’ QB, Peyton Manning.
Talking to press, Manning said: ‘I personally think that this is the best idea Roger Goodell has ever had. I just wish they would implement it for the Super Bowl this Sunday.’
Other aging QBs like Tom Brady and Drew Brees have also offered their support for the rule change but defensive players haven’t been quite so keen. Von Miller offered his opinion: ‘Damn, we can barely touch them as it is. They might as well just make the NFL flag football and have done with it.’
On hearing Miller’s outburst Roger Goodell fined him $120,000 and told his advisors to look into the feasibility of rebranding the league into the National Flag Football League.
The team owners will meet during the offseason to discuss this proposed rule change as well as several other matters including: suspending Cam Newton for having fun, moving seven more teams to LA by 2019, moving eight teams back from LA when they all fail to attract crowds, and reducing the defensive side of teams to just four players.Ivanka Trump and Kellyanne Conway sure are working hard to convince us that the president isn’t a misogynist. While Conway tweets about Trump’s commitment to “women’s health” and covers for his bigotry on the cable news circuit, the first daughter continues her mission to present the softer side of a man whose best-known quote on gender involves “grabbing pussies.”
It would be laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous. As feminism continues to grow more powerful – millions of women marched against Trump and sexism less than two months ago – conservative women will try to use the rhetoric of the movement to mask Republican misogyny.
In a time when so many misconstrue feminism to mean “anything a woman does” rather than a well-defined movement for justice, this strategy could very well work. The mischaracterization of feminism has been political gold for women on the right: operatives who once called feminists baby-killers and man-haters now claim the label for themselves even as they support stripping American women of fundamental and hard-won rights.
The most dangerous player in all of this is Ivanka herself – poised, polished, telegenic and continually trotted out as salve for her father’s explicit sexism.
Just this week Ivanka tweeted out a picture of her father signing two laws that push for gender parity in STEM fields with the hashtag #ClosingTheGenderGap. In the shot, Trump is surrounded by female staff members, Ivanka and his wife. The photo-op was a clear response to the image that went viral in January of Trump surrounded by men as he reinstated the anti-choice Global Gag Rule. (A mandate responsible for thousands of women’s deaths across the globe.)
Even before the election, Ivanka was trying to convince us that her father isn’t misogynist. Her speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland made Trump seem more like a feminist revolutionary than a man who walks into teenage girls’ dressing rooms. She’s even called him a feminist.
Though Ivanka’s feminist bonafides are shaky at best – the child care plan she pushed doesn’t include fathers, her Women Who Work campaign is more Pinterest than activist, she supports an unrepentant racist misogynist – any criticism of her is positioned as a rejection of feminist ideals. As the Trump brand takes massive hits, for example, conservatives like Tomi Lahren insist that any boycott of Ivanka’s clothing is proof that you are not really a feminist and don’t support women.
Ivanka taking an interest is women’s issues is fine, but using them to cover for her father’s rank bigotry is reprehensible.
Feminism is not blind support of any other woman regardless of her politics – it’s a movement for justice and a demand for systemic change. That may seem obvious, but it’s a point we’ll need to hammer home over the next four years if we want to prevent Republicans from rolling back women’s rights while pointing to Ivanka and Conway as proof that they couldn’t possibly be sexist.
Most American women won’t be fooled by “empowered” slogans and hashtags – we know what real feminism is, and what sexism looks like. And no matter how many female faces Trump surrounds himself with, we know exactly who he is and what he thinks of women.
Sign up for the week in patriarchy, a weekly email newsletter by Jessica Valentii want so badly to ignore this and just get on with my life, considering that i’m in the midst of tour and traveling the US right now, but it’s clear that I can’t escape this. this is a very long post, i am keeping it under a cut.
additionally, at least until tumblr moves on from this, my askbox is off. it is a nightmare. i can’t deal with it right now.
so. I was an invited panelist at Dashcon, and I was on 10 panels over the weekend. my name is mark, I run Mark Reads and Mark Watches, and have been doing so for 5 years next month. (HOLY SHIT THAT IS A LONG TIME.) I have been attending cons for over a decade and been speaking at them as a panelist or a guest since 2011. Including my own tour events outside of cons, I have participated in over 150 “panels,” ranging from 50 minutes to 4 hours. I’m including this upfront because I’ve already been accused of being a 16-year-old nobody who doesn’t know what he’s doing at cons and is ruining fandom. Also, I’m apparently white and straight. ALSO THIS IS A MESS.
Mark, how did you end up at Dashcon?
My good friend Krista recommended me to the admins and urged me to sign up because she wanted to do a panel about homoerotic subtext and queerbaiting with me. (Yes, this is the same infamous panel that has caused a lot of drama.) I signed up after submitting a panelist application. I had to have a half hour Skype interview with Megg and Roxanne, the admins, in order to even be considered. Once they knew that I was well experienced at running panels and being a moderator, we discussed about 4-5 possible panels they wanted me on. The process was organized and stress-free for me. I have no complaints about it.
Then how did you end up on 10 panels?
My friend Krista unfortunately had to drop out due to a medical issue. I took over her spots on other panels, since I had either done similar panels in the past, or they made sense based on what I do and write about.
How much did Dashcon pay you?
They didn’t. I was not a special guest.
That’s fucked up, isn’t it?
No, and allow me to dispel the first of about a million rumors: until you are supermegahuge, you do not get paid to go to conventions. I’ve been going to cons as a professional/panelist for 3 years now. I’ve not once been paid for it. Sometimes, if I am contributing a lot or if a con really wants me to present, my badge will be comped. A few have given me free lodging or reduced lodging. Next year, the wonderful folks at ConQuesT are giving me the privilege of being a Guest of Honor for the first time, and it’s a HUGE deal to me. But this is standard. It’s a business expense for me, I have to view each con trip as a promotional outlet for me, and moneywise, they’re always a loss. My hope is simply to gain more fans and exposure and pay my dues. I go to conventions because I want to make the community better. I often am on panels about representation, race, and queerness, and I want to do the difficult work of making fandom more diverse through it.
So what happened when you got there?
It was like every other con ever. I picked up my badge and schedule. I checked into my hotel. (I stayed at a cheaper one on the other side of the highway.) I went to my panels. Nothing was out of the ordinary.
So you let minors into your 18+ panel, right?
My panel, Odd Fanfiction Through The Ages, was the second of mine that I did and the first 18+ panel, and was accused on Tumblr of letting minors into it to listen to smut three hours before the panel started. It was the first of many surreal moments. As far as I knew at the time, no minors got in; there were three people checking IDs at the door, and I watched them turn minors away.
Just for the record: the person who first started the rumor/lie that the BDSM panel was allowing in minors posted it TWELVE HOURS BEFORE THAT PANEL EVEN STARTED. That is how ridiculous the lies and misconceptions were. Shit was being stated as fact on Tumblr before it had even had a chance to happen.
So you then made fun of fanfiction, right?
The most stellar part about this accusation is that right off the bat, I told folks that the panel (which covered a history of odd trends, pairings, and fics) was not going to be a vehicle for shaming fanfiction or making fun of it because it’s weird. I also did not allow anyone to give me any fic or recommend things because I wanted to control what I read and what I didn’t read. I used to just read anything anyone handed me, but last year, I stopped doing live readings of fics that weren’t either intentionally bad/funny or I did not have consent to read. I did not want to shame anyone for having written fic, even if I tried real hard to make it seem like I wasn’t making fun of it. It’s much easier and more respectful to follow this policy. So, no. Did not happen.
So, what happened with the hotel?
Lord.
Folks are already gaslighting me about my Q&A I did on Facebook, trying to say I am doing my best to minimize what the admins did, but let me state this right now: I have no interest in defending the Dashcon admins. It is more clear than ever that they know what they fucked up, and y’all know of the many mistakes made over the weekend. I cannot add much to what you know or think you know because I kind of stayed away from it? I was outside the main ballroom for the majority of the time after all panels were closed. I knew that the hotel upper management freaking out was real, I knew the $20,000 demand was real, I saw the physical contract at one point, I knew the issue was over oral agreements/changes made, and I knew that the one guy who took over the microphone during that hour of chaos ONLY MADE THINGS WORSE. Whomever he was, I guarantee none of it would have been as bad as it was if he’d just SHUT UP.
So then what???
Panels all were back on at 10:30. I went and did mine, had an excellent turnout, and for the remainder of the con, if I had stayed off Tumblr, it would have been a super fun, enjoyable, well-attended con with zero problems for me.
But???
Look, I had five panels on Saturday, and while I was very thankful to be appreciated and given the chance to do so much, I was also sad to be missing Night Vale! I love the podcast dearly, but I was scheduled against it. So, when I found out WTNV walked (and it was while I was on a panel myself), it sucked, but it didn’t affect my day at all. The only issue I did have was when a misogynist jerk went on a sexist rant about b*tches in fiction and how Mary-Louise Parker is only good for her boobs (WHY ARE YOU TALKING). I shut it down and moved on as best as I could, ran immediately to staff after the panel, reported said person, and then went straight to my third panel of the day. I had two back-to-back, so I went back to the admin office to give a full report once I had a break, and staff dealt with him. As far as I know, the jerk was kicked out. Their response was super quick and respectful, and I was really happy with it.
But???
Then I made the mistake of going on Tumblr before my 5pm panel, Homoerotic Subtext.
You have to understand that while two undeniably huge and disastrous mishaps had occurred (the money issue, and WTNV walking), the con felt normal. And then I check my dash and it was just a torrent of ball pit jokes, yelling about panels, misogynist drivel about how teenage girls always ruin fandom and cons, and nearly every post was insisting that this was the worst convention in the history of the universe.
It was jarring. It was INCREDIBLY surreal.
Can you explain the ball pit?
I swear, that fucking question will probably be engraved on my tombstone when I turn to dust. I’m going to later get into how many things the Tumblr community turned into massive issues, but here’s a good start. It was located in a large room adjacent to registration that had concessions and a place to sit and eat. It wasn’t empty because no one was at the con. I would estimate that there were 1,500 people there. The ball pit largely stemmed from a joke, and it wasn’t a thing that was talked about or visited at the con with any frequency. I remember seeing it when I went to get a snack, and I laughed at it because it was clearly absurdly small on purpose, and then I went about my day. It was not a point of interest, it wasn’t something a single soul talked about, and it was just a quirky thing that existed. The end.
So are you mad at people who made fun of it?
Not really? Last night, I saw some memes I couldn’t avoid laughing at. They were funny. (I want that Cards Against Humanity card very much. I EARNED IT, I MADE IT THROUGH DASHCON.) And you know what? It wasn’t something I did or was associated with me, so I let it go. I was more or less annoyed that so many people asked me about the ball pit and said they heard the con was a disaster, but then they didn’t ask, “Hey, are you okay?”
Please stop white knighting on my behalf. I’m an adult, I can handle a joke and memes. Christ.
So, about that Homoerotic Subtext panel….
Straight up: the description Tumblr saw was an old one and a shitty one, and it never got updated. The end.
However, because Tumblr hyper magnified Dashcon, people assumed the panel would be about fetishizing gay ships. The next step that thousands of people took?
They found out who was on the panel (me!) and instead of actually scrolling down THREE FUCKING POSTS TO MY SELFIE, they accused me of being a straight white man appropriating the gay. Then the death threats started to come in, and then I was pretty much done with Tumblr. I did not log in again until Sunday evening. It was discouraging, triggering, and fucking disgraceful. The three of us on the panel WERE ALL QUEER. ALL OF US. Yes, the panel description sucked, but there are TERRIBLE PANEL DESCRIPTIONS AT EVERY CON EVER.
So did you yell at Sacha (one of the panelists) for being a racist?
Sigh.
I already spoke to Sacha myself about this, but they once posted a Sherlock manip joke where Sherlock had maracas and a sombrero and a mustache. Is it my favorite thing? No. Do I need Tumblr at large (AND LOTS OF WHITE PEOPLE) telling me what to get mad at as a latino person? Or how I’m a bad anti-racist ally because I didn’t find every post both of my panelists made EVER AND FOREVER and then call them out on it at said panel?
If y’all care so much about my work as a queer brown dude, then how come y’all have never said anything about me being on panels with people who are way more bigoted and shitty than Sacha? Why is it all of a sudden you’re concerned about who I am on a panel with? And how come I am now expected to only appear on panels with people who have PERFECT SOCIAL JUSTICE HISTORIES?
Knock it off. Grow up.
So was the con a mess?
There were messy parts, but as a whole, no. I ran/spoke on 10 panels, and I saw 8 others. I saw nothing out of the ordinary or “messy” at any of them.
So was candy handed out at panels?
I saw it happen at one and who gives a fuck if it was? The panel was packed, it was a way to encourage discussion, I’ve seen similar things at other panels at other cons, so SHUT UP. This is part of an |
In Russia this could be mistaken for gay behavior and may result in misunderstandings that could even lead to violence. There are plenty of incidents where gay or "we thought he was gay" people have been beaten in Russia. Secondly, Russias belligerence in how they're acting with the Ukraine is reason enough to keep our players out on both moral grounds and with concern to their own safety.
We're not sending players for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Russias rampant homophobia. Not only is it morally repugnant, but it puts our players at risk. Korean males are culturally very comfortable with being close to each other. Holding hands, sitting on others laps etc, not at all uncommon. In Russia this could be mistaken for gay behavior and may result in misunderstandings that could even lead to violence. There are plenty of incidents where gay or "we thought he was gay" people have been beaten in Russia. Secondly, Russias belligerence in how they're acting with the Ukraine is reason enough to keep our players out on both moral grounds and with concern to their own safety.
before I read that post I thought not going there for political reasons was idiotic. you completely changed my mind on that, I kind of forgot the whole homophobia issue due to the mindless russiabashing in the face of natural geopolitical behaviour.
I am really glad you decide to not send players for the first reason though. I hope other teammanagers follow this line of argumentation and keep their players safe.
depending on the rest of the line up, I might even skip watching it. before I read that post I thought not going there for political reasons was idiotic. you completely changed my mind on that, I kind of forgot the whole homophobia issue due to the mindless russiabashing in the face of natural geopolitical behaviour.I am really glad you decide to not send players for the first reason though. I hope other teammanagers follow this line of argumentation and keep their players safe.depending on the rest of the line up, I might even skip watching it.
It's just a really sad state of affairs. I have quite a lot of Russian fans, so does the team, but the safety of the players has to come first. The political reasoning isn't even that important, almost every country does something objectionable. Should we not send players to the US because of the arguably illegal wars its waged in the past or the whole spying on its own citizens thing? You'd be short on tournaments to go to if you started doing that. The homophobic violence however is a very real thing and don't count on thugs to know the difference between gay people and typical Korean male social closeness. This homophobia, pushed by those in power, is deliberately divisive. Unite the country by persecuting a minority within it, differentiate yourselves from other countries that are more accepting, utilize the galvinisation against said minority as a banner to rally behind and in turn, rally against countries who the population now perceives as different and "the enemy". It's sad that this can still work in the internet age, though I think we are getting to the point where it is losing its effectiveness. It's hard to view other people in other countries as enemies when you interact with them every day online and see that they're just another human being like us. It's just a really sad state of affairs. I have quite a lot of Russian fans, so does the team, but the safety of the players has to come first. The political reasoning isn't even that important, almost every country does something objectionable. Should we not send players to the US because of the arguably illegal wars its waged in the past or the whole spying on its own citizens thing? You'd be short on tournaments to go to if you started doing that. The homophobic violence however is a very real thing and don't count on thugs to know the difference between gay people and typical Korean male social closeness. This homophobia, pushed by those in power, is deliberately divisive. Unite the country by persecuting a minority within it, differentiate yourselves from other countries that are more accepting, utilize the galvinisation against said minority as a banner to rally behind and in turn, rally against countries who the population now perceives as different and "the enemy". It's sad that this can still work in the internet age, though I think we are getting to the point where it is losing its effectiveness. It's hard to view other people in other countries as enemies when you interact with them every day online and see that they're just another human being like us. Commentator Host of SHOUTcraft Clan Wars- http://www.mlg.tv/shoutcraft
CosmicSpiral Profile Blog Joined December 2010 United States 10772 Posts #52 KrastyKrabs is a name guaranteed to bring success. Writer Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.
Xoronius Profile Joined July 2011 Germany 6360 Posts #53 On August 07 2014 00:58 Vo-one wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 06 2014 23:16 Xoronius wrote:
And again I ask: What does that have to do with esports? This tournament is not benefitting Russia as a nation or the russian army or politics.
This kind of a situation has already happend to some musicians that went to Russia for their concerts or even to receive awards during the conflict. Now they're claimed as rats/traitors. So these players are known to what they will be called if they go.
"It's just a business, nothing personal"? Yeah, and nothing patriotical also. This kind of a situation has already happend to some musicians that went to Russia for their concerts or even to receive awards during the conflict. Now they're claimed as rats/traitors. So these players are known to what they will be called if they go."It's just a business, nothing personal"? Yeah, and nothing patriotical also.
But that is obvious bullshit behaviour. How can you call someone a rat/traitor for doing his job, that has nothing to do with the nation itself, but only with it's people? Really sad to see, how many people are unable to differentiate Russia and the russian people (not targeted at people here, but rather at people doing the stuff Vo-one mentioned).
TB brings a valid point though, while a political boycott is still laughable, the concern for the players safety is very important. The last thing we need is players getting beaten up, because of a missinterpretation of korean culture, so on that level I can totally understand, why teams may be unwilling to send their players. Sucks for russian esports fans though, but if it is the best for the players, that comes first. So thanks to TB for bringing a rational argument in here. But that is obvious bullshit behaviour. How can you call someone a rat/traitor for doing his job, that has nothing to do with the nation itself, but only with it's people? Really sad to see, how many people are unable to differentiate Russia and the russian people (not targeted at people here, but rather at people doing the stuff Vo-one mentioned).TB brings a valid point though, while a political boycott is still laughable, the concern for the players safety is very important. The last thing we need is players getting beaten up, because of a missinterpretation of korean culture, so on that level I can totally understand, why teams may be unwilling to send their players. Sucks for russian esports fans though, but if it is the best for the players, that comes first. So thanks to TB for bringing a rational argument in here.
brickrd Profile Blog Joined March 2014 United States 4513 Posts Last Edited: 2014-08-06 17:31:11 #54 On August 07 2014 01:36 Xoronius wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 07 2014 00:58 Vo-one wrote:
On August 06 2014 23:16 Xoronius wrote:
And again I ask: What does that have to do with esports? This tournament is not benefitting Russia as a nation or the russian army or politics.
This kind of a situation has already happend to some musicians that went to Russia for their concerts or even to receive awards during the conflict. Now they're claimed as rats/traitors. So these players are known to what they will be called if they go.
"It's just a business, nothing personal"? Yeah, and nothing patriotical also. This kind of a situation has already happend to some musicians that went to Russia for their concerts or even to receive awards during the conflict. Now they're claimed as rats/traitors. So these players are known to what they will be called if they go."It's just a business, nothing personal"? Yeah, and nothing patriotical also.
But that is obvious bullshit behaviour. How can you call someone a rat/traitor for doing his job, that has nothing to do with the nation itself, but only with it's people? Really sad to see, how many people are unable to differentiate Russia and the russian people (not targeted at people here, but rather at people doing the stuff Vo-one mentioned).
TB brings a valid point though, while a political boycott is still laughable, the concern for the players safety is very important. The last thing we need is players getting beaten up, because of a missinterpretation of korean culture, so on that level I can totally understand, why teams may be unwilling to send their players. Sucks for russian esports fans though, but if it is the best for the players, that comes first. So thanks to TB for bringing a rational argument in here. But that is obvious bullshit behaviour. How can you call someone a rat/traitor for doing his job, that has nothing to do with the nation itself, but only with it's people? Really sad to see, how many people are unable to differentiate Russia and the russian people (not targeted at people here, but rather at people doing the stuff Vo-one mentioned).TB brings a valid point though, while a political boycott is still laughable, the concern for the players safety is very important. The last thing we need is players getting beaten up, because of a missinterpretation of korean culture, so on that level I can totally understand, why teams may be unwilling to send their players. Sucks for russian esports fans though, but if it is the best for the players, that comes first. So thanks to TB for bringing a rational argument in here.
handwaving political gestures in apolitical contexts as meaningless is actually exactly what enables political machines to remain untouched and unregulated by the public they're supposed to serve... if you dont take politics outside of itself then no one knows and no one cares and no one does anything about it
you bring up a valid line of discussion but its ridiculously oversimplified to say that starcraft has nothing to do with politics and therefore any political action or protest is meaningless... we all share this world and are all affected by what goes on in it whether we are politicans or amateur gamers handwaving political gestures in apolitical contexts as meaningless is actually exactly what enables political machines to remain untouched and unregulated by the public they're supposed to serve... if you dont take politics outside of itself then no one knows and no one cares and no one does anything about ityou bring up a valid line of discussion but its ridiculously oversimplified to say that starcraft has nothing to do with politics and therefore any political action or protest is meaningless... we all share this world and are all affected by what goes on in it whether we are politicans or amateur gamers
Xoronius Profile Joined July 2011 Germany 6360 Posts #55 On August 07 2014 02:30 brickrd wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 07 2014 01:36 Xoronius wrote:
On August 07 2014 00:58 Vo-one wrote:
On August 06 2014 23:16 Xoronius wrote:
And again I ask: What does that have to do with esports? This tournament is not benefitting Russia as a nation or the russian army or politics.
This kind of a situation has already happend to some musicians that went to Russia for their concerts or even to receive awards during the conflict. Now they're claimed as rats/traitors. So these players are known to what they will be called if they go.
"It's just a business, nothing personal"? Yeah, and nothing patriotical also. This kind of a situation has already happend to some musicians that went to Russia for their concerts or even to receive awards during the conflict. Now they're claimed as rats/traitors. So these players are known to what they will be called if they go."It's just a business, nothing personal"? Yeah, and nothing patriotical also.
But that is obvious bullshit behaviour. How can you call someone a rat/traitor for doing his job, that has nothing to do with the nation itself, but only with it's people? Really sad to see, how many people are unable to differentiate Russia and the russian people (not targeted at people here, but rather at people doing the stuff Vo-one mentioned).
TB brings a valid point though, while a political boycott is still laughable, the concern for the players safety is very important. The last thing we need is players getting beaten up, because of a missinterpretation of korean culture, so on that level I can totally understand, why teams may be unwilling to send their players. Sucks for russian esports fans though, but if it is the best for the players, that comes first. So thanks to TB for bringing a rational argument in here. But that is obvious bullshit behaviour. How can you call someone a rat/traitor for doing his job, that has nothing to do with the nation itself, but only with it's people? Really sad to see, how many people are unable to differentiate Russia and the russian people (not targeted at people here, but rather at people doing the stuff Vo-one mentioned).TB brings a valid point though, while a political boycott is still laughable, the concern for the players safety is very important. The last thing we need is players getting beaten up, because of a missinterpretation of korean culture, so on that level I can totally understand, why teams may be unwilling to send their players. Sucks for russian esports fans though, but if it is the best for the players, that comes first. So thanks to TB for bringing a rational argument in here.
handwaving political gestures in apolitical contexts as meaningless is actually exactly what enables political machines to remain untouched and unregulated by the public they're supposed to serve... if you dont take politics outside of itself then no one knows and no one cares and no one does anything about it
you bring up a valid line of discussion but its ridiculously oversimplified to say that starcraft has nothing to do with politics and therefore any political action or protest is meaningless... we all share this world and are all affected by what goes on in it whether we are politicans or amateur gamers handwaving political gestures in apolitical contexts as meaningless is actually exactly what enables political machines to remain untouched and unregulated by the public they're supposed to serve... if you dont take politics outside of itself then no one knows and no one cares and no one does anything about ityou bring up a valid line of discussion but its ridiculously oversimplified to say that starcraft has nothing to do with politics and therefore any political action or protest is meaningless... we all share this world and are all affected by what goes on in it whether we are politicans or amateur gamers
Simplified, maybe, but not oversimplified to the point, where I come to the wrong conclusion. I mean sure, the local hotels (and probably bars) will make a few thousand dollars, if people come to DH, which leads to a very small boost of the russian economy, that could be taken away. Will a single russian politician care in the slightest? No. Will a boycott hurt DH financially? Probably. Will it prevent a part of the starcraft community from getting the event, they finally deserve? Certainly.
As I said in an earlier post, this is not about political gestures in general, this is about DH Moscow and this about having a realistic estimation of our size. The russian government cares about Fifa world cup 2018. The russian government cared about Sotchi 2014. The russian government does not give a fuck about DH Moscow.
Ideologically there might be the slightest of differences in the economy generated by 3 days of hotel usage. Rationally, that can totally be neglected. Rationally a political boycott of DH will not change anything in politics. Rationally a political boycott would only hurt Dreamhack and thus Starcraft in general. Simplified, maybe, but not oversimplified to the point, where I come to the wrong conclusion. I mean sure, the local hotels (and probably bars) will make a few thousand dollars, if people come to DH, which leads to a very small boost of the russian economy, that could be taken away. Will a single russian politician care in the slightest? No. Will a boycott hurt DH financially? Probably. Will it prevent a part of the starcraft community from getting the event, they finally deserve? Certainly.As I said in an earlier post, this is not about political gestures in general, this is about DH Moscow and this about having a realistic estimation of our size. The russian government cares about Fifa world cup 2018. The russian government cared about Sotchi 2014. The russian government does not give a fuck about DH Moscow.Ideologically there might be the slightest of differences in the economy generated by 3 days of hotel usage. Rationally, that can totally be neglected. Rationally a political boycott of DH will not change anything in politics. Rationally a political boycott would only hurt Dreamhack and thus Starcraft in general.
Greendotz Profile Joined October 2011 United Kingdom 2041 Posts #56 On August 06 2014 22:15 Xoronius wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 06 2014 22:07 Cinek357 wrote:
So do you guys think it's okay for Ukrainian players to attend DH Moscow?
Yes, sure, why wouldn't it be? Yes, sure, why wouldn't it be?
I can't imagine a Ukrainian having a fun time at Russian passport control. I can't imagine a Ukrainian having a fun time at Russian passport control.
EvilNW Profile Joined June 2012 Russian Federation 23 Posts #57 Hurrah! I'm on the list. glhf.
Xoronius Profile Joined July 2011 Germany 6360 Posts #58 On August 07 2014 02:57 EvilNW wrote:
Hurrah! I'm on the list. glhf.
Gl. If you train hard enough, you might become the russian scoobers. Gl. If you train hard enough, you might become the russian scoobers.
Ctesias Profile Joined December 2012 4585 Posts #59 Needs more MC and Hyun. Flash | Mvp
Sejanus Profile Blog Joined February 2011 Lithuania 527 Posts #60 On August 06 2014 21:58 Serinox wrote:
Yeah, this whole "political boycott" is bullshit. Every big nation does bad shit, but that wouldn't stop anyone, especially from eSports to go to the US or China.
Yeah, wars and people dying is such a bullshit compared to really important matters like starcraft 2. Yeah, wars and people dying is such a bullshit compared to really important matters like starcraft 2. Friends don't let friends massacre civilians
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 14 15 16 Next AllEstimating the Value Added of Attending Physicians on Patient Outcomes
NBER Working Paper No. 20534
Issued in October 2014
NBER Program(s):Health Care, Health Economics
Despite increasing calls for value-based payments, existing methodologies for determining physicians' "value added" to patient health outcomes have important limitations. We incorporate methods from the value added literature in education research into a health care setting to present the first value added estimates of health care providers in the literature. Like teacher value added measures that calculate student test score gains, we estimate physician value added based on changes in health status during the course of a hospitalization. We then tie our measures of physician value added to patient outcomes, including length of hospital stay, total charges, health status at discharge, and readmission. The estimated value added varied substantially across physicians and was highly stable for individual physicians. Patients of physicians in the 75th versus 25th percentile of value added had, on average, shorter length of stay (4.76 vs 5.08 days), lower total costs ($17,811 vs $19,822) and higher discharge health status (8% of a standard deviation). Our findings provide evidence to support a new method of determining physician value added in the context of inpatient care that could have wide applicability across health care setting and in estimating value added of other health care providers (nurses, staff, etc).
The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email.
Acknowledgments
Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX
Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w20534
Users who downloaded this paper also downloaded* these:The past three times British Columbians went to the polls to choose their provincial government, the outcome was almost identical.
Over that period, political leaders have changed, the economy shrank and grew, demographics shifted and third parties on the left and right have gathered and lost steam.
And yet, in each outing, the BC Liberals won a solid majority with about 45 per cent of the popular vote, and the New Democrats remained in opposition, falling short of victory by just a few percentage points.
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As the parties head into the four-week campaign that begins on Tuesday, the NDP has a steep hill to climb if it is to break through and form government: It must hold its current seats, including some won by razor-thin margins. It must keep the BC Greens from taking a growing share of centre-left voters. And it needs to capture not just weak Liberal ridings, but seats where Liberal candidates won with a relatively comfortable surplus of votes.
Related: Pollsters look to B.C. election for redemption after failing to predict the 2013 vote
Investigation: How B.C. lobbyists are breaking one of the province's only election donation rules
Explainer: A guide to campaign finance rules in Canada
The Liberals have their own set of challenges. Gone is the urgency that rallied supporters in 2013 when the party was supposedly 20 percentage points behind the NDP in the polls. Scandals and dubious achievements – cash-for-access fundraisers and a 10-year freeze on welfare rates to name a couple – are now firmly attached to Premier Christy Clark's leadership.
Mike McDonald served as director of the BC Liberals' successful election campaign in 2013. He spent that past campaign insisting the party could beat the odds and win. This time, he is warning that the party's hold on government is in peril. When he spoke at a recent meeting of the party's governing council, the theme of his address was the "reasons we could lose."
In that speech, Mr. McDonald sought to jolt Liberals out of a state of complacency. With the exception of their rout of the New Democrats in 2001, the number of votes that separate victory and loss are uncomfortably small. The New Democrats have captured at least 39 per cent of the vote in 10 of the past 11 elections, and can count on a formidable team of allies from labour and other third parties to shore up their volunteer forces.
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There is uncertainty, he also warned, about the role the BC Green Party will play in this campaign. The Greens have enjoyed significant public exposure through their lone MLA, Andrew Weaver, in the legislature for the past four years. Not only could the Greens gain seats when the votes are tallied on May 9, but they could upset the two-party system that has worked in the Liberals's favour, generating three-way contests where the outcome is anything but predictable.
British Columbia Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver, front left, walks to a news conference after unveiling his new election campaign bus in Vancouver on April 6, 2017. DARRYL DYCK/THE CANADIAN PRESS
Incumbency is an advantage – until it isn't. The Liberals are seeking a fifth consecutive term at a time when voters – in the federal election, in the United States and next door in Alberta – have favoured change. The Liberals may be at that point, after 16 years of governance, where the baggage gets too heavy.
Mr. McDonald pointed out that the New Democrats will not constrain themselves to a strictly positive campaign as they did in the past election, and will highlight Liberal negatives at every turn.
Current legislature makeup Party Seats Liberal 47 NDP 35 Green 1 Independent 2
However, the Liberals have had the luxury of a well-stocked war chest to improve the odds. The party posted a surplus of $7.6-million last year, and has reaped millions more in the first three months of 2017. They also benefit from having a well-rehearsed campaign team, bringing back most of the same key players who delivered their 2013 victory – Mr. McDonald and strategist Don Guy are senior advisers, while Liberal pollster Dimitri Pantazopoulos is back running the numbers and focus groups to test out campaign messages. Brad Bennett, of the Social Credit dynasty, will again join the Premier on the bus as her confidant and sounding board.
And, not insignificantly, the Liberals have the good fortune to be able to point to a top-performing economy and job-creation record among the provinces. (It's an uneven performance and not all British Columbians have benefited, but the top-line numbers serve the Premier's jobs-first mantra well.)
Training camp
The millions amassed through political contributions have helped fund, among other things, the Liberal's most elaborate training camps for its candidates and campaign managers to date. In 2013, with a leaner budget, the party relied on Internet-based seminars for training. For the past 15 months, the party has been running a campaign management "college" that includes weekend-long, in-person training sessions.
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The New Democrats have a fresh face on the side of their campaign bus: John Horgan replaced Adrian Dix after the party's unexpected defeat in 2013. Not surprisingly, the NDP did not bring back the previous campaign team. Bob Dewar, recruited from the Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union, is campaign director. Raj Sihota is the party's provincial director and Glen Sanford, as deputy director, heads up media relations.
The party raised half as much money in donations as the Liberals last year and it has not yet paid off its debts from the 2013 campaign, so spending has to be more strategic.
British Columbia NDP Leader John Horgan addresses supporters after unveiling his election campaign bus in Burnaby, B.C., on April 4, 2017. DARRYL DYCK/THE CANADIAN PRESS
The New Democrats have conducted extensive training for volunteers, as well, although most of the work has been carried on over online conferencing. Over the past two years, the party has trained more than 2,100 campaigners – an extensive effort compared with past campaigns.
What does training look like? The NDP's "Forward" curriculum includes communications and fundraising training, and lessons on "Demystifying Data-Driven Campaigns." It coaches recruits on how to maximize conversations with voters and on digital organizing.
Facts on the ground
While the parties face different challenges, some factors are universal: This campaign will be much more of a ground war.
Voters can expect more in-person appeals on the doorstep than supper-hour telephone interruptions this time around. That is because, as more people abandon traditional home phones in favour of cellphones, campaign phone banks are becoming ineffective. The average match between the provincial voters list and the public phone book (old-time campaigners would recognize them as "the white pages") now is just 55 per cent, and cellphone lists are not for sale.
It means connecting with undecided voters will require more intensive door knocking than cheap-and-fast phone banks.
British Columbia Premier Christy Clark arrives for a news conference after addressing the Council of Forest Industries convention in Vancouver on April 7, 2017. DARRYL DYCK/THE CANADIAN PRESS
This weekend, the New Democrats say they'll mobilize 1,000 volunteers to canvass; the Liberals will also be out in force for a "super Saturday" campaign blitz.
Both main parties will spend significant portions of their campaign budget (each is capped at $4.7-million during the four-week campaign) on advertising. Newspaper, television and radio ads will continue but digital supplements will grow. The online ads are not just cheaper, but many people are consuming their news on tablets and smartphones, so both the NDP and Liberals have boosted the share of resources for digital campaign teams.
Picking their fights
One of the main tactical decisions of any campaign is to choose which ridings to focus resources on – a calculation that evolves as Election Day nears.
Last week, while Ms. Clark maintained a low profile, the NDP got an early start on the campaign. Mr. Horgan unveiled the campaign bus and brought reporters to the Premier's Westside-Kelowna riding in a bid to frame the election around her negatives.
Despite his foray into strong Liberal territory, the focus will be on key swing ridings. "There are some places we have to be realistic," said a chief New Democrat strategist. This time around, the NDP doesn't intend to spend energy and resources trying to win solid Liberal seats.
Kamloops and Prince George have traditionally been viewed as bellwethers, where voters have an uncanny knack for picking winners. But the key battlegrounds will be about 20 seats where the votes were close in 2013.
The electoral boundaries have been redrawn for 2017, making two more ridings for a total of 87 seats. The parties know at the start of the campaign which ridings they have to defend, and where their opponents are weakest. But as the campaign evolves, they will depend on more detailed polling and feedback from canvassers to pinpoint where the fight will be.
Using the 2013 data and applying it to the new boundaries, here are a few examples of ridings that are expected to be closely contested:
Surrey Fleetwood: Under the new riding boundaries, high-profile cabinet minister Peter Fassbender would have lost this seat.
Burnaby-Lougheed: It's at the epicentre of the Kinder Morgan oil pipeline debate; the NDP won it by about 700 votes, but incumbent Jane Shin is not running again, while the Liberals have nominated a high-profile media personality, Steve Darling. The Greens, with punk rocker Joe Keithley as their candidate, could siphon off anti-pipeline voters who would otherwise support the NDP.
Saanich North and the Islands: Traditionally a Liberal riding, the NDP won this seat by just 163 votes in 2013, in a close three-way race with the Greens.
All eyes on the leaders
Those ground-war tactics are mostly carried on out of the public spotlight. It is the leaders who are in the spotlight each day, responsible for delivering the high-level campaign messages.
Ms. Clark is going to stick to what worked so well for the Liberals in 2013, when she was seen every day talking about jobs and the economy. She'll look for every opportunity to be appear with workers – ideally, wearing her signature hard hat. She will once again cast the Liberals as the party of Yes on economic growth and resource development – and attack the NDP as the party of No.
Mr. Horgan, who is a more gregarious and scrappy leader than Mr. Dix, is aiming to hold the Liberals to account for their 16-year record. Although his party will run negative ads this time, his strategists say there will be a careful balance with solid commitments for change. The party will focus on promises to make life more affordable for British Columbians, to "build an economy that works" and to ensure that public services are there for those who need them.
After months of intense fundraising and training and strategizing by the parties, the campaign formally launches on Tuesday. And all these plans can be tossed aside in a heartbeat. Because if there is one lesson learned in 2013, it is that campaigns matter, and no-one can say for sure what voters will do when they drop their ballot in the box on May 9.
B.C.'s battlegrounds
Results from the 2013 election based on new riding boundaries in place for the coming vote
Coquitlam–Maillardville Lower Mainland – Greater Vancouver Votes Percentage NDP 9,305 45.7% 0.3 Liberal 9,234 45.4% Green 1,782 8.8% Other 11 0.1% Saanich North and the Islands Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast Votes Percentage NDP 10,510 33.3% 0.5 Liberal 10,346 32.7% Green 10,140 32.1% Other 600 1.9% Delta North Lower Mainland – Greater Vancouver Votes Percentage Liberal 9,611 44.5% 0.9 NDP 9,410 43.6% Green 1,316 6.1% Conservative 976 4.5% Other 287 1.3% Surrey–Guildford Lower Mainland – Greater Vancouver Votes Percentage Liberal 7,116 44.5% 1.7 NDP 6,847 42.8% Conservative 1,779 11.1% Other 268 1.7% Port Moody–Coquitlam Lower Mainland – Greater Vancouver Votes Percentage Liberal 10,322 46.4% 2.1 NDP 9,855 44.3% Green 1,815 8.2% Other 229 1.0% Vancouver–Fraserview Lower Mainland – Greater Vancouver Votes Percentage Liberal 10,119 46.7% 2.2 NDP 9,647 44.6% Green 1,232 5.7% Conservative 649 3.0% Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows Lower Mainland – Fraser Valley Votes Percentage Liberal 10,820 45.5% 2.6 NDP 10,205 42.9% Green 2,175 9.1% Other 589 2.5% Burnaby North Lower Mainland – Greater Vancouver Votes Percentage Liberal 9,926 46.8% 2.9 NDP 9,315 43.9% Green 1,488 7.0% Other 480 2.3% Burnaby–Lougheed Lower Mainland – Greater Vancouver Votes Percentage NDP 9,512 44.2% 3.2 Liberal 8,817 41.0% Green 1,754 8.1% Other 1,433 6.7% Fraser–Nicola Cariboo – Thompson Region Votes Percentage Liberal 6,304 43.6% 3.2 NDP 5,840 40.4% Green 1,121 7.8% Conservative 1,028 7.1% Other 170 1.2% Surrey–Fleetwood Lower Mainland – Greater Vancouver Votes Percentage NDP 8,528 46.9% 3.4 Liberal 7,901 43.4% Green 946 5.2% Conservative 724 4.1% Other 62 0.3% Skeena North Votes Percentage NDP 5,605 47.7% 4.4 Liberal 5,084 43.3% Conservative 792 6.7% Other 276 2.3% Vancouver–Point Grey Lower Mainland – Greater Vancouver Votes Percentage NDP 11,495 47.6% 4.4 Liberal 10,439 43.2% Green 1,634 6.8% Conservative 382 1.6% Other 192 0.8% North Vancouver–Lonsdale Lower Mainland – Greater Vancouver Votes Percentage Liberal 10,524 45.3% 4.6 NDP 9,464 40.7% Green 2,172 9.3% Conservative 796 3.4% Other 301 1.3% Note: Percentages rounded to nearest decimal place
Source: Elections BC
Graphic by Danielle Webb
MORE FROM THE GLOBE AND MAIL:
Former B.C. premier’s son Brad Bennett rejoins Clark campaign The Kelowna-based businessman, who travelled with BC Liberal Leader Christy Clark in the 2013
NDP blitzes swing B.C. ridings in bid to unseat Liberals John Horgan to tour ridings with focus on battleground seats the party came close to winning in 2013Why a war? Because leaders expect it to be of significant benefit to their state, right? Perhaps it’s not as cut and dried as that. Try this on for size.
Historians and political scientists agree that war is a realistic, rational, utilitarian activity ]and] “that states are rational actors, carefully calculating costs of alternative courses of action and seeking to maximize their expected utility.”Rationality is simply assumed by Realists … Irrational, self-destructive motives are unthinkable. That would be “doing psychology”—a forbidden activity. Realists therefore tend to accept the statements of war leaders when they claim to start wars for rational economic reasons. … The emotional meaning of these statements is never investigated by Realists [who] simply don’t recognize the pathological portions of the right hemisphere.
The above is extracted from a forthcoming book, The Origins of War in Child Abuse, by Lloyd deMause, the dean of psychohistory. Incorporating elements of psychoanalysis and the social sciences, psychohistory maintains that the course of history is determined by the quality of child-rearing around the world. In fact, deMause continues
… Realists routinely overlook all the suicidal imagery that leaders voice as they actually make their decision to go to war. In the over a hundred wars I have researched in the past four decades, not one began by political or military leaders actually ever sitting down and adding up the economic costs and benefits of the war they are about to begin. More typically they voice suicidal, sacrificial motivations.
DeMause sums up how that works in an article. Here’s the general idea.
A new psychoclass comes of age, and introduces new inventions, new social arrangements and new prosperity, producing a Belle Epoque, with warmer personal relationships and less scapegoating of women and minorities. The older psychoclasses become depressed by guilt over the prosperity and anxiety from the new social arrangements. The world seems out of control, as childhood traumas press for repetition [key to psychohistory – RW], and the nation regresses, goes on Purity Crusades and fears of women |
response to the negative criticism was: “We, the Indonesian people, didn’t kill millions of Jewish people, right?”. The answer he gave was a complete deflection and weak attempt to normalize his problematic political behavior.
In Bandung, a regency of Bali, Indonesia, a Nazi café recently closed its doors for good.
Indonesian customers at Soldatten Kaffe casually sitting at a table with World War II Nazi Germany gear
The café (Soldatten Kaffe), was forced to close two years after its opening because the owner, Henry Mulyana, received constant death threats due to the offensive Nazi portraits and memorabilia displayed on the walls. The café has now been refurbished and turned into a Karaoke Bar.
However, an important point that must be mentioned is that Henry Mulyana’s excuse in defense of the café was: “It draws a lot of customers from Europe, they are not bothered about the theme”. Europe was built on terrorism, exploitation, enslavement, bloodshed and genocide. So, it should not be a surprise that white supremacist euro-tourists find this type of scenery acceptable.
In conclusion, we see that multiple Asian demographics are proudly accepting their honorary white status. Their obsession with Nazi culture, and the fact that many Asian women have been in relationships with open Alt-Right white supremacists such as Richard Spencer, RamZPaul and Andrew Anglin, lets us know that they’re on team white supremacy.Chip Ganassi Racing started testing the Ford GT at Daytona International Speedway today, and Motorsport.com caught up with team manager Mike Hull for his early assessment. As a man who’s been through several “new-car” tests in his 25 years at Ganassi, Hull’s words display the wisdom of experience.
Can you tell us how much you’ve done so far?
What we did today is an extension of what Multimatic has already done, which is a big help, and they’ve been running in parallel. What we have is the first production racecar, a product of what they’ve done with the R&D car. So it has things built into it that are retro-fitted into their car as they’ve gone along with the testing. So it’s the latest spec and it’s a nicely finished piece – Multimatic do a terrific job, and in the not too distant future we’ll have another two or three of them.
It was our first day, although our guys have been part of the testing with Multimatic. As it’s been every time we’ve tested a new car down the years, the first day for us is all about being overly cautious and making sure everything is correct before the car finds the racetrack. And when it does, we spend a lot of time and attention on all the small things that could catch you out.
We did a fair amount of running today – it’s a two-day test – and this was all about short runs and understanding the tuning parameters of the car. We want to know aerodynamically and mechanically what this car needs. We need to verify the aero on the racetrack. We have to understand how the driver’s driving style matches up with what the car “says” it wants!
And which drivers are participating at the moment?
Joey Hand and Scott Pruett are both here. We just concentrated on Joey today – we thought focusing on one driver was the best thing for us to do. Tomorrow we’ll have each of them in the car.
Has the Ford EcoBoost engine proven reliable?
Yes, and I think one of the greatest things about the program is that the engine that we’re running is the same engine, architecturally, as we’ve been running for the past two seasons in the Riley Daytona Prototype. And not only the engine is the same; the systems and accessories that feed the engine the lubrication and water etc. are the same too. The turbos, the intercoolers, the exhaust system, the electronics, etc – they’ve all been run and developed for two years. It’s not as if we won’t improve in those areas, but we’ve got a great starting point.
What’s Joey been saying about the car’s handling?
Well, we didn’t scare him to death today, so that’s good! We found that we could very effectively change the balance of the car, and that’s really what we wanted to discover and achieve today. I think the Ford GT had a fairly conservative setup built in for most of the day, and then we headed down the path of trying to tweak a few things to find out what the car does and doesn’t like. First day, pretty good.
The Michelin tires – are they unique to the Ford GT or are they the same spec as found on other GT cars?
I think they will become unique to this car. At the moment, we’re on a very moderate baseline tire but they are here to help us, and as time goes on we’ll work on tire development with them. It’s really nice to know they know all the characteristics of the Le Mans track, and I think we’ll also have a wet-tire program going on, and they’ll definitely be helpful in that area, too.
So in terms of first day of testing, would you say this has been an encouraging day? You’ve seen a few “first days” in 25 years with Chip Ganassi Racing…
Yes, encouraging is the right word. We’re well aware this is a big challenge, a big undertaking, and we’re going into this eyes wide open. It’s fun to do this, and I don’t mean that in a cavalier manner at all – it is hard work! But it’s really cool to be working with technology that is different than what we’ve been doing. And this category of racing is exciting because of that – all our rivals have very technologically advanced vehicles and then you combine that with really terrific top teams and top race drivers, that’s what a really special category. We’ve tried to do this for a while so to finally get the opportunity is great.
Who’s going to be assigned to this project from the Ganassi lineup?
Well all our IMSA team are former open-wheel guys, every one of them, so that’s a good situation to be in. And the people that are working with the GT now are the people that have been working on the DP car for the past couple years. But we will add people to the program now who have open-wheel experience and we’ll have key positions on the inside that we’ll fill internally, and hire from outside to fill in the blanks. That’s how we’ve always done it when we’ve added a program because it gives our people a great opportunity to be promoted. They’re already prepared to do the job but also already prepared within the Ganassi culture.
What’s after this?
We test next at Sebring, long course, and that’s a three-day test. Our test there will be more about long-distance runs for the first time. So we’re creeping up on this, brick by brick. After that will be a four-day test.
At the launch of the Ford GT in June, Chip was very bullish about the car’s chances of clinching class victory at Le Mans. “We’re here to win, Ford are here to win…” etc. Judging by the progress made so far, do you believe that you can take on the Corvettes, Astons and Ferraris as soon as next year?
I think it’s a huge challenge – no more or less than any of the other challenges we face, but with a specific uniqueness, just like the others have. Our operational mode has been simply to work through today and try and get the most out of today. That’s the way we’ll approach each day, and not try and get too far ahead of ourselves.
Racing big races, or big championships, you cannot approach it with the attitude, “We’re gonna show those guys what we’re all about.” It’s about the process, and that’s about prioritizing and having each team member getting the best out of each day we’re given. That’s how we have and will continue to approach this.An investigation by Kiwiblog has found that the candidacy of Winston Peters for New Zealand First is illegal under the Incorporated Societies Act 1908.
Unlike other political parties, New Zealand First is an incorporated society. That means it has to obey the rules laid down under the Incorporated Societies Act 1908.
Section 21(2) of the Act states:
Every alteration of the rules must be— (a) in writing; and (b) signed by at least 3 members of the society; and (c) delivered to the Registrar accompanied by a certificate by an officer of the society or a solicitor certifying that the alteration has been made in accordance with the rules.
And Section 21(3) states:
The Registrar, if satisfied that the alteration has been duly made, and that the rules as so altered conform in all respects to this Act, shall register the alteration in like manner as in the case of the original rules, and the said alteration shall thereupon take effect according to the tenor thereof.
In plain English this means that any rule change for an incorporated society does not take effect until the Register has approved them. This is well known to lawyers.
NZ First says they changed the rules of NZ First back in July to allow the Leader to be a list candidate, without being an electorate candidate. However they have not filed this rule change with the Registrar of Incorporated Societies and hence, the old rules still apply. They have filed them with the Electoral Commission *but only after I blogged pointing out they have not) but not with the Registrar as the website shows. There have been no rules changes registered since 2008.
This means the version of their constitution which is still legally in force states:
Rule 46(b):
A List candidate must first be selected as an Electorate candidate
Winston Peters did not get selected as an electorate candidate, so his nomination as a list candidate is illegal under the rules of the NZ First Party, as governed by the Incorporated Societies Act.
If he is not a legal candidate for the New Zealand First Party, then any election of him to Parliament can be challenged. This has happened before when a nomination has been accepted (Kelly Chal for united Future in 2002) but after the election it was found she was ineligible and she was removed from the United Future party list.
The case is more complicated here as it is the Incorporated Societies Act, not the Electoral Act, that makes Peters an illegal candidate for New Zealand First. I can almost guarantee you though that if he is elected, lawyers will be looking to take legal action. Incorporated Societies can be forced to obey their own rules, as we saw in the legal action against the NZ Rugby Football Union over a proposed tour of South Africa.
If Peters is removed from their party list, then presumably No 2 Tracey Martin would become the Leader of NZ First.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most Americans do not want the United States to intervene in Syria’s civil war even if the government there uses chemical weapons, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Wednesday, in a clear message to the White House as it considers how to respond to the worsening crisis.
Only 10 percent of those surveyed in the online poll said the United States should become involved in the fighting. Sixty-one percent opposed getting involved.
The figure favoring intervention rose to 27 percent when respondents were asked what the United States should do if President Bashar al-Assad’s forces used chemical weapons. Forty-four percent would be opposed.
“Particularly given Afghanistan and the 10th anniversary of Iraq, there is just not an appetite for intervention,” said Ipsos pollster Julia Clark.
The rebellion against Assad’s government has resulted in 70,000 dead and created more than 1.2 million refugees since it erupted in 2011.
President Barack Obama has shied away from deep U.S. involvement, although he declared last year that the use or deployment of chemical weapons by Assad’s government would cross a “red line.”
Obama said on Tuesday there was evidence those weapons had been used, but too much is still unknown for Washington to do more than provide the non-lethal aid it is already sending to the Syrian rebels.
Obama did not rule out action - military or otherwise - against Assad’s government. But he repeatedly stressed he would not allow himself to be pressured prematurely into deeper intervention in Syria’s two-year-old civil war.
A member of the Free Syrian Army points his weapon through a hole in a wall as he takes up a defensive position during clashes with forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo's Salaheddine district, April 30, 2013. REUTERS/Malek Alshemali
Many Americans are still oblivious to events in Syria. The poll found that about one-third, or 36 percent, had neither heard nor read anything about the civil war there.
Only 8 percent said they had heard or read a great deal and 19 percent said they had heard or read a “fair amount.”
The online poll of 519 Americans aged 18 and over was conducted from April 26-May 1. The survey has a credibility interval of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.FORT HALL, Idaho, — Shocking video posted on Facebook shows four adults smoking marijuana in front of a toddler, East Idaho News reports.
One woman blows smoke into the child’s face and, at one point, appears to stick the joint in his mouth.
The video was shot inside a home on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation and posted on a Facebook page over the weekend.
Two women are laughing and teasing the child, who appears to be 3 or 4 years old, as they pass the marijuana joint to other adults in the room.
One of the women repeatedly blows smoke in the toddler’s face and another says, with a laugh, “No more getting high? He’s all blazing it.”
Fort Hall police say two women have been arrested for child endangerment, but authorities aren’t releasing their names or mugshots.
Authorities say they are close to obtaining arrest warrants on the other two adults who were in the room while the video was being shot.
After the video was posted on Facebook on Saturday, dozens of angry comments were posted and the video had been removed by Monday evening.
EastIdahoNews.com has reached out to the Fort Hall Police Department for further information on this case. We will post updates when we receive them.Paul Alexander from Camouflaj discussed with 80.lv the transition of the episodic blockbuster Republique from mobile to PC. Reinvigorating the game was made possible thanks to the extensive features of Unity 5.
Could you please introduce yourself and tell us your role in the company?
My name is Paul Alexander, I’m a designer at Camouflaj. It means a lot of things. In addition to system design, level design, working in-game, I spend a lot of time these days outside the game. My role for the last 6 months has been overseeing the transformation of Republique from an IOS and Android game to a PC and Mac game; and producing the series of blogs, videos, and podcasts that we partnered with Unity to deliver as part of our journey from Unity 4 to Unity 5 developer series that’s on Unity3d.com right now.
During the Unity 5 presentation you mentioned that camouflaj comes from AAA big games and you can really see that in the production because it looks like a big blockbuster game, which it’s not. Now could you tell us a bit of the background of the people who work in the company? What kind of games have been done before?
Yeah. Ryan, of course, worked on Metal Gear Solid 4 and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. He also worked on the Halo series. As far as people who are veterans in this studio I know we have a lot of people who worked on the Lord of the Rings Online game with Monolith. We have a couple ex-Monolith people. We have some folks who worked on Black & White 2, Fear, SOCOM series. So all AAA games. We have a handful of people (people like me) for whom, Republique is their very first project (they’ve never worked on games before). In addition to all the veterans we have a lot of first time developers.
There is Camouflaj Games and then there’s Logan Games. So are these two different companies?
Okay so Logan we partnered with during our Kickstarter campaign to sort of develop the visual style of the game. Logan worked extensively with Ryan to develop the live action sequences that you see at the beginning of Metal Gear Solid 4. We partnered with them to develop the visual style of the Republique and that was kind of their role; almost shaping the aesthetic.
Camouflaj stated that their were not many nice games on mobile devices and that’s why you’ve pushed and tried to create Republique. So why do you think there aren’t many cool games on IOS or Android? What was your motivation for creating this game? It’s completely different from what you normally see on the Apple Store or Google Play.
I do think there were cool games on mobile and I still think there are. There just weren’t very many games targeting a traditional game audience; the kinds of people who buy game consoles and who own phones but just don’t have many games like the ones they see on consoles or on PC and Mac to play them on. We were basically going after that audience and in doing so, also wanted to bridge the gap and reach those hundreds of millions of people who have those devices in their pockets.
Why did you decide to create Republique and what was the main drive to create it? You went on Kickstarter and collected half a million dollars, that’s a sizeable amount of money.
Yeah, it’s funny because it’s really not that much at all when it comes to games. For any sort of game when you think about the scope of Republique, we’re talking about twenty-something people working on a game for years.
What was the production cycle for twenty plus people? About two years?
Yeah, I think we spent about two years with roughly twenty people. We started with about seven or eight and then it kind of ballooned up to twenty pretty quickly. We’ve been at that number ever since. We started development late 2011 and we released episode one in late 2013. So about two years with that amount of people.
So it’s a pretty big production, but let’s get back to your question about why we did that. To answer that, we saw an opportunity that developers really weren’t taking advantage of. We saw a little bit with Infinity Blade. Here is a developer, Epic, who has a pedigree of AAA quality games and targeting that audience and here they were they found a big success on mobile so we kind of wanted to do that. We also saw games like Year Walk done by Simogo and Device 6. We really were interested in delivering story-centric games to mobile and stuff which isn’t really something that’s been done a whole lot. That was a lot of the motivation for that.
Among the inspiration that mentioned there were Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Demon Souls, and a Japanese Dating Sim. Could you talk about the influence of Japanese game design for Republique? How did you use some of the game mechanics and what are some ideas from the Japanese games?
It’s funny because this might be getting a little too much “inside baseball”, but in American game development and I’m somebody who went to school for game development. I was kind of brought up in this process. There’s very much like “this is the right way to do this thing”, “this is the right way to develop a game”, “this is how you make puzzles”, “this is how you do level design”, and “this is how you get players to enjoy your game”. It’s all very well-tooled.
In Japanese game development it’s a little bit more fluidity involved. I’ll give you an example. In Resident Evil the recent HD remake. They gave the players the option to play with tank controls. I didn’t play the game until a few years ago for the very first time and I was so frustrated by that initially. I was like this is stupid why would anyone make the game like this, but after a while I spent like five, six, seven hours and realized that maybe it was an accident or maybe it wasn’t completely unintentional; but it added a layer of tension to the game that just wouldn’t have been present otherwise. I think it was really cool. You see these type of things in Japanese games where there are idiosyncratic differences that you wouldn’t see in a western studio. I think you see some of that stuff in Republique. Some of the more of the quirky, interesting “what is that?” type things. Such as the puzzles and the environments and the story. I think there’s rough edges there but I think we like that.
So you tried to put it into your game?
Yes.
Why did you choose Unity for Republique? Why did you choose it? What were the advantages of it and what was the biggest feature that you liked?
When we started developing Republique in 2011 Unity was not a household name like it was today, so it was a little bit of a gamble for us to start developing in that engine. Luckily, I think it really paid off. The great thing about Unity that I think is the most enticing to developers is you’re able to do things that would be impossible without a large studio even when you’re a small studio.
Because of things like the Asset Store, these community driven aspects that don’t require to enter the code at all. You can just pull a plug-in in and make that work for you and iterate on that instead of writing the code yourself. It just makes the game development a whole lot easier for a smaller developer.
Moving from Unity 4 to Unity 5, the features that they added really sort of embellish that advantage. Things like physically based shading, real-time global illumination, these big new graphical features which were previously only available on these really nice engines that you need a big team to take advantage of if you really want to see them fully featured. Those are available on Unity 5 now and we’re just super happy that we’re able to get in really early. I feel like we’ve really grown as a studio, while Unity has kind of grown as a platform simultaneously.
Unity 5 begins to be a big graphical engine. Before that it was a platform for students to make games that were relatively simple. Now it can easily compete with Unreal I believe. Could you tell maybe some features of Unity 5 that you really think influenced the game or changed it in a better way?
Yeah, so one thing that we weren’t able to do was take advantage and you mentioned the lighting. On mobile we had to create a uniformed washed out lighting. There’s really no sort of play of light, no real variation and we had to do that for technical limitations because we really couldn’t support dynamic lights. Also because we can’t predict the lighting conditions of someone who is playing the game on a phone or the tablet. They might be inside, they might be outdoors, we don’t know where they are, so we sort of have to make the light bright and make sure it shows up bright on their screen. It’s because of this we couldn’t do the moody lighting we always wanted to do.
Moving over to PC and Mac and moving over to Unity 5, we can predict the conditions you’re probably playing in your house, you’re probably not playing in your computer. Also with Unity 5 we have the opportunity to use increased horsepower on PC and Mac and we can make use of dynamic lights, real-time shadows, and spatially accurate reflections using Unity 5’s reflection probes. So there’s that play of light and dark that we see on PC and Mac that just wasn’t available to us on mobile.
How did Androids piracy affect sales?
It’s kind of hard to say. You never know in general whether piracy is affecting the sale of the game. You never know if you’ve lost a customer, that person may have never just bought your game, somebody who might have pirated it. That having been said, I think we were pleasantly surprised at how Republique did on Android. We were not expecting this. I can’t offer specifics but we were definitely pleasantly surprised. It was beyond our admittedly meager projections for it’s performance on Android because we figured everyone would pirate it, which they didn’t. Which is great.
As far as moving to PC, that was always the plan. We never promised an Android version, it was always something that we talked about and we did it because it felt right and we felt the right partner in Darkwind which is the company that did majority of the work on the port for us. It was kind of a serendipitous, right time right opportunity thing. The move to PC that was something we promised our Kickstarter backer so that was going to always be on the cards for us. It wasn’t so much a question of when, it was a question of let’s do it right. We weren’t going to make that move to PC and Mac until we made a game that was unique to the platform. We promised our Kickstarter backer that we’re not going to a straight port of our mobile game. So we had the game, sent it out to playtesters, basically the mobile version on PC, but we weren’t seeing the game we wanted to see. And so we fixed the controls, aspects of the UI that we weren’t happy with but it wasn’t until Unity 5 that we said this is the “it” feature that we want. We need a unique hook to get people in otherwise people who see that it’s a mobile game probably wouldn’t want to play that. Unity 5 really provided that impetus and once you see it and see how different it looks in those comparison shots all of a sudden not only are people interested in it that haven’t played it on mobile, but what’s been really surprising and cool for people who played it on mobile was that they wanted to play it again because they thought it looked like a completely different game.
Are we going to see a lot of multiplatform games? People starting on mobile and going to PC (vice versa)? How would it change on the future, your outlook?
That’s one thing that is so hard to say, which is why we want to get Republique and all of our future projects on as many platforms as possible because it’s really impossible to say at this point. There’s a lot of uncertainty in the industry about what the leading platform is going to be. When we released on mobile it seemed that everything was going towards mobile. We were even seeing premium content on mobile that were doing great such as Walking Dead, Infinity Blade was doing great and now we kind of moved away from that. Now mobile is just like unless you’re King.com or Puzzle & Dragon, forget it. You’re probably not going to have a big breakout hit on mobile. All those people have exited the mobile space and entered Steam and now Steam is the big thing, which is why you see so many mobile ports on Steam.
We really want to be leaders and not followers in that aspect but in many ways it’s a gamble, and that’s why it’s so important. The reason why Unity is so great, like you said, is because it allow us to just expedite the process by pushing to as many platforms as possible. Of course, not at the same time but it’s a little more complicated than that. That’s one of the great things about Unity is the Camouflaj’s edict moving forward. It’s about getting the game out on as many platforms as possible.
Why did you choose the episodic distribution system instead of distributing the whole game?
We struggled with a long time (again we were in the mobile space) knowing that we had this great game but we didn’t know how we’re going to deliver it to our customers in a way they were going to find enticing. We wanted to make sure they didn’t play it for ten minutes and then put it away. After thinking a long time about, if we’re going to put microtransactions in our game, the game content…
Have you thought about those microtransactions?
Oh! Absolutely! That was a conversation we had for years.
How would they work?
That’s the thing we didn’t get that far. We talked about are we going to do microtransactions, are we going to gate content behind a paywall, are we going to make people purchase coins that get that access? If Hope gets captured, are we going to buy a taser that gets her out or something? So we played around with all that stuff, but we just didn’t like it. So as this was happening, the game also kind of grew in scope beyond our vision. Our original pitch to our Kickstarter backers was a 4-6 hour game. Republique when it’s all done is going to be about 15 hours. Which is much more than we intended to, which is a bad thing and a good thing. It’s bad because the project went out of scope but it’s great in the sense that we found in episodic, a great way to deliver the story. The way we had been crafting the story and rolling out the story was in fact perfect for episodic gaming. We saw the way Telltale was doing it and we saw that it was really similar to how we’re producing the game. it just seemed like a natural fit to go episodic. Luckily, even though we didn’t pitch it that I think that the Kickstarter backers were overwhelmingly positive and thought that it was a great idea.
You mentioned that the game went beyond your original expectations, how did it correlate with the budget because the budget was fixed on Kickstarter?
We’ve always been a self-published studio. We’ve always said that we would partner with a publisher if we could keep the IP and the circumstances were right but we’ve never done it. So Republique up to this point has been entirely crowdfunded and self-funded venture. And you’re right, the Kickstarter was intended to fund half of the game’s development at the outset. It was never intended to cover the entire development, but we went far beyond our original budget. Keeping the IP and everything was most important.I reckon somebody should have given the Daleks a feather duster extension so they could clean the cobwebs and dust off of each other. Surely these aren’t optimum operating conditions?
Here’s a picture of Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and a retro-Dalek on the set of Doctor Who. This was tweeted by Steven Moffat.
Moffat had been canvassing his stars as to which model of Dalek was their favourite. Smith and Gillan chose this 60’s build, while Arthur Darvill instead said:
@steven_moffat I could tweet several incriminating pictures of my favourites but I feel they may be…How do you say?... Spoilers? — Arthur Darvill (@RattyBurvil) March 31, 2012
A hint that he prefers a new Dalek design? Maybe.
As far as we know, the Daleks will appear in the first episode of the new series. Which, as far as we know, is set for late September/early October – but we’ll come back to you on that when we have a more stable source.
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Published on the Doomstead Diner on September 21, 2014
Discuss this article at the Environment Table inside the Diner
Since I have been involved in Doom Prognostication and Analysis since 2008, floating around various websites from PeakOil.com to Market Ticker to The Automatic Earth to The Burning Platform, as well as my own Yahoo Group of Reverse Engineering and now the Doomstead Diner, I have of course been exposed to probably every possible Doom Scenario that you could conjure up as plausible.
Besides that, since I am a confirmed Full Doomer, I also periodically review the latest in Graphs and Charts that Financial Bloggers post up, or that Climate Bloggers post up. Overall, just about all this graphology is uniformly depressing newz. You have to be a believer in Fairy Dust and Skittle Shitting Unicorns to accept any of the MSM Charts which show “Economic Recovery” anywhere, as my friend Jim Quinn from TBP demonstrated once again recently tracking the Collapse of Retail Sales here in the FSoA.
Hard to imagine how folks will be doing too much Shopping as they drop out of the Labor Force by the Millions:
While both Economic and Geopolitical Doom are both present in Copious Quantities, the current scariest long term possibilities come from progressive deterioration of ecosystems and climate change, which by Guy McPherson of Nature Bats Last’s analysis are not too far off and lead to the Uber Doom scenario of Near Term Human Extinction.
Trying to make sense of the ongoing Collapse and where it might lead requires more than just Graphs & Charts, it requires a narrative which makes sense, is plausible based on current known parameters and trends, and it has to be “accessible” to most people in language and imagery they can understand and relate to their own lives. Most folks are not Economists, Climatologists, CPAs, Petroleum Engineers or Nuclear Physicists, and any of those are virtually never expert in any other field than their own. So even experts need a cross-disciplinary narrative to get a good global picture of what is going on here.
Ugo Bardi recently brought up in a few of his blogs on Resource Limits how Science Fiction informed the late 19th, 20th and 21st Century narrative that most people accept as true, that Technological Progress will continue in perpetuity and that the Industrial Culture we have lived under for the last 200 years will not just continue, but become ever more complex and pervasive across the globe. This type of Sci-Fi permeated its way right down to the Cartoons many of us Science Buffs watched as children.
There are numerous other ancillary narratives that go along with this, for instance that Modern Medicine and Science can cure any disease, that Standards of Living will continue to improve for everyone as they join the Industrial Culture, and that Human beings are too small to affect the earth and its ecosystems.
Just about all those narratives are demonstrably false now. Country after country falls off the Economic Cliff, basically on a daily basis, and the smaller ones with little access to central credit creation find it ever more difficult to access the energy necessary to keep running an Industrial society. Standards of Living aren’t improving anywhere, even here at the center of Credit Creation of the World Reserve Currency of the Dollar they are falling as more people each year fall out of the tabulated “workforce”, fewer well paying jobs are available, more McMansions go into Foreclosure and fewer miles are driven in the Happy Motoring lifestyle. Ecosystems are collapsing everywhere, phytoplankton are down 50% over the last 30 years in world Oceans and species are going Extinct at a rate unprecedented in the Geological Record, even faster than the mass extinction even of the PETM, or Pleiocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, which took out the Dinosaurs.
EBOLA GOES EXPONENTIAL
Access to advanced Medical care isn’t improving, Obama-care is a joke, anti-biotics are failing as drug resistant “Super-bugs” evolve, higher percentages of people are born with Autism and other neurological and physiological problems and food becomes ever less nutritious and ever more dangerous as GMO foods are introduced into the food supply. Besides that, you have the specter of the Ebola Virus spreading Exponentially in Africa, a disease for which there is no cure and a 40% mortality rate at least these days that is what the WHO is reporting.
Denial is rampant through the society of Homo Industrialis, in large part because there isn’t a good narrative to compete with the Sci-Fi Narrative of never-ending Progress and a better life in the future.
In this Podcast, Ugo Bardi, Jim Laughter (author of Polar City Red) and I chat up ideas around one type of New Narrative, “Cli-Fi” or Climate Fiction. Through Fiction, you can explore ideas and make comprehensible what is not generally comprehensible just by reading charts and tables, which in fact most folks never look at at all, they just take the word of “experts”, and every possible side in every scenario has some expert they can enlist to justify their POV, so the hoi polloi tends to believe the side with the viewpoint and outcome they WANT to believe is true.
Cli-Fi is only one of the possible Fictional Variants that can be explored here, Econ-Fi is another one since it still looks like Economic Collapse will lead Climate Collapse by some margin. Energy-Fi is another one, since how we might adapt to a lower per capita energy world of the future has many possible narratives attached.
This podcast looks mainly at Cli-Fi scenarios, both Medium and Long Term. Hopefully at a future date we will explore some of the other ones as well.
In any event, break out the Microwave Popcorn, sit back and contemplate TEOTWAWKI with me, Ugo Bardi and Jim Laughter.
REPseudo-historian David Barton knows so little about history that his book on Thomas Jefferson was taken off the shelves for containing too many lies.
He apparently also knows so little about math that he thinks correlation must imply causation.
In a recent video, he spoke about how a “God-fearing approach to education” is what we all need, adding that the removal of mandatory Bible readings from public schools led to the education crisis we’re in now:
“When we had a God-fearing approach to education, our educational knowledge was so much higher than what it is now… Just something as simple as having prayer in schools and having a daily Bible reading. Did you know, back when we did that in schools, America was number one in the world in literacy? We had the highest literacy rate in the world. The last forty years we said ‘ah, we don’t want any religion in schools.’ We’re now 68th in the world in literacy. Our knowledge of even how to read has fallen through the floor; correlates exactly to the time that we said ‘oh, fear of the Lord can’t be part of our knowledge.”
Yeah… I’m sure that’s the reason. It has nothing to do with the increase in poverty, the flight to suburban schools by those with the means to move, the push for kids to perform well on close-to-meaningless standardized tests, or budget cuts.
To paraphrase one astute YouTube commenter, if ‘fear of the Lord’ led to literacy, then the Dark Ages would have been a golden age of innovation and progress.WASHINGTON - Lee Boyd Malvo said he remembers each of the sniper shootings in detail. But one moment -- one image -- stands out among the carnage of that terrifying time 10 years ago:
"Mr. Franklin's eyes."
Malvo remembers being in the blue Chevrolet Caprice, in which police found binoculars and walkie-talkies. He scanned the area to make sure John Allen Muhammad had a clean shot. He gave the "go" order and looked across Route 50 in Seven Corners at the target. Muhammad, hidden on a hill above, pulled the trigger. A bullet screamed across the highway, instantly |
a guy from Real Madrid,’” Finlay says. “It was the initial thought when you hear the name ‘Higuain,’ and that’s the only name we knew.”
But Columbus’s new star wasn’t Gonzalo Higuain, the former Real Madrid striker who now leads Juventus in the UEFA Champions League. Instead, Columbus had scored his older brother, the soft-spoken Federico Higuain, the third man in club history to occupy a Designated Player slot.
Nearly five years later, Higuain – known to many as "Pipa" – quietly helps lead a transformed Crew SC franchise. He’s still a soft-spoken family man. But in the ensuing years he’s learned English, adopted Columbus as his home, and become one of the most important pieces of any team in the league, on and off the field.
The Argentine has truly emerged from his shell, now a regular host to his teammates for barbecues at his suburban home. But he's still a little shy, and even elusive, they say.
“He’s kind of a unicorn off the field,” Wil Trapp says. “He kind of disappears and does this homely, down-to-earth thing. You could see him driving down the highway and you’d have no idea that he’s the most important player on our team in a lot of ways.”
That’s how Higuain likes it -- he’s friendly, but not particularly interested in media appearances or interviews. And when he does talk, his unwavering focus is on the team. To hear Pipa say “I,” even now that he does interviews in English, is a rare occurrence.
His teammates, however, do his talking for him.
“I’ve gotten to not only know the Pipa who everyone sees on the field, and the top player he is, but the great dad and the great husband he is,” Hector Jimenez says. “To hear his story and the way he talks about his kids and the way he lights up about it – that guy loves his family. And we’re a part of his family. He loves us with that same feeling, and that’s a little bit special to our team.”
The connection between Higuain and the rest of the group didn’t necessarily come naturally to him.
Justin Meram says Pipa’s “quality” was obvious from day one, but characterizes him as “a quiet guy” early in his Columbus tenure. Without a firm grasp of English, Higuain wasn’t always the most talkative or charismatic teammate.
But since head coach and sporting director Gregg Berhalter took over in late 2013, the Columbus boss says he’s seen a “transformation," watching the 32-year-old grow into an “important part of this team and club and community.”
“He went from a very good player to a very good teammate,” Berhalter says. “I think that’s the important thing that people don’t understand, the amount of work he puts in for the team and the selflessness he has on the field and the way he can bring people in and make guys better.”
Trapp says the star is “just a dad” off the field, while Finlay says he sees Pipa as the opposite of soccer stars who are “not always best friends with everyone.”
“What’s so special about Pipa is his down-to-earth mentality," Trapp says, "his willingness to pull any guy aside – it doesn’t matter whether it’s the first or last guy on the team – to talk about the game.”
Higuain has done plenty of that for Trapp since the latter signed to Columbus in December 2012, at age 19. The pair can often be seen discussing the game on the training field long after the rest of the team departs.
The young midfielder – who has grown from a teenager to the team’s captain in his five seasons – says he and Higuain have “sharpened each other,” and marvels at how far their relationship has come.
“He came to me that rookie year and said, ‘Keep going. You’re doing really well. I think you’re a very good player,’” Trapp says. “This year, in preseason, we were roommates. He said, ‘I remember when you were that kid and believing you could make your way.’ He believes in young players and he puts forth, in his own way, encouragement.”
Despite shying away from headlines and TV spots, Higuain’s teammates say he puts as much pressure on himself as anyone for the team’s success. Meram says he “embraces the pressure."
Finlay, meanwhile, says during “moments when we’ve had turmoil,” Higuain is often the one to make it clear – sometimes without words – that he faults himself.
“He’s taken blame for things,” Finlay says. “[He’s said], ‘I need to be better’ or ‘I’m not healthy. I’ve got to get healthy. I’ve got to get fit,’ and those kinds of things. He takes accountability because he knows he’s an integral part of the team.”
In easily the largest culmination of the concepts of notoriety and turmoil, Higuain found himself at the forefront of the most dramatic moment of the 2016 season. An on-field argument with Kei Kamara resulted in a fiery locker room monologue from the striker that led to Kamara openly questioning Berhalter’s judgement and ultimately being traded from the club.
Higuain was nearly silent during the process, preferring instead to put his head down and focus on the field.
And it’s been Pipa’s handling of those moments and his own success that makes him the player he has become to his teammates.
“He fits this club – that’s what we’re about,” Meram says. “No matter if it’s my success, his, Ethan Finlay’s or any of the guys that have been around – Kei Kamara – it’s all about the club. When it’s not about the club, guys move on. You’ve seen that.”
Now, Higuain is finding a burgeoning role in the Columbus locker room as a jokester, of all things.
The addition of countryman Gaston Sauro and Higuain’s growing knowledge of English has brought out a dry, sarcastic humor in the DP that caught his teammates off-guard at first, but has also helped to develop their existing relationships. Jimenez says the jokes have “definitely gotten him to talk a lot more.”
That doesn’t mean they can always tell when he’s joking, however.
“The funny thing about his sarcasm, especially if he’s trying to get it across in English, is that you don’t quite know if he’s not sure what he’s saying or if he knows exactly what he’s saying and you’re missing it,” Finlay says with a laugh. “You’ll laugh and go, ‘Wait, you’re kidding, right?’”
But that sense of humor doesn’t diminish his focus or intensity on the field.
His teammates think Higuain took Crew SC’s massively disappointing 2016 season as hard as anyone. And with many questioning Higuain’s ability to return to form following a series of layoffs to deal with a hernia, Finlay feels the playmaker came into the 2017 campaign with something to prove.
He’s done just that, blazing out of the gates with three goals and four assists in 2017, already equaling his total goals and assists number from last season.
“He took that [season] hard; he took it really personal,” Finlay says. “I think you’ve seen it in his reaction this year, to come back and come off of having surgery at his age and keep his level and push it back to where he wants to be and where it was in his first two or three years when he was one of the best 10s in the league.”
And as his career enters its final stages, Higuain still comes at the game with the exuberance of a younger player, watching games from all over the world in his spare time and talking about soccer with anyone who will listen.
“It’s cool," Trapp says, "to have a guy who's just so in love with the game."We’ve learned (via Eurogamer) that Vanillaware’s classic side-scrolling beat ’em up, Dragon’s Crown, has been removed from the European PlayStation Store.
The reasoning behind the game being taken down is actually an expired license from European distributor NIS America.
Despite the outage, Atlus is now picking up the game for digital re-distribution, and are working to bring the game back to the European PlayStation Network:
“With regards to our previous statements on Dragon’s Crown for the European PSN, we must extend our deepest apologies to Atlus and European fans regarding the incorrect information about the removal from this store.
“The removal of Dragon’s Crown from the European PSN was part of NIS America’s and Atlus’s mutual agreement on this title. We are happy to announce that Dragon’s Crown will be available directly from Atlus in Europe through PSN.
“Please look forward to Dragon’s Crown returning to the European PSN soon.”By Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent, BBC News
The possibility of alien life has provoked excitement for centuries The chance of discovering life on other worlds is greater than ever, according to Britain's leading astronomer. Lord Rees, the president of the Royal Society and Astronomer Royal, said such a discovery would be a moment which would change humanity. It would change our view of ourselves and our place in the cosmos, he said. His comments come as scientists gather in London for an international conference to discuss the prospect of discovering extra-terrestrial life. Scientists have been scanning the skies for radio broadcasts from intelligent life for 50 years, and so far they have only heard static. But the chances of discovering life now were better than ever, Lord Rees said. I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms that we can't conceive
Lord Rees, Royal Society president
Send us your comments He said: "Technology has advanced so that for the very first time we can actually have the realistic hope of detecting planets no bigger than the earth orbiting other stars. "(We'll be able to learn) whether they have continents and oceans, learning what type of atmosphere they have. "Although it is a long shot to be able to learn more about any life of them, then it's tremendous progress to be able to get some sort of image of another planet, rather like the earth orbiting another star." The recent deployment of space telescopes capable of detecting earth-like planets around distant stars now make it possible to focus the search. "Were we to find life, even the simplest life, elsewhere that would clearly be one of the great discoveries of the 21st Century. "I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms that we can't conceive. "And there could, of course, be forms of intelligence beyond human capacity, beyond as much as we are beyond a chimpanzee," he added.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionWest Bengal was grappling with a serious crisis in the Darjeeling Hills which descended into chaos Saturday after violence and firing on the streets left at least three activists of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) dead, a police officer in critical condition and several persons injured.
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The GJM, spearheading an agitation that began as a protest against the mandatory teaching of Bengali in schools and then escalated into a movement for a separate state of Gorkhaland, said three of its cadre were killed in police firing — a charge that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and police rejected. The GJM identified its three dead as Bimal Sashankar of Goke Basti, Sunil Rai of Kainjalay and Mahesh Gurung of Relling. It said Sashankar and Rai were killed in the Singamari area and Gurung in Ghoom. But ADG (Law and Order) Anuj Sharma said: “We have confirmation of one death. We will know the cause only after post-mortem. Thirty six policemen were injured, some victims of gunshots.”
India Reserve Battalion assistant commandant Kiran Tamang sustained critical injuries after being attacked by GJM activists. Through the day, police and Gorkhaland supporters fought pitched battles at various places in the Hills. Several vehicles were torched as police cracked down on protesters, firing tear gas shells and resorting to lathicharge. The protesters retaliated by hurling petrol bombs and stones at policemen.
In Kolkata, speaking at an event where she honoured five journalists posthumously by naming roads and community halls after them, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said: “Bangla ke bhaag hote debo na (I will not let Bengal be divided)… In Darjeeling, police officers are being beaten up and so are reporters. Reporters are being kidnapped, kept hostage and told that only what they (protesters) say should be aired.”
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“I have done many andolan (agitations) myself. If it was a matter of just stone-pelting, it would have been different. But they have caches of arms. If they had just told me politely, I would have discussed with them… But if you are going to threaten me with guns, I want you to know that I have the capability of snatching away your guns… I will give my life if need be, but I will not let them break Bengal,” she said.
At a press conference, Banerjee said: “They (protesters) are not listening to the court as well. The court passed an order saying bandh is illegal… Where did they get illegal arms and money from? These arms were not collected in a day, they were collected over a period of time. They have connections to underground insurgents of the North East… There are some other countries involved, but I don’t want to reveal here. We share borders with other states, and also have international borders, and this is not difficult. I request my brothers and sisters in the Hills not to support the terrorists and their movement.” She said she was willing to hold discussions, but only if the bandh was called off. She has called an all-party meeting on June 22.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh spoke to Banerjee to take stock of the situation. They also discussed deployment of central forces and possible mediation by the Centre. The GJM said it was ready for talks with the Centre on the issue of Gorkhaland, but not with Banerjee. Binoy Tamang, GJM assistant general secretary, said: “We don’t want to talk to Mamata Banerjee. We want to sit with the central government. Banerjee has said that we have links with N-E terrorist organisations. Now she says she is ready for talks. From her point of view, we are terrorists, so the CM has no right to talk to terrorists.”
In Kolkata, the state BJP said it too was ready to mediate between the Centre and the GJM over the issue of Gorkhaland. “If Centre has a problem, we are ready to mediate between GJM and them. Atrocities are being committed on the people of the Hills by the state government,” BJP’s Rahul Sinha said.
Meanwhile, the All Bodo Students Union, National Democratic Front of Bodoland (P) and People’s Joint Action Committee for Bodoland have written letters to GJM, supporting its demand for Gorkhaland. GJM chief Bimal Gurung, in a recorded message in Nepali, said: “Peaceful and democratic rallies were taken out by the (GJM) women’s morcha. The Bengal government, autocratic government, fired on us. I ask the people of Hills to protest.”
In the morning, the Gorkha Nari Morcha, the GJM women’s wing, took out a rally in Singamari. Carrying the Tricolour, they were chanting pro-Gorkhaland slogans. Policemen stationed there tried to stop the rally. When the GJM women tried to walk towards the District Magistrate’s office, police resorted to a lathicharge.
GJM workers began hurling stones at the policemen who lobbed tear gas shells to break up the protest. Within minutes, the area turned into a battleground. GJM workers threw crude bombs and gunshots were heard. Police claimed they fired rubber bullets. Media personnel were caught in the exchanges between police and the protesters, forcing them to seek shelter in homes by the roadside.
As policemen retreated, protesters perched atop hilltops hurled stones. At least four vehicles, including a police van, were torched. GJM workers set up barricades near the Singamari police station where a police jeep was targeted. The clashes continued for three hours. Violence also erupted in other parts of the Hills, including Lebong, Chowk Bazaar and Ghoom railway station. Army personnel were called to patrol the disturbed areas. A government vehicle was torched in Gorubathan. Large contingents of police and paramilitary personnel were deployed on the streets.
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Police detained Vikram Rai, son of GJM MLA Amar Rai, but set him free after questioning. He had been taken by police from his home in Darjeeling around midnight Friday. Police sources said Rai, a former journalist, was picked up in connection with clashes in Darjeeling on June 8 when the Chief Minister held a cabinet meeting there.There's nothing more annoying at a festival than when you can't take booze through into the main arena. You either have to try to sneak it in - and let's face it, a can in each welly isn't really going to last you for the day - or you have to accept being ripped off for pints of lager that taste like piss.
An American man named Alex, however, had another solution: bury his booze on site, weeks ahead of the festival taking place, and then dig it up once it had begun.
Three weeks before Electric Zoo 2017, the New Yorker travelled to Randall's Island, where he buried a water bottle full of vodka for consumption after the event had been set up.
Credit: Supplied
He told LADbible that he drew his inspiration from pirates, with his five-strong festival crew wanting to see if they could 'bury treasure without it being disturbed'.
Describing how he did it, Alex said: "I've been going to Electric Zoo for over four years now so I know the layout very well
"The planning of the burial was simple. We used Google maps and marked our spot on GPS so we knew where it would be. Then we waited."
When the group turned up at the festival though, it wasn't quite as easy as they might have hoped. Although pinpointing the vodka was simple, the next problem was digging it up without attracting the attention of the festival CCTV cameras and security.
Credit: Supplied
"It was a bit of an operation but in the end we got through it," he said.
"The objective once we got into the festival was to remove the bottle without attracting attention. The hardest part was trying not to raise any suspicions because there's quite a lot of cameras and festival staff around.
"Once we got to the GPS spot, we all huddled around it. I did a double take to make sure we were in the clear and then one of us dug up the vodka.
Credit: Supplied
"All in all, it took us about 10 minutes."
Once they had got through that then all was left was to pass to bottle around and enjoy the show.
After uploading images of his successful excavation to Facebook the post went viral, and Alex is now working on a book of other festival secrets and money-saving tips.
It should be available in 2018 - if this effort is anything to go by, it should be well worth checking out.
LADbible has contacted Electric Zoo for comment.
Featured Image Credit: SuppliedFor the first time in the institution's history, there will be a separate graduation ceremony for black students at Harvard University.
More than 125 graduate students worked for more than a year and raised more than $27,000 to pay for the event and a reception, the Root reported.
Students attending the ceremony, scheduled for later this month, will still participate in the main graduation ceremony as well.
“The students are excited and have put a lot of work into this,” Michael Huggins, who is set to graduate this year with a master's degree in public policy, told The Root. “Too often at Harvard, there is not cross-discipline contact between black students. So it can feel like you are the only person of color."
"At this graduation, we can show each other and the administration that we are here, we are strong and we are not going away," Huggins said.
Courtney Woods, who will graduate from Harvard University this year with a master’s degree in education policy and management, told The Root that "it speaks volumes" that there has never been a graduation ceremony of this type before. Woods, citing the past struggles of black students and their ability to overcome those obstacles, also stated:
Harvard’s institutional foundation is in direct conflict with the needs of black students. There is a legacy of slavery, epistemic racism and colonization at Harvard, which was an institution founded to train rising imperialist leaders. This is a history that we are reclaiming.
“As a first-generation [college student], I know I am here to change the trajectory for all of us," she said.
Huggins also described the blacks-only graduation ceremony as an opportunity to celebrate Harvard's "black excellence" and "black brilliance" but insisted that the event is not is segregation from Harvard University graduates who are not black.
“This is not about segregation. It's about fellowship and building a community. This is a chance to reaffirm for each other that we enter the work world with a network of supporters standing with us. We are all partners," Huggins said.
Organizers of the blacks-only graduation ceremony plan to hold a similar event for black undergraduate students next year. Harvard University is at least the fourth institution to hold a separate ceremony for black students. Stanford University, Temple University and Columbia University host additional graduation events for black students, the Root reported.
(H/T: Daily Caller)VMware released NSX 6.2.3. It introduced a long awaited feature - at least for me and my customers 🙂 NSX 6.2.3 has default license "NSX for vShield Endpoint" which enables use of NSX for deploying and managing vShield Endpoint for anti-virus offload capability only. vShield Manager is EOL in September this year and it was not possible to use NSX Manager + Guest Introspection without normal NSX license before.
There are some requirements to perform an upgrade properly. Please follow this guide to upgrade vCloud Networking and Security (vShield Manager) to NSX Manager.
There are some changes and improvements in NSX 6.2.3 as below:
New Edge DHCP Options : DHCP Option 121 supports static route option, which is used for DHCP server to publish static routes to DHCP client; DHCP Options 66, 67, 150 supports DHCP options for PXE Boot; and DHCP Option 26 supports configuration of DHCP client network interface MTU by DHCP server.
: DHCP Option 121 supports static route option, which is used for DHCP server to publish static routes to DHCP client; DHCP Options 66, 67, 150 supports DHCP options for PXE Boot; and DHCP Option 26 supports configuration of DHCP client network interface MTU by DHCP server. NSX Hardware Layer 2 Gateway Integration : expands physical connectivity options by integrating 3rd-party hardware gateway switches into the NSX logical network
: expands physical connectivity options by integrating 3rd-party hardware gateway switches into the NSX logical network New VXLAN Port 4789 in NSX 6.2.3 and later : Before version 6.2.3, the default VXLAN UDP port number was 8472.
: Before version 6.2.3, the default VXLAN UDP port number was 8472. Increase in DHCP Pool, static binding limits : The following are the new limit numbers for various form factors: Compact: 2048; Large: 4096; Quad large: 4096; and X-large: 8192.
: The following are the new limit numbers for various form factors: Compact: 2048; Large: 4096; Quad large: 4096; and X-large: 8192. Edge Firewall adds SYN flood protection : Avoid service disruptions by enabling SYN flood protection for transit traffic. Feature is disabled by default, use the NSX REST API to enable it.
: Avoid service disruptions by enabling SYN flood protection for transit traffic. Feature is disabled by default, use the NSX REST API to enable it. NSX Edge — On Demand Failover : Enables users to initiate on-demand failover when needed.
: Enables users to initiate on-demand failover when needed. NSX Edge — Resource Reservation : Reserves CPU/Memory for NSX Edge during creation.
: Reserves CPU/Memory for NSX Edge during creation. Cross VC NSX — Universal Distributed Logical Router (DLR) Upgrade : Auto upgrade of Universal DLR on secondary NSX Manager, once upgraded on primary NSX Manager.
: Auto upgrade of Universal DLR on secondary NSX Manager, once upgraded on primary NSX Manager. Flexible SNAT / DNAT rule creation : vnicId no longer needed as an input parameter; removed requirement that the DNAT address must be the address of an NSX Edge VNIC.
: vnicId no longer needed as an input parameter; removed requirement that the DNAT address must be the address of an NSX Edge VNIC. Distributed Firewall — TFTP ALG : enables use cases such as network boot for VMs.
: enables use cases such as network boot for VMs. Firewall — Granular Rule Filtering : simplifies troubleshooting by providing granular rule filters in UI, based on Source, Destination, Action, Enabled/Disabled, Logging, Name, Comments, Rule ID, Tag, Service, Protocol.
: simplifies troubleshooting by providing granular rule filters in UI, based on Source, Destination, Action, Enabled/Disabled, Logging, Name, Comments, Rule ID, Tag, Service, Protocol. Guest Introspection — Windows 10 support
SSL VPN Client — Mac OS El Capitan support
NSX Dashboard : Simplifies troubleshooting by providing visibility into the overall health of NSX components in one central view.
: Simplifies troubleshooting by providing visibility into the overall health of NSX components in one central view. Traceflow Enhancement — Network Introspection Services : Enhances ability to trace a packet from source to destination, by identifying whether packets were forwarded to 3rd-party network introspection services, and whether the packet comes back from the 3rd-party service VM or not.
: Enhances ability to trace a packet from source to destination, by identifying whether packets were forwarded to 3rd-party network introspection services, and whether the packet comes back from the 3rd-party service VM or not. SNMP Support : Configure SNMP traps for events from NSX Manager, NSX Controller, and Edge.
: Configure SNMP traps for events from NSX Manager, NSX Controller, and Edge. Firewall rules UI now displays configured IP protocols and TCP/UDP port numbers associated with services.
now displays configured IP protocols and TCP/UDP port numbers associated with services. Central CLI for Host Health : Shows host health status, with 30+ checks in one command (including network config, VXLAN config, resource utilization, etc.)
: Shows host health status, with 30+ checks in one command (including network config, VXLAN config, resource utilization, etc.) VMware vRealize Log Insight 3.3.2 for NSX: monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities and customizable dashboards for network virtualization, flow analysis and alerts.
For more known issues/bugs please follow the release guide.
Update: Please follow this post on how to install and configure NSX vShield Endpoint for Guest Introspection.BUSINESS
123rf
[THE INVESTOR] US beef imports increased significantly as South Koreans turned away from their expensive local beef hanwoo, industry data showed on July 14.US beef imports increased by 25.7 percent from January to May this year from the same period last year, to reach 61,062 tons, according to a report by the National Agriculture Cooperative Federation, better known as NongHyup.South Korea became the third largest beef importer in the world during the period, after Japan and Mexico.In May alone, the US beef import stood at 61,062 tons, an increase by 58.8 percent year-on-year.In June, hanwoo was sold at an average 19,142 won (US$ 16.89) per kilogram, an increase by 20.8 percent from the previous year. The hanwoo price is about 2.5 times more than US beef.According to industry insiders, rising distribution costs and fewer hanwoo cattle are part of the reason behind the soaring price tag.“The situation has worsened due to abolished tariffs, as a result of the US-Korea FTA, and the declining number of hanwoo cattle,” Hwang Myung-chul from NongHyup said. “For US, it’s a good opportunity to expand marketing of their beef here.”“It is difficult to increase supply of hanwoo immediately,” said Hwang and stressed the need for the government to come up with solution to stabilize the price.By Ahn Sung-mi (sahn@heraldcorp.com)ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) - Turkey could 'by accident' hit United States forces embedded with Kurdish fighters in Syrian Kurdistan, suggested a chief advisor to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday, in remarks that may further damage strained US-Turkey relations.
Speaking to the Istanbul-based radio station CRI FM, Erdogan's chief advisor on Kurdish affairs Ilnur Cevik was answering a question about US deployment of troops and tanks with the People's Protection Units (YPG) to prevent new cross-border Turkish attacks.
Cevik stated it did not matter for his country that US troops were patrolling the Syria-Turkey border.
"If those PKK terrorists continue their activities inside Turkey, as you know they are infiltrating from northern Syria... What happened to Daesh? We went there suddenly one night and found ourselves in al-Bab. The same thing is valid for northern Syria," said Cevik, referring to the 2016 Turkish incursion into a pocket of land in Syria.So this was fun to draw!
If you’re wondering why Chara is dressed in brown, I just like to think that they were not wearing the exact same colors as Asriel when they first fell. As for Asgore’s outfit, I was just lazy and didn’t want to draw him in full armor, haha.
This comic takes place a year after Chara was taken in by the Dreemurs, and if your wondering why it took Chara so long just to get a new shirt, they prefer to wear the one they always had because they felt bad constantly borrowing from Asriel. (Chara was not that close to the Dreemurs quite yet, only close to Asriel and wary of Toriel and Asgore at this point in time.)
I apologize for the background, it takes place in the throne room, but let’s pretend that the throne room looks like this, haha… (I’m also sorry for the shading, haha…)
I came up with the idea to draw this comic when I realized that there had to be a reason the date Chara fell was circled, and then I figured that Chara probably stayed with the Dreemurs for quite a while (about two to three years in my headcanon) so I thought this is what they might have done for Chara in place of a birthday.The principle is simple and seductively clever: solar lights that store energy during the day and release light at night. These can be purchased ready-made in a variety of colors (yellow, blue and red), but it’s also easy to make your own DIY sun jar at home.
The simplest, least technical approach involves buying a conventional solar-powered yard lamp and then essentially harvesting it for key pieces to put in a jar. This is just a clever way of taking an existing solar lamp design and appropriating its essential parts to make something more attractive for display around the house, to take on camping trips or even to use as wedding or other event decor.
A more electronically-savvy individual can take the more complex route and build a solar lamp from the ground up using small solar panels, a charge controller, an LED driver and lighting module. The aesthetic result may not be as impressive and it’s a lot more work, but you might enjoy the challenge.
A DIY solar lamp tutorial at Instructables by cre8tor directs you to rip open a solar yard stake, which is fun enough in its own right. You simply pair it with a $3 jar from IKEA (or whatever you have laying around), some batteries, blu-tack reusable adhesive and glass frosting spray. The end result almost seems to capture pure sunlight during the day and hold it until the sun goes down, producing a warm glow in whatever color you desire. Make a whole rainbow of them if it floats your boat.
Whatever route you choose to go, these DIY solar lamps are fun and sustainable gadgets that make it easy to go green, automate the process of turning on lights at night and can add some color to your porch, patio, garden or windowsill.While his 1986 New York Mets teammates basked in the glory of millions during a ticker-tape parade to celebrate their World Series title, Dwight Gooden sat in a drug dealer's apartment, too high and paranoid to join them.
Talking about his career and life, Gooden told ESPN's E:60 that's how his celebration of the World Series went after the star right-hander became hooked on cocaine during that season.
"After that game was over, we're celebrating and everything at the ballpark, in the clubhouse, and me and some of the guys went back out on the pitcher's mound and we had the big bottles of champagne. Then once everybody said we're going to this club in Long Island to hang out for a while, it was like, 'OK.'...
"Well, my ride to the club I called a guy who I got drugs from, had him meet me there, was drinking, started using drugs. Then when the party started winding down, for myself a lot of times I get to a certain point of using drugs, the paranoia sticks in. So I end up leaving the party with the team, going to these projects, of all places in Long Island. Hang out there.Lebanese Soldier Announces Defection to IS in Internet Video
Lebanese soldier Abdul Qader Akkoumi has announced his defection to the Islamic State jihadist group, according to an internet video circulated on Saturday.
“I announce my defection from this 'apostate, crusader army',” Akkoumi says in the video as he displays his military ID in front of the camera.
Later on Saturday, the army issued a statement clarifying that Akkoumi had “deserted the military institution three months ago.”
“He escaped on July 21 and was referred to the Military Court on October 1 over multiple desertion charges,” the army added.
The video's title says the soldier hails from the town of Fnaideq in the northern Akkar district.
Akkoumi said he took the decision for “a lot of reasons,” including “the army's shelling of our people in Arsal, the army's dirty conspiracy against our people in the North, and the imprisonment of the Sunni youths.”
He alleged that “Sunni soldiers are being tortured at the Defense Ministry because they spoke in defense of the Sunnis.”
“Everything that is happening is at the orders of (Hizbullah chief Sayyed) Hassan (Nasrallah) and (Syrian President) Bashar (Assad),” the soldier added.
He urged “Sunni troops” to defect and join “their people in Tripoli, Akkar, Minieh, Dinniyeh and the Bekaa.”
The video comes only one day after news broke that two soldiers had defected and joined the Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front.
"The soldier Abdullah Ahmed Shehadeh, who hails from the Akkar town of Mashha, has defected to al-Nusra Front," al-Jadeed TV reported.
"He telephoned his family to inform them that he has joined al-Nusra Front and his family is trying to communicate with him to convince him to return," al-Jadeed said.
Earlier on Friday, al-Nusra Front published a video showing Lebanese army soldier Mohammed Antar announcing that he has defected to the extremist group to “defend the Sunni community” and in protest at Hizbullah's “practices.”
TV and radio stations said Antar hails from the area of al-Zahriyeh in the northern city of Tripoli.
LBCI quoted a security source as saying that a search warrant had been issued against Antar, noting that he was not on duty when he escaped.
The first time a Lebanese soldier defected to the Nusra Front in neighboring Syria was in July.
Corporal Atef Mohammed Saadeddine claimed in a video that his move came as a result of the injustice against Sunnis in Lebanon.
Islamists in the country claim that Sunnis are facing harassment by the army, which they accuse of working under the command of Hizbullah.
The Shiite party has sent thousands of fighters to Syria to help the regime of President Bashar Assad against the rebels fighting his troops.
Hizbullah members have engaged in bloody gunbattles with al-Nusra Front, the Islamic State group and other Syrian opposition fighters in Syria and the border region with Lebanon.
The jihadist groups took several Lebanese soldiers and policemen hostage in August and executed three of them.
Y.R.Selahattin Demirtas, co-chairman of the Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), addresses his supporters during a gathering to celebrate the party's victory during the parliamentary election, in Istanbul, Turkey, June 8, 2015. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
By Seyhmus Cakan
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkey's pro-Kurdish opposition party accused the government on Wednesday of standing aside in the face of attempts to "push the country into a civil war" by fomenting violence in the mainly Kurdish southeast.
Four people have been killed since Tuesday and two people were shot and wounded overnight in the city of Diyarbakir, bringing the total wounded to seven, security sources said.
Tensions remained high in the city, just days after a pro-Kurdish party won parliamentary seats in an election and in doing so stripped the ruling AK Party of its overall majority.
Selahattin Demirtas, head of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), told reporters in Ankara the government and President Tayyip Erdogan had kept silent about the violence in order to undermine his party's success in Sunday's vote.
"People are taking steps to push the country into a civil war, and the prime minister and president are nowhere |
just unlock certain perks at certain levels and then stick to them. That sort of skill stagnation is what kills games’ longevity, and IllFonic was wise to avoid it here. Throughout my several hours of play, I can firmly say I didn’t encounter a game that was identical to another.
Part of that is thanks to how dynamic the game flow is, and how little is spelled out for the player. At first, the three maps look like they might get stale – but looks can be deceiving. Each playthrough gives players a different experience. There’s always a smattering of things to repair, ranging from escape vehicles to police boxes, but their placement is always radically different, as are the pieces required to fix them. Other items litter the environment, like walkie talkies and a mélange of weapons, but what appeared to be random item and location generation will throw players off every time. It helps, too, that IllFonic doesn’t spell everything out for players. You might get an idea of what the police box does, for example, but it’s only through repairing it, using it, and finding the cops that you’ll truly grasp the system. There’s not a lot of handholding here, and because of that, good communication is encouraged.
Communication might be my favourite part of Friday the 13th: The Game, in fact. If you want to survive, it’s best not to be a total dick, which is really just “Surviving an Evil Killer Dude 101.” Different players will inevitably pick up different components to fixing a car or repairing a boat, and will have to talk to each other in order to get everything squared away and escape. Voice chat is proximity-based, which encourages grouping up and adds a layer of authenticity to the whole “sticking together to live” experience – although people with walkie-talkies can talk to each other wherever. When players die, they’ll join an afterlife voice channel, where they can chat, spectate, and cheer for the surviving members. There’s even a chance that dead players might get resurrected as series stalwart Tommy Jarvis, so it’s worth sticking around for that and the XP bonus.
It’s also worth sticking around to see exactly Jason will take down his next target. Jason’s a joy to watch and even more fun to play. Players get access to a whole pool of Jason variations, with Part III’s iconic take being the default. Each Jason is armed with a different weapon, and has different strengths to contend with. Some are faster but bad at tracking, others the total opposite. Each one has access to the same four abilities, though, which unlock gradually throughout each match. These include stuff like being able to jump to any point on the map, or stalk other players without being detected. My personal favourite is the Shift ability, which takes the player into first-person and lets them zip around at breakneck speeds like the unseen force from the first two Evil Dead movies. Stuff like this, coupled with some truly hilarious and gratifying executions, make for one of the biggest power trips in recent gaming history.
My only real issue is on the technical side of things. To preface, the PC version is honestly fantastic – the pretty visuals are rendered with the muted hues hallmark to popular 80’s cinema, and the game runs like a dream. Yet I did encounter some interesting bugs. Jason being unable to let go of a counselor he killed or being unable to open a closet where somebody was hiding are just two examples. Some of these, I noticed, were directly correlated to the other players’ pings, so it could very well be that this game just gets wonky when people have bad connections. Makes sense, but that doesn’t explain the absolutely hysterical broken physics. While these are definitely not gameplay impeding, and honestly made the game more fun for me, the physics engine has the tendency to do some of the weirdest stuff this side of Dark Souls. I watched players get smashed into the ground, then bounce back up ten feet in the air. I saw somebody get killed, then spend the rest of the match suspended in stasis above ground. Nine times out of ten, this just made the match more fun – myself and other players got a good laugh out of moments of sheer technical screwiness. Still, some people might be bothered by this admitted lack of polish.
But in spite of the occasional glitch or physics hiccup, nothing in Friday the 13th: The Game is enough of a knock against the package to keep me from preventing it. This is some of the most fun multiplayer I’ve touched in quite a while, and definitely the most fun I’ve ever had with an asymmetric multiplayer title. It’s a game that seems ripe for both long-term player enjoyment and streaming, with the latter being catered to explicitly with a feature that mutes copyrighted music. On top of that, series fans will be in love with all the effort that went into making this one of the most authentic licensed titles out there. It’s a big, sloppy kiss to Cunningham, Manfredini and Savini, and to everything, they accomplished from Pamela’s head getting lopped off to Jason getting sentenced to eternal damnation. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Now, can we get some Jason X DLC? I won’t be completely happy until I can smash someone’s frozen head to bits as robot Jason.Image caption The president says there are own-language schools for minority groups such as Russians
Latvians have resoundingly rejected the option of making Russian the country's second official language, results from a referendum indicate.
About two-thirds of those registered voted, the election commission said, many more than in previous polls.
The referendum, initiated by a Russian speakers' movement, has exposed deep fault-lines in Latvia.
Ethnic Russians, who make up about one-third of Latvia's population, have long complained of discrimination.
But many ethnic Latvians believe the referendum was an attempt to encroach on the country's independence.
It was initiated by the Russian-speakers' movement, Native Tongue, which collected signatures from more than 10% of voters to force a ballot.
Officials said that with more than 90% of votes counted, 75% of votes cast in Saturday's referendum were against the proposal.
Turnout was about 69%, which officials say was considerably higher than expected.
'Absurd' referendum
Learning Latvian was a prerequisite for citizenship in the years after the country split from the Soviet Union two decades ago
But many Russian-speakers resisted, and some 300,000 remain without citizenship, which means they cannot vote in elections, hold public office or work in government institutions, the Associated Press reports.
"I think that over the past 20 years Russian residents of Latvia have been humiliated by authorities, by endless attempts either to assimilate or make them second-class citizens," Vladimir Linderman, co-chairman of Native Tongue, told AP. "So this is our answer."
The referendum has been described as "absurd" by Latvian President Andris Berzins, who said most people were more concerned with the country's recovery from a severe recession.
He pointed out that the government funds own-language schools for minority groups such as Russians.
"There's no need for a second language. Whoever wants, can use their language at home or in school," he said.
Latvia gained independence from Moscow in 1991 after half-a-century of Soviet rule. It joined the European Union in 2004.For a guy promising to run the most transparent administration in Chicago history, Mayor Emanuel isn't afraid to steal a trick or two from the masters of the old machine, starting with the great Mayor Daley.
I'm not talking about the Daley who preceded Emanuel, but his father: Richard J. Daley, the Boss who ran Chicago from 1955 to 1976.
True, Mayor Emanuel's not shutting off the microphones of dissenting aldermen, as the old mayor did once or thrice. Instead, he's finding another way to cut out meddlesome debate—by sending unwanted legislation into the City Council's rules committee, where it can die peacefully, without so much as a hearing. And thus Chicagoans are protected from measures they might actually want adopted.
Aiding and abetting Mayor Emanuel is the chairman of the rules committee, 33rd Ward alderman Richard Mell, whose tenure dates back to Boss Daley's regime. And so great traditions get passed from one generation to the next.
Though now that I think about it, Mayor Emanuel's smart enough to have figured this one out on his own.
Aldermen Mell currently has at least three measures lodged in rules: Alderman Ameya Pawar's proposal to set up an independent budget office (never gonna happen, since the mayor doesn't want anyone but the mayor to be involved with crafting the budget); Alderman Roderick Sawyer's plan to require analysis of privatization deals before they're consummated (more on that later); and the most recent entry, a resolution calling for a moratorium on new charter schools, which Mayor Emanuel apparently loves too much to allow aldermen to discuss them in a public meeting.
The committee burial process works something like this.
When aldermen get an idea for a new resolution or ordinance, they write up a draft and circulate it among their peers. Various other aldermen sign on, even when they know the measure might never pass, on the grounds that if I sign on to your proposal, you'll sign on to mine.
The chief sponsor introduces his idea to the full council, which sends it to an appropriate committee for consideration.
In most instances, it's clear which committee should handle the proposal—zoning matters go to the zoning committee, for instance.
Logic similarly dictated that the charter school resolution—introduced by aldermen Matt O'Shea (19th), Pat Dowell (3rd), Rick Munoz (22nd), and Bob Fioretti (2nd)—would end up with the education committee.
But when O'Shea introduced the resolution at the council meeting last week, Alderman Danny Solis (25th) immediately moved to send it to rules.
And why does Solis have such authority? Because an unwritten rule in the council gives any alderman the authority to direct any proposal to any committee—which of course lets them dump shit they don't want into a committee whose chairman will make sure it never gets heard.
Welcome to Chicago, everybody!
What's doubly interesting is that the charter school proposal is a nonbinding resolution—meaning that even if it passed, it couldn't stop Mayor Emanuel from converting every school in town into a charter. But the sponsoring aldermen hoped it would prompt a discussion about whether it's right to open new charters while dozens of traditional public schools are slated to close.
Also, there's the issue of teacher salaries. Charter schools are nonunion, which allows them to pay their teachers bubkes.
Alderman Solis, however, is close—quite close—to the United Neighborhood Organization, which runs one of the largest charter school empires in town. In turn, UNO's CEO, Juan Rangel, is close—quite close—to Mayor Emanuel and Ed Burke, the only alderman who's been in office longer than Richard Mell. Which may explain why it's one of the largest charter school empires in town.
There are several explanations for why Solis was moved to send the charter school resolution to the rules committee.
Alderman Munoz says Solis did it at the behest of Mayor Emanuel. "Dick Mell was supposed to ask for it to go to rules, but Mell got cold feet," says Munoz. "So the mayor was forced to find another alderman to send it to rules. That was Danny."
Not so, Solis insists. "I did it on my own," he says, "because it's a larger committee—it will get more discussion."
I'll say this for Danny Solis: no matter how many times I may have criticized him through the years, he always has the courtesy to take my calls—unlike a few scaredy-cats who run at the hint of hard questions.
Speaking of which, Alderman Mell did not return my call for comment.
Anyway, Alderman Solis is right that the rules committee is larger than the others—every alderman is a member of rules.
Still, that doesn't add up to much. Aldermen can attend any committee meeting and weigh in on any proposal, even if they're not formally members of the committee.
Secondly, all the aldermen get the chance to discuss and vote on legislation when it comes to the full council.
Thirdly, now that the charter school resolution is lodged in Mell's committee, aldermen won't get to discuss it at all. According to what several aldermen tell me, Mell has no intention of ever holding a hearing.
Thus, in the name of facilitating more aldermanic debate, the mayor's allies have ensured there will be none whatsoever.
Which leads me to ask this of Alderman Mell: Why are you pimping for Mayor Emanuel?
You were here long before he got here. You'll be here as long as you want, regardless of whether he's moved on to his next job or office. You don't need him to win reelection for yourself or your daughter, state rep Deb Mell.
What happened to the old Alderman Mell who stood on his desk and thundered against mayoral autocracy?
Different mayor, different Mell, I guess.
Still, all is not lost. It's possible to get a proposal out of the rules committee—it requires a simple majority. I asked Alderman Munoz if he and the other sponsors of the charter resolution had the 26 votes needed.
"I doubt it," he said.
But 33 aldermen signed on.
"Yes, but they won't all be there if the mayor goes against it."
I don't blame them. I don't know if I could withstand one of those infamous mayoral telephone calls, where he yells, drops a few F-bombs, and says mean things about my mama.
So there won't be any charter-moratorium resolution, freeing Mayor Emanuel to close more unionized schools and open more nonunion charters, thus making more teachers work longer for less.
All in the name of helping kids.
Don't count on Alderman Sawyer's privatization ordinance to surface either.
It would force the mayor to explain how such deals would affect outsourced city workers: Would they be making less money under the new contract? And, if so, how much overall savings would taxpayers reap?
With the information, aldermen would at least have a sense of whether they're guarding the public trust—or simply diverting money from working-class people who live in communities like Englewood and Woodlawn and sending it to gazillionaires around the world.
That's what the mayor effectively did last year when he outsourced the water department's customer-service operation to a company based in Japan.
I don't think even the late, great Boss Daley outsourced a contract all the way to Japan. Give Mayor Emanuel credit: he's a fast learner.Super Meat Boy changed EVERYTHING! The fast-paced, hyper challenging platforming genre will never be the same in a post Meat Boy world. They planted their flag firmly in the ground and claimed the land as their own. It follows, then, that every game in the genre must be measured and compared to their ruler. Fair? Maybe not, but that’s just the reality of it. Just like every military shooter will be measured against Call of Duty, so too will fast platformers have to vault the high bar set by the tiny cube of meat. Fenix Rage may not have surpassed that bar, but it’s on the podium.
In Fenix Rage you play as a tiny blue and yellow guy that looks like a little bit like Sonic the Hedgehog. I don’t mean to reduce every game to basic comparisons, but when a game is so clearly and heavily inspired by previous work, such comparisons are necessary. Basically, this game is Meat Boy. You have extremely tight controls as you move a little guy through multiple very difficult platforming stages. Death is extremely frequent, but upon dying you start your next run immediately, making death less a pain and more just an inevitability.
The similarities go on. There are optional objectives in each stage. In Fenix Rage they’re cookies instead of bandages, but the implementation is exactly the same. Each group of about 20 stages makes up a world. The stages in a world are tied together by a unique aesthetic to that world. Each world ends with a short, cute little cutscene before some form of boss fight to cap things off. Sound familiar? Sounds just like Super Meat Boy.
Now that I’ve put that out there I want to clarify something. Saying a game is just like Super Meat Boy is far from an insult. In fact it’s among the highest praise a game like this can get. There have been tons of games that have tried to emulate the fun, difficulty, and satisfaction of Meat Boy and failed. Fenix Rage bucks that trend and succeeds. If it came first we’d be talking about it with the same reverence, and saying it’s exactly the same is wholly unfair, because there are a host of differences which fundamentally change how you play.
The primary mechanic is the infinite jump. Think of it basically like a double-jump, but infinitely. Through a series of small hops chained together you can basically fly. Also, instead of a run button you have a short dash button, which you can also chain together to zip horizontally across an entire level without ever touching the ground. These mechanics make a meaningful difference. As opposed to the rhythmic running, jumping and wall-sliding of Meat Boy, the challenge in Fenix Rage comes from staying airborne and fitting into tight places with precision.
Interestingly enough, things got even more interesting when I got through the second world. During that world you’re introduced to portals similar to the ones in….well…..Portal. This adds difficulty to the platforming, but also turns some stages into almost a puzzle game. Figuring out where each portal goes and which ones you need to go through becomes a real challenge. The boss fight is really interesting in World 2 as well, as you actually have to go on the offensive and use your dash to “attack” a weak point on the enemy. This is entirely new for me in a game like this. As far as I can remember none of them ever asked you to go on the offensive.
At the end of it all, Fenix Rage is doomed to always be compared to Super Meat Boy, and it deserves to be. After borrowing so many of the core mechanics from Meat Boy the comparisons are warranted. So how does it stack up? Objectively, if both games came out at the same time I think they would almost be neck and neck. Obviously Fenix Rage loses some points for coming after, but if the worst thing you can say about a game is “Damn near as good as Meat Boy” then that’s very high praise. Additionally, the mechanics are different enough as to make a meaningful difference in how you have to approach the stages. Fenix Rage is a fantastic inspired speed-platformer, with just enough uniqueness to make it a definite play for fans of the genre.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
BRENDAN RODGERS has defended his decision not to start captain Steven Gerrard in the FA Cup tie against Oldham Athletic.
The England skipper began the fourth round tie on the substitutes’ bench as Luis Suarez wore the Reds armband for the first time since joining the club.
Rodgers made six changes from the side that thumped Norwich City in the Premier League the previous weekend but will have been confident the starting 11 had ample quality to see off the League One strugglers.
VIDEO: Reds reporter James Pearce on the Oldham defeat and Philippe Coutinho transfer
However, at 3-1 down just after half-time Rodgers was forced to call upon Gerrard to try and rescue the Reds from an embarrassing defeat.
The skipper was the driving force behind Liverpool’s improved performance in the second half and he came agonisingly close to making it 3-3 but saw his thunderous shot cannon back off the bar as Oldham survived to book a fifth round tie with Everton.
Rodgers insists he has few regrets over leaving Gerrard on the bench and says Liverpool cannot keep relying on the 32-year-old to dig them out of holes.
“Steven Gerrard has come on with Stewart Downing and for 35 minutes we were terrific but it was too late then,” he said.
“We were 3-1 down. It was not good enough.
“Its not complacency. I’ve got good lads here. It’s about strength in depth. We have not got enough depth here. We are trying to build a squad to compete.
“I can’t rely on Steven for 70 games (a season). He’s been incredible and you’ve seen him come on today. He shouldn’t be expected to have to come and win games on his own. He comes on and gives real impetus to the team.
“He gave real drive to the team.”Antarctic climate science is having a moment – a worrying moment. Three new studies have all concluded that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has begun to collapse. This collapse will impact humanity for generations to come, and the indications are that it is too late to stop it.
Satellite measurements compiled by UK researchers have shown that Antarctica is losing 160 billion tonnes of ice per year, mainly through thinning of West Antarctica’s ice sheets.
Meanwhile, a NASA-linked study has found that major West Antarctic glaciers have retreated by several kilometres over the past two decades, and researchers at the University of Washington found that one of these, the Thwaites Glacier, is set to collapse over the coming centuries, potentially triggering 3 metres of sea level rise.
The potential collapse of West Antarctica’s ice sheets is not just a problem for Antarctica. It will dramatically change coastlines all over the world.
The ‘climate gorilla’
Several years ago, at a science forum in Canberra, we were encouraged to imagine a “greenhouse future”. I identified the West Antarctic Ice Sheet as the 800-pound gorilla hiding in the climate closet. Why? The ends of many of the glaciers that drain this ice sheet are already significantly below sea level, and the ice sheet is not hemmed in by mountains, as Greenland’s ice sheets are.
The combination of rising sea level and the warming Southern Ocean will release the ice sheet from its grounding line – the NASA study has already found that the glaciers’ grounding lines are in rapid retreat. Without an anchor on land, the ice sheets’ collapse is inevitable and cannot be slowed.
The total collapse of the vulnerable parts of West Antarctica’s ice sheets would raise sea levels by at least 3 metres. The possibility of this happening has now moved from the hypothetical to an unfortunate reality. The best we can now hope for is that this collapse will be slow and stately, and take centuries to unfold.
If this is the case, then civilizations can probably adapt to the havoc this will cause to coastal communities. However, we have evidence from prehistoric warm periods that this could occur over decades. At this point we don’t know long it will take, but we do know that the climate forcing today is much stronger than at any time in over 50 million years.
Given we have made so little progress on limiting our global carbon emissions, the odds are that ice-sheet collapse will only accelerate. Those of us who study climate history are confident that once this sort of collapse begins, it will not stop.
The celebrated US climatologist Wally Broecker often talks about the idea that we are playing Russian Roulette with the climate. In West Antarctica, we have just loaded another barrel. With apologies to Clint Eastwood, are we feeling lucky?
If not, then we are witnessing the beginning of the destruction of trillions of dollars’ worth of coastal infrastructure.
Lighting the fuse
You can be sure that the insurance industry is paying attention. How long will it be before property less than 5 metres above sea level is uninsurable? I hope it is a long time, but we will all be watching very closely how fast the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse accelerates.
The US glaciologist Richard Alley told the New York Times that “if we have indeed lit the fuse on West Antarctica, it’s very hard to imagine putting the fuse out”.
Another way of putting it is that we appear to have crossed a tipping point. As Alley also pointed out, there are many other fuses that could be lit, and probably will be, if the collapse markedly accelerates - and these would add to the rate and magnitude of the sea level rise.
One of those potential fuses is the Totten Glacier, on the margin of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. In this area, a rift in the Antarctic crust allows sea water to extend hundreds of kilometres under the ice, literally undermining the ice.
I am involved with a joint Australian-American project that will investigate this area’s past and future vulnerability to rising seas and warmer waters.
While we scramble to work out what is happening to the frozen continent, the signs are that it is changing before our eyes, and changing rapidly.Ricardo Melchior could sing the praises of the magnificent beaches that bring five million tourists a year to his island. He could also praise the untouched nature in the national park around Mount Teide, an active volcano that once inspired the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. But the president of the Canary Island of Tenerife, who once studied engineering in the western German city of Aachen, really gets excited when it comes to what he sees as the transportation technology of the future.
Ironically the Transrapid, a high-speed monorail train dreamed up by German inventors more than 40 years ago, could experience a comeback on the Spanish vacation island off the coast of northern Africa. If Melchior has his way, work could begin next year on a planned 120-kilometer (75-mile) route that would connect the island capital Santa Cruz in the north with Costa Adeje in the south and Los Realejos in the northwest. The train, which uses magnetic levitation (maglev) technology, could then speed around the island at about 270 kilometers per hour (169 mph) -- without noise and partially powered by solar energy.
The Spanish politician is well aware that in Germany the Transrapid is seen as the Loch Ness monster of the German economy: often sighted by the media but never really materializing. It was supposed to be levitating through the Saudi Arabian desert by now and carrying pilgrims the 800 kilometers (500 miles) from Tehran to the holy Islamic city Mashhad in Iran. It was supposed to bring travelers from Hamburg to Berlin and from Munich's main train station to the city's airport. But with the exception of a short stretch near Shanghai, the Transrapid has consistently remained a ghost train.
Little Interest Among Manufacturers
In Tenerife, on the other hand, the maglev train is seen as a transportation system with a future, at least according to what Melchior was telling European Union transportation experts in Brussels last week. The Transrapid could be particularly advantageous on Tenerife's mountainous terrain, says Melchior, because it overcomes altitude differences more easily than conventional trains. While a third of the route for a normal train would have to consist of tunnels drilled through lava rock and brittle coarse gravel, a Transrapid line could be largely tunnel-free.
For this reason, the maglev train would cost only half as much as a conventional rail line, and it would be more appealing to tourists, a project study says. As the study's authors point out, a longer train ride through tunnels "wouldn't be much of an attraction."
The only problem is that the enthusiasm over the Transrapid is greater among the potential buyers than in Germany, where the train would be manufactured. While the German government is making every effort to support Operation Tenerife, the industry has lost interest in the Transrapid. After the Munich airport project was canceled in 2008, it now prefers to focus on the conventional railroad business.
German Transportation Minister Peter Ramsauer is furious. The German government invested 1.5 billion ($2.18 billion) in the development and testing of the future-oriented technology, the politician from the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, says heatedly. "Now it's up to the industry to market the technology," Ramsauer says. If the industry doesn't play along, says Ramsauer, the same thing could happen with the Transrapid that happened with computers and MP3 players. They too were invented in Germany, while the profits were eventually made elsewhere.
'No Immediate Prospects'
Ramsauer's frustrations were recently reinforced at a joint PR appearance with representatives of the German Transrapid industry in faraway Brazil, where a high-speed rail route has been put out for tender. His company "invented and developed" the maglev train "once upon a time," said Hans Christoph Atzpodien, a senior executive with Essen-based steelmaker ThyssenKrupp. But, he added, the train is currently "not a major interest" for the company.
The second Transrapid manufacturer, Siemens, is also showing little interest. Although there are "a few indications of possible routes inside and outside Europe," says Hans-Jörg Grundmann, head of the company's mobility division, "we do not see any immediate, realistic marketing prospects at this time."
Such lethargy infuriates Ramsauer, who already sees himself as a "Captain Future" of transportation policy. At his behest, Transportation Ministry deputy Rainer Bomba recently took Siemens executive board member Siegfried Russwurm to task, suggesting that the company could show a little more enthusiasm for the Tenerife project.
Privately, Bomba vented his displeasure over manufacturers dragging their feet, saying sarcastically, "The customer is threatening to make an order."
That could, in fact, happen soon. Melchior says that he already has funding commitments for a portion of the estimated 3 billion maglev route. He intends to tap into Europe's subsidy coffers and the wallets of private investors for the rest.
Melchior is also counting on the support of Chancellor Merkel. In a letter to the German leader, the island's president directed her attention to Tenerife's problems. He asked Merkel, who likes to vacation on the neighboring island of Gomera, to put in a good word with Siemens and ThyssenKrupp, so that his island railway could be built.Canada's contribution to the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS will continue to be "robust" and "helpful," says France's ambassador to Canada about the reassurances given to him as the Liberal government looks to retool its strategy in Iraq and Syria.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Tuesday that Canada will send more special forces members to Iraq to help train local soldiers to fight ISIS.
Canada has 69 Canadian special forces members there now training Kurdish forces and the Iraqi military.
France's ambassador to Canada, Nicolas Chapuis, said he's been assured that Canada will remain an ally in the fight against ISIS.
In an interview on CBC News Network's Power & Politics, Chapuis said he met with Canada's Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan on Tuesday.
Chapuis said Sajjan assured him that Canada would remain a part of the coalition against ISIS, even as the Liberal government looks to move ahead with its campaign promise to wind down the country's participation in airstrikes.
"He totally reassured me on the intent of the government of Canada that the contribution will be robust and will be helpful," Chapuis told host Rosemary Barton on Tuesday.
"We understand the cabinet's intent," said Chapuis "and we'll see when the decisions are taken, we'll see if it needs further consultation."
"It is in standing united that we will be victorious against this cancer," said the French ambassador in the wake of the attacks in Paris.
No change in Canada's terror threat level
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said he has been in "non-stop" contact with CSIS, Canada's main spy agency, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canada Border Services Agency since the attacks last Friday.
"We are making certain that the department and all of the affiliated agencies are doing everything possible to make sure Canadians are safe and, obviously, collaborating as well with our international partners to make sure that this is an effective global effort."
"When something like this happens in an allied country," Goodale said, "they redouble their efforts."
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale addresses security concerns over the government's plan to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the year 12:20
Goodale told Barton the country's main security agencies were monitoring the situation closely and so far had found no reason to raise Canada's terror threat level.
"They have not identified any event, activity or new development that would change the risk assessment or the threat assessment but we stay alert."
The Liberals have promised to repeal certain sections of Bill C-51, a controversial anti-terror bill passed into law by the previous government.
"This is a very troubling situation," he said, "and we want to be absolutely certain that we're doing everything that we can possibly do to keep Canadians safe and to do so in a way that respects Canadian values and the kind of country that we are."
Canada's contribution to the allied mission will be front and centre when Trudeau meets with U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday.The Colorado prosecution of a woman accused of a mortgage scam will test whether the government can punish you for refusing to disclose your encryption passphrase.
The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to order the defendant, Ramona Fricosu, to decrypt an encrypted laptop that police found in her bedroom during a raid of her home.
Because Fricosu has opposed the proposal, this could turn into a precedent-setting case. No U.S. appeals court appears to have ruled on whether such an order would be legal or not under the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment, which broadly protects Americans' right to remain silent.
In a brief filed last Friday, Fricosu's Colorado Springs-based attorney, Philip Dubois, said defendants can't be constitutionally obligated to help the government interpret their files. "If agents execute a search warrant and find, say, a diary handwritten in code, could the target be compelled to decode, i.e., decrypt, the diary?"
To the U.S. Justice Department, though, the requested court order represents a simple extension of prosecutors' long-standing ability to assemble information that could become evidence during a trial. The department claims:
Public interests will be harmed absent requiring defendants to make available unencrypted contents in circumstances like these. Failing to compel Ms. Fricosu amounts to a concession to her and potential criminals (be it in child exploitation, national security, terrorism, financial crimes or drug trafficking cases) that encrypting all inculpatory digital evidence will serve to defeat the efforts of law enforcement officers to obtain such evidence through judicially authorized search warrants, and thus make their prosecution impossible.
Prosecutors stressed that they don't actually require the passphrase itself, meaning Fricosu would be permitted to type it in and unlock the files without anyone looking over her shoulder. They say they want only the decrypted data and are not demanding "the password to the drive, either orally or in written form."
The question of whether a criminal defendant can be legally compelled to cough up his encryption passphrase remains an unsettled one, with law review articles for at least the last 15 years arguing the merits of either approach. (A U.S. Justice Department attorney wrote an article in 1996, for instance, titled "Compelled Production of Plaintext and Keys.")
Much of the discussion has been about what analogy comes closest. Prosecutors tend to view PGP passphrases as akin to someone possessing a key to a safe filled with incriminating documents. That person can, in general, be legally compelled to hand over the key. Other examples include the U.S. Supreme Court saying that defendants can be forced to provide fingerprints, blood samples, or voice recordings.
On the other hand are civil libertarians citing other Supreme Court cases that conclude Americans can't be forced to give "compelled testimonial communications" and extending the legal shield of the Fifth Amendment to encryption passphrases. Courts already have ruled that that such protection extends to the contents of a defendant's mind, so why shouldn't a passphrase be shielded as well?
In an amicus brief (PDF) filed on Friday, the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that the Justice Department's request be rejected because of Fricosu's Fifth Amendment rights. The Fifth Amendment says that "no person...shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."
"Decrypting the data on the laptop can be, in and of itself, a testimonial act--revealing control over a computer and the files on it," said EFF Senior staff attorney Marcia Hofmann. "Ordering the defendant to enter an encryption password puts her in the situation the Fifth Amendment was designed to prevent: having to choose between incriminating herself, lying under oath, or risking contempt of court."
The EFF says it's interested in this case because it wants to ensure that, as computers become more portable and encrypting data becomes more commonplace, passphrases and encrypted files receive full protection under the Fifth Amendment.
Because this involves a Fifth Amendment claim, Colorado prosecutors took the unusual step of seeking approval from headquarters in Washington, D.C.: On May 5, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer sent a letter to John Walsh, the U.S. Attorney for Colorado, saying "I hereby approve your request."
While the U.S. Supreme Court has not confronted the topic, a handful of lower courts have.
In March 2010, a federal judge in Michigan ruled that Thomas Kirschner, facing charges of receiving child pornography, would not have to give up his password. That's "protecting his invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege against compelled self-incrimination," the court ruled (PDF).
A year earlier, a Vermont federal judge concluded that Sebastien Boucher, who a border guard claims had child porn on his Alienware laptop, did not have a Fifth Amendment right to keep the files encrypted. Boucher eventually complied and was convicted.
One argument published in the University of Chicago Legal Forum in 1996--constitutional arguments among legal academics have long preceded actual prosecutions--says:
The courts likely will find that compelling someone to reveal the steps necessary to decrypt a PGP-encrypted document violates the Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination. Because most users protect their private keys by memorizing passwords to them and not writing them down, access to encrypted documents would almost definitely require an individual to disclose the contents of his mind. This bars the state from compelling its production. This would force law enforcement officials to grant some form of immunity to the owners of these documents to gain access to them.
Translation: One way around the Fifth Amendment is for prosecutors to offer a defendant, in this case Fricosu, immunity for what they say. But it appears as though they've stopped far short of granting her full immunity for whatever appears on the hard drive (which may not, of course, even be hers).
Fricosu was born in 1974 and living in Peyton, Colo., as of last fall. She was charged with bank fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering as part of an alleged attempt to use fals |
production with research and tips that prove how DIY video production can actually be the edge you need in building a relationship with your audience.
We’ll take a look at what the latest research says about why you should be making DIY video, and we’ll look at a case study of a DIY ethics course created using Soapbox, a simple and free video creation tool.
By the end of this article, you’ll have all the tools and knowledge you need to take full advantage of DIY video.
Myth 1: Professional videos are more trustworthy
It’s natural to think that high-quality video production equates to higher customer trust.
Think again.
The key to facilitating trust is getting others to empathize with you, and the key to creating empathy is taking advantage of neurological pathways that are much more receptive to DIY video than to professionally polished video.
Here’s that bit of neuroscience you may not know: your brain contains mirror neurons, which fire when you perform a certain action, and when you see others perform that same action.
This means that watching someone discuss a topic in a video can put you in their shoes on a deep psychological level. And here’s the trick: watching someone who looks less professional and more authentic will put you in their shoes more — not less.
The result: your audience will trust DIY videos more than professional videos.
To see this in action, take a look at this video from a course on consequentialist ethics:
Because of the DIY quality, this video feels more authentic, and less scripted.
It feels more approachable, like you’re in a living room with a friend, not a classroom with an impersonal lecturer.
You also don’t get the sense that you’re being “pitched” by a slick-sounding salesman. Rather, you feel as if the creator is speaking directly to you, in a conversational tone.
And the best part?
The “person-to-person” conversation style gets those mirror neurons firing more than a professionally produced video, which, as you know, will help you build a deep connection with your audience.
Myth 2: My audience relates better to professional videos
You might think that it’s easier to connect with your audience if your video is extremely professional and polished.
“After all,” you may say, “poor production quality distracts viewers from me and my content.”
But, according to a study from Harvard, your audience may actually relate better to you through a personal, DIY-quality video versus an anonymous, professional-quality video.
A Harvardx/MITx study recorded the behavior of students in a large, open online course during the second year of the school’s program.
The results? 50% of the students stopped participating in the course during its very first week.
The study found that the student drop-off could be attributed to the style of the online course program: the lectures were huge, impersonal, and made it difficult to engage with the instructor.
That’s why it’s so important to use tools like video to connect with your audience. The more DIY it looks, the more your audience will feel like they know you personally.
Take a look at this video from a course on non-consequentialist ethics, and see how the creator makes a connection with you:
Notice how the creator shares a personal anecdote during the lesson — this humanizes him in a way that takes full advantage of the DIY video format.
Once the audience learns about the creator’s history with ethics, he seems more authentic and less like a textbook or generic lecturer.
(And let’s be real: when the content is as challenging as Kant, it’s really important that the creator connects with his audience 😉.)
Myth 3: Professional videos reinforce your expertise
You might have thought that a DIY video would dilute your professionalism and perceived expertise because it doesn’t look professionally-produced.
But in reality, this, too, is a myth.
In fact, making a DIY video can make you seem like more of a subject-matter expert to your audience.
It turns out that in some situations, when you tell people negative information about something, you end up making whatever positive information they have about that thing seem even more positive.
In 2012, two Stanford Business School professors published a paper about what they call “the blemishing effect.” They conducted experiments in which they presented positive and negative information about hiking boots, chocolate, and champagne glasses to participants.
They discovered that some negative information can make you feel better about a product than when you only hear positive information about that same product.
For example, imagine two situations. In the first situation, you’re told about a hiking boot that’s supportive, lightweight, and durable. In the second situation, you’re told about a hiking boot that’s equally supportive, lightweight and durable; however, you’re also told that its outer shell is dented from the production process.
As counterintuitive as it sounds, the blemishing effect predicts that you’ll actually be more attracted to the second boot—the one for which you have negative information that doesn’t impact its key function (hiking).
What does this mean for you? It may sound crazy, but have DIY-quality video can actually make you seem like more of an expert than professional video would.
The lower production quality of DIY video—the “negative information” for the blemishing effect—highlights your actual content—the “positive information”—making it seem even better and more expert in quality. The DIY quality is like the dents in the hiking boot: even though it’s negative information, it doesn’t actually impact the key function of the video: communicating your content to your audience.
For an example of what this looks like, check out this video from a course on virtue ethics, where the creator uses video games to teach about moral dilemmas.
The DIY quality of this video makes the audience more excited to explore the unusual connection the creator makes between philosophy and video games. The blemishing effect highlights the value of this connection, making it seem even more insightful.
Notice how organic it feels when the creator switches between recording himself and recording game footage. These transitions split the attention of the audience between the creator and his screen, augmenting the impact of the blemishing effect.
Ultimately, the creator uses DIY video to emphasize his expertise, rather than focusing on video quality. This encourages the students to stay engaged and click the link at the end of the video to continue the lesson.
Ready to bust some video myths?
Bust out some knowledge and turn on that webcam! The biggest “reasons” to avoid making DIY videos aren’t reasons at all: they’re myths.
Once you see that DIY video will actually help your brand and audience relationship, rather than hurting it, you should have the confidence to face the webcam with a smile.
Afraid your first video won’t be awesome? Don’t worry: we know that’s just a myth, too!Finnish penitentiary authorities are alarmed by the rising numbers of supporters of radical Islam among the country's convicts. Whereas the percentage of extremists peak amongst newcomers, there is a growing number of Finnish citizens who have become radicalized "on home turf."
Dozens of radically-minded Islamists have been identified among inmates who currently serve sentences in Finnish prisons. Additionally, radical Islam was found to be propagated among Finnish convicts. The Finnish authorities are all the more concerned by this unpleasant disclosure given the fact that perpetrators in the recent wave of terrorist attacks in European cities did not remain unfamiliar with the European prison system.
Even if the number of active Islamist extremists in Finland has so far remained relatively modest, warning bells are ringing for Finnish prison officials, as some prisoners openly celebrated terrorist attacks in Europe, Finnish national broadcaster Yle reported.
In Finnish prisons, preventive measures are carried out to identify supporters of radical Islam, as well as people adhering to extreme right-wing and left-wing views. According to prison officials, though, ultra-right activists, are, for example, much easier to spot and trace than the Islamists, because the authorities already know their ways.
Furthermore, a survey performed by a prison in the Finnish city of Vantaa found that radical Islam is not associated with any particular nationality, which impedes prevention efforts. All the hitherto identified extremists have in common is sex: all of them are men. The majority of them have an immigrant background, but some were found to have converted to Islam in Finland.
© Photo : Pixabay Bahrain-Funded Mosque in Helsinki to Spur Friction Among Finnish Muslims
According to Vantaa Prison Deputy Director Jaakko Jokinen, prison officials reportedly detected prisoners' contacts with outside Islamist networks, of which the authorities have been informed. Additionally, the authorities are concerned over prisoners of immigrant background merging with Finnish organized crime, in particular international smuggling networks that deal in drugs to support terrorism.
Since the proportion of Muslims in Finnish prisons has risen in recent years, cooperation with local Imams may become crucial for guaranteeing inmates' right to practice their religion, while at the same time reinstating moderate beliefs and combatting extremism, Jokinen argued.
In August 2016, Vantaa prison launched a project to prevent radicalization and violent extremism that is expected to run until the summer of 2017. The exact extent of the project has not been revealed for safety reasons. In the project, Finnish prison authorities are working together with customs, police, border guards and immigration authorities to identify individuals at risk among prisoners and target them with appropriate measures at the right time. At present, Vantaa Prison has about 250 inmates, of whom about half are of foreign origin and represent 15 different nationalities.
Never miss a story again — sign up to our Telegram channel and we'll keep you up to speed!Previous Set Reviews
Limited
White | Blue | Black | Red | Green
Constructed
White | Blue | Red | Black | Green| Gold & Colorless
Battle for Zendikar Set Review and Set Redo
Many of the colorless cards in the set are the opposite of what we’re used to. Instead of being easy to cast, and playable in any deck, they require a new color of sorts, and you have to go out of your way to make them castable. That makes rating them a bit tricky, as they tend to be very powerful if you can cast them, which isn’t a given. I’m going to operate under the following assumptions:
1) Getting 3-4 colorless sources is doable most of the time. Between Wastes, Scion-making, the other commons that make <>, and BFZ colorless lands, this seems fair. This is the lens through which I’m rating most of these cards. If I think they require more than this, I’ll mention it.
2) Getting 5+ colorless sources requires more of a sacrifice, and won’t always happen even if it’s your goal. You may need to take Wastes over good commons, and this means you are giving up real card quality to hit this benchmark. This also means your deck has worse mana when it comes to colored spells, and is either mono-color with a splash or light on two colors.
3) <><> cards or activations are very difficult, based on the first two points.
Colorless
Deceiver of Form
Limited: 3.5
On raw stats, this isn’t bad. 8/8 is no joke, and costing 7 makes the <> less of an issue (since you have ample time to find a source). The ability is quite strong too, because it does a few things:
• It’s active right away. Play this precombat, and you get to take a shot immediately.
• It can lead to huge swings. Turning your whole team into a 3/2 flier or a 4/4 trampler can lead to a great combat step.
• It gives you card selection, essentially scrying 1 every turn. That’s a very relevant and easy to overlook part of the card.
You want a creature-heavy deck to maximize this, and it would be good form to aim for 4+ colorless sources if possible.
Eldrazi Mimic
Limited: 3.0
While this may be most interesting in Constructed, it’s still a nice addition to almost any Limited deck. Most colorless creatures are going to be reasonably larger, and if you have even a couple big ones, this is a 2/1 for 2 with a good upside, while being very easy to cast. Have I mentioned that I like 2-drops that are good in the late game yet?
Endbringer
Limited: 3.5
I think you’re going to end up taking this over all but the best uncommons. It’s worth the strain it puts on your mana, because a 5/5 double-pinger that also is a pseudo-tapper is very powerful. The card draw ability is a little harder to get to, but if you are restricted to just the first two abilities, this is still very good.
Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Limited: 3.5/1.0
The advantages of Kozilek are many: he’s gigantic, he draws you four or five cards (or more), and his counterspell ability is exactly what you want with a full hand. His drawback is that he requires <><> to cast, which is no small feat. That is mitigated by him requiring 10 mana total, which usually means you are getting help from various colorless sources like Kozilek’s Translator, Channeler, or Scions anyway. Ulamog ended up being a little more powerful than I thought, and I have hope that Kozilek will land in much the same place. Having a 10-drop be an early build-around is really fun, and even if Kozilek won’t always be playable, in a deck suited for him he becomes a legit bomb.
At the beginning of the format, I would take Kozilek over common removal spells or that sort of thing. The two most likely places he lands are either as a legit first pick that is worth the deckbuilding costs or a card you pick up later once you have some of the support in place, and the ratings reflect that. I’m a firm advocate of taking rares early on, as you have so many fewer opportunities to learn how good they are than you do with a random common. Also, he has “great” in the name, so…
Kozilek’s Pathfinder
Limited: 1.5
In a deck with a few sources of colorless, you’ll include this around half the time. It’s even playable without the ability, if you really need a high-drop creature. It’s worth noting that this isn’t “gains unblockable,” and if you only have <> available, this may not be able to clear a path.
Matter Reshaper
Limited: 3.0
It’s a shame that some of the strength of this card is tied up in casting it on turn 3, which isn’t very easy. No matter though, as this is decent on any turn. When it dies, you draw a card, and a good percentage of the time you get to play it for free. That’s a great ability, and one worth “splashing” for. Also keep in mind that this is one of the cards that rewards you for playing 7+ sources of colorless, as rare as that may be.
Reality Smasher
Limited: 3.5
Ground Rorix is back, and ready to smash. Ideally you have enough colorless to jam this on turn 5 (or 4, if you’re very lucky), but this holds up even if you have to wait a little longer than that. It’s giant, it’s hasty, and it punishes the opponent for daring to target it. I preemptively feel bad for the people who try and kill this with their last card in hand, as they are in for a sharp dose of reality.
Spatial Contortion
Limited: 2.0
Lightning Strike is good, and occasionally splashable, but not something I’m going out of my way for. This is medium at the 3-4 <> level, and starts getting good once you have 5-7 sources. Past that it just becomes great, though you shouldn’t contort your mana base without having more incentives (like Kozilek).
Thought-Knot Seer
Limited: 3.5
Along with being one of the most impactful cards in the set for Constructed, Thought-Knot Seer is a house in Limited. It’s large and efficient, even later in the game, and taking your opponent’s best card is worth the drawback of maybe giving them a card back. It is unfortunate that this draws the opponent a card when bounced, but presumably you play it again and take that card back. In the super late game, the opponent might be on zero cards, and this does get pretty bad. If the opponent has no cards, consider holding this until they have some, or even not playing it at all. This is also another example of a card that really pays you off for having 5-7 sources, and if you get 3-4 cards like that, it starts becoming worth it to go hard on picking up colorless enablers.
Walker of the Wastes
Limited: 1.5/3.0
The value of this varies wildly even in a colorless deck, as it looks specifically for Wastes. If you have 4-5 Wastes in your deck, this is decent, and at 6+, I’m very interested. It’s still a couple levels deep in terms of deckbuilding, so I’m not looking to take this early.
Warden of Geometries
Limited: 3.0
Strange name, solid card. There are two reasons to want this in your deck: you have a use for <> or you want to get to 6+ mana. Those reasons often overlap, and you end up in one or the other often enough that I’d be fine picking this up early in the draft. The power level isn’t super high, so I’m talking picks 4-6 or so, but you’ll be happy to have access to this card.
Warping Wail
Limited: 1.5
It’s rare, or at least uncommon, that a card that’s great in Constructed loses a lot of value in Limited. I believe this falls into that category, because I don’t like splashing a card that deals with small creatures, gives you Scions, or counters a specific card type. This does look legitimately awesome in Constructed, but don’t let that warp your judgement when it comes to how good it will actually be in 40-card formats. Once you have 7+ colorless sources, this becomes playable early enough to be interesting, but until then I’d avoid it.
Artifacts
Bone Saw
Limited: 0.0
Bone Saw is ready. So many people are going to play this card to enable surge, and when their 3/3 flier gets dealt with and their hand is empty, will wonder what went wrong. I will admit that 0.0 is a slight exaggeration, because of cards like Crush of Tentacles, but I’d rather not play Bone Saw under almost any circumstances. It just isn’t worth a card to get a 1-3 mana discount on a spell, even if you can tell me about a really sick turn you had.
Captain’s Claws
Limited: 1.5
I’d like this a lot more if the Kor token it makes didn’t enter tapped and attacking. The opponent can just leave a 2/2 back and kill the token immediately, turning Captain’s Claws into my favorite card, Bone Saw. This does snowball rapidly if the opponent doesn’t have a blocker, so a low-curve aggro deck with some removal could make use of it, but it seems poor outside that specific scenario.
Chitinous Cloak
Limited: 1.0
3 to cast and 3 to equip is too much, especially given the keyword this grants. +2/+2 is nice, but menace in the late game isn’t too hot, and getting the equipped creature bounced or killed is way too risky.
Hedron Crawler
Limited: 3.0
Colorless decks really want this, and it’s fine even in non-colorless builds. Taking Crawler is a great way to position yourself to draft colorless while not committing, and I like that. The abundance of mana accelerators makes me want to play 7+ drops even more than I normally do.
Seer’s Lantern
Limited: 2.0
This one is a little weaker, and I can shine a light on why: 3 is a way worse place for an accelerator than 2, and drawing multiple 3-drop accelerators is a clunkiness overload. I do like that this gives you value even in the late game when mana sources do nothing. Seer’s Lantern is a good card if you care about colorless, and mediocre when you don’t.
Stoneforge Masterwork
Limited: 3.0
Allies, ship it. I suppose you could assemble some other combination of creature types, but Allies is the most logical, and this looks like a potent threat in a W/X deck.
Strider Harness
Limited: 0.0
It would take a lot of equipment-matters cards before I would consider playing this, and even then I wouldn’t go much further than the consideration step (a precursor to the rejection step). It just isn’t worth the mana you pay, and haste + an equip cost is a not a good combo.
Lands
Cinder Barrens, Meandering River, Submerged Boneyard, Timber Gorge, Tranquil Expanse
Limited: 3.0
In a 2-color deck, these are solid playables, and get a little better if you are trying to play colorless cards (as they reduce the impact of Wastes on your mana base). They also enable splashes, and are all-around good picks—on par with most decent playables.
Corrupted Crossroads
Limited: 3.0
Casting both colorless and devoid cards that require colors is a powerful ability, and one worth prioritizing once you are in the deck. This rating reflects how good this is while you are in the deck, not how good this is as a first pick, and I would advise against taking the Crossroads before you have good colorless incentives.
Crumbling Vestige
Limited: 3.0
I suspect this will be a surprisingly tricky land to play. It doesn’t enter tapped in the traditional sense, as it provides mana immediately, so when to play it won’t be immediately obvious. If you are missing a color, waiting makes sense, but if you need colorless, you want to have played it earlier. Keep that in mind when deciding when to run this out.
As for the effect, it’s a good one. This lets you add colorless sources while not completely cutting colored ones, and will help mitigate the mana problems inherent in the format.
Hissing Quagmire
Limited: 3.5
A 2/2 deathtouch is an awesome creature, and a land that fixes your mana and trades for something big is a high pick indeed.
Holdout Settlement
Limited: 3.0
This is another land that provides colored and colorless, and as such will help you build a more robust mana base.
Mirrorpool
Limited: 4.0
I really like lands that count as spells, and for all the years I’ve been saying that, this may be the most accurate it’s ever been. Mirrorpool helps you cast colorless cards and hangs out until you have a good card to copy, making it an exceedingly powerful card. It costs very little and adds a ton of power to your deck, which is exactly what I look for.
Needle Spires
Limited: 3.5
A 2/1 double strike can bring the beats and keep back attackers, all while making your mana smoother. Did I mention I like cards like this?
Ruins of Oran-Rief
Limited: 4.0
A land that doubles as a Glorious Anthem is very strong, and makes waiting an extra turn on your creatures well worth it. I’d be glad to take this early and go into colorless, as there’s no shortage of cards this works with.
Sea Gate Wreckage
Limited: 3.5
It’s difficult to actually get to zero cards in hand in Limited, though you do start wrecking your opponent if you do. It may seem like I’m rating all these lands very highly, but that’s because of how absurdly good it is to get bonus effects from a card that already provides a necessary resource. I’m assuming all the colorless lands help you cast specific spells, and the additional abilities, like this one, are significant power for no cost.
Unknown Shores
Limited: 3.0
Still better than Wastes. I’d always run this in a colorless deck, but would not in a normal deck. Paying an additional mana to get the right color isn’t worth it, and this is a way worse deal than Evolving Wilds if you don’t need the colorless aspect.
Wandering Fumarole
Limited: 3.5
Let’s confuse the opponent with a 1/4 // 4/1, shall we?
Wastes
Limited: 3.0
How good this card is happens to be one of the bigger questions in the format. Assuming that you are drafting the colorless deck, Wastes looks like a solid 5th-7th pick. It’s on par or better than a lot of the average commons, and the later the draft goes, the more critical picking up Wastes becomes. I wouldn’t start by taking Wastes, I’d start with the good incentives, and I’d try to figure out how deep I wanted to go. In the 2-3 source deck, you only need a few Wastes, and sometimes can get away with zero if you have enough other fixers. In the all-in deck, Wastes are something you’ll just keep taking, and are worth going after aggressively.
Overall I’d put Wastes in the middle of the pack, once you have a couple colorless cards, and I’d be prepared to adjust their value upward or downward based on your predictions for how colorless your deck will end up.
Multicolored
For multicolored cards, I’m rating them as if you are in those two colors. Otherwise, they’d all pay a huge price due to the risk you take when first picking them. You should factor that in, though enough of these are awesome that you would likely take them first anyway.
Flayer Drone
Limited: 3.5
This is exactly what black/red devoid aggro wants. It smashes without fear, blocks well, and even pings the opponent frequently.
Mindmelter
Limited: 3.5
A 2/2 unblockable for 3 is already a pretty sweet deal. This chips in for damage every turn, and if you ever have spare mana around, can mess with the opponent’s hand. It even synergizes nicely with any Processors you may have.
Void Grafter
Limited: 3.5
It’s very easy to get an extra card off this, as Void Grafter can ambush both creatures and removal spells. You can even leave mana up for it and run it out end of turn if the opponent doesn’t bite, and none of these scenarios are bad. It’s pretty hard to avoid getting wrecked by this, even if you know the opponent has one in their deck.
Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
Limited: 4.0
Ayli may not look imposing, but she’s incredible. A 2/3 deathtouch runs the streets until turn 5 or 6, and even later can trade for anything. The ability to eat creatures means that you are very hard to kill, and she can eventually start killing the opponent’s permanents if you gain enough life. All of this together makes a very powerful card, and 2 mana is a small price to pay.
Baloth Null(drifter)
Limited: 4.0
There are two things I must do with this card: call it a Nulldrifter, and select it out of booster packs. It’s a 3-for-1, and you don’t even pay a huge tempo loss for all those extra cards. Yes, it requires some creatures dying, and yes, it costs 6, but casting this and getting back two creatures seems patently absurd. It’s even easily splashable, and highly rewards you for doing so!
Cliffhaven Vampire
Limited: 3.5
Not every BW deck will have ways to gain life, but all of them want a 2/4 flier for 4. Cliffhaven Vampire doesn’t need to do much besides hang out and look imposing, and he does that quite well.
Joraga Auxiliary
Limited: 3.0
I guess this is the auxiliary because it’s not quite as good as the first-string gold cards. A 2/3 for 3 isn’t spectacular and the 6 mana ability isn’t either, making this decent early and decent late. That’s fine, but I expect more from most gold cards (though I’m not cutting this from a GW deck either).
Jori En, Ruin Diver
Limited: 3.5
Jori is a dangerous card, and your opponent is likely to try and kill her even if you don’t have many ways to string spells together. It’s not that hard to play two in a turn, and even drawing one card makes her worth it.
Mina and Denn, Wildborn
Limited: 4.0
A 4-mana 4/4 is already good, and this accelerates you a turn even if it dies immediately. Add that to the ability to grant trample and permanently enable landfall and you have a winner. Or two. Whatever, I hate multiple-persona cards.
Reflector Mage
Limited: 3.5
This is the Roil Spout of Oath, even if it isn’t quite as soul-crushing. Reflector Mage gives you a significant tempo advantage, and sometimes wastes multiple of your opponent’s turns. If you bounce a 6-drop and they have nothing else to do, they should just concede and save everyone the time. Even bouncing a smaller creature is great, and paying only 3 mana for this feels absolutely filthy.
Relentless Hunter
Limited: 3.0
Here’s another example of a card you’ll play if you are these colors, but won’t go out of your way to pick up. A 4/4 trampler (or greater) is a good threat, but nothing insane.
Stormchaser Mage
Limited: 2.5
Stormchaser Mage almost won the “worst gold card” award, but is saved by our last entrant. This is a fine card if you have a bunch of spells, but the fact that some UR decks might not play this makes it a poor early pick indeed.
Weapons Trainer
Limited: 2.5
While this gets the same rating as Stormchaser Mage, I think it’s a touch worse because of how infrequently it does anything besides be a 3/2 for 2. At least Stormchaser has a high top-end, whereas Weapons Trainer makes you play bad equipment for a marginal effect.
Top 10 Commons
10. Maw of Kozilek
9. Jwar Isle Avenger
8. Hedron Crawler
7. Kozilek’s Translator
6. Sweep Away
5. Cultivator Drone
4. Blinding Drone
3. Boulder Salvo
2. Isolation Zone
1. Oblivion Strike
First of all, let me head off any comments about how this order isn’t consistent with my previous ones. It isn’t consistent, but I’m using the most up-to-date information I have, which includes having done the Limited Resources Set Review, and thought about the cards more. In particular, I like the colorless cards more and Jwar Isle Avenger less, though the rest isn’t that different.
Blue gets the lion’s (sphinx’s) share of good commons, no matter where you put Jwar Isle Avenger. Red, black, and white each have a premium removal spell, but past that, blue has a ton of very solid cards. Green is notably absent, and honestly it looks like green is just going to have to sit out until this whole block rotates.
Top 10 Uncommons
10. Flayer Drone
9. Mindmelter
8. Embodiment of Fury
7. Relief Captain
6. Void Grafter
5. Roiling Waters
4. Grasp of Darkness
3. Reflector Mage
2. Baloth Null
1. Seed Guardian
In a twist of fate, green gets the best two uncommons, and has another entry on the list, yet is still the worst color. In practice, that makes Seed Guardian a lower pick than many cards on this list, though I do think in power level it is the best. A 3/4 reach that dies into a potentially-giant Elemental is very good, and offers card advantage, mana advantage, and all without any setup or deckbuilding costs.
Color Power Rankings
6. Green
5. White
4. Colorless
3. Red
2. Black
1. Blue
This isn’t even a joke—colorless cards are a real color in terms of mana base, and they look better than white does. Green is last by a country mile, mainly because of low card quality and lack of powerful synergy.
Blue looks very strong, and well-poised to take advantage of colorless, with multiple commons that reward you for being there and help you get there. Black and red have good removal and good beatdowns respectively, though I’m not sure exactly what black’s niche is going to be. White could exceed my expectations, but my overall lack of faith in Allies leads me to put it low in the rankings.
So far I like what I’m seeing. Figuring out colorless is the kind of puzzle I like to solve, and there are a few other themes going on too. I do predict that Oath is much less synergistic than BFZ, which makes me sad, but there are enough interesting new cards here to keep me occupied for a while.
The week of the new set is my longest week by far, but once again, I’ve made it, somehow.
Good luck at all the prereleases this weekend!A month after the MAX Orange Line opened to commuters, would-be riders say the 719 park-and-ride spots built along the project are packed, and cars are spilling over into nearby neighborhoods.
TriMet built two new park-and-rides as part of the $1.5 billion light-rail project, one at its SE Park Avenue terminus and one at its S.E. Tacoma Street/Johnson Creek Station.
But on weekdays, both are reportedly full as early as 8:30 a.m.
"I just love the Orange Line, and I just hate the fact that there's this limiting factor now," said Greg Parker, a member of the Canby City Council who was turned away at both garages earlier this month. "Now what this means is I can't use it during the week."
Parker, who hoped to go for a bike ride, said he gave up and went home. But some Orange Line commuters are reportedly finding spots on side streets, some legal and some not so much.
TriMet officials said they originally planned to have double the number of park-and-ride space, but they were counting on the Federal Transit Administration to pick up 60 percent of the bill for the project. The agency ultimately only paid for half of the project's cost, and the park-and-ride facilities were chopped.
"We did expect both new Orange Line Park & Rides to fill up quickly because they are smaller than we had originally intended," spokeswoman Mary Fetsch said in an email.
The Tacoma Street park-and-ride, built as a surface lot, was originally planned as a, 800-space garage. And the 400-space Park Avenue garage was supposed to have 600 spaces. (It was built so additional floors could be added later on, but there's no immediate plans or funding set aside for the work.)
The Clackamas County Sheriff's Office said it's dispatched more deputies to the neighborhood to cite drivers who block driveways, mailboxes and fire hydrants. It said some have written as many as 10 tickets on a single street.
Neighbors, meanwhile, have taken to hand-written notes left on cars and in font of driveways imploring parkers to stay out of the way.
One sign photographed by the sheriff's office and accented with colorful, polka-dotted tape and a bright orange bucket, warned, "Do not park in front of mailbox!" adding, "You will get a ticket. Thank you." That day, it appeared to have worked.
-- Elliot Njus
enjus@oregonian.com
503-294-5034
@enjusApple introduced a vision for a future version of their Magic Mouse back in 2010 that was the most descriptive patent filing on this subject matter. It described and illustrated how the next generation Magic Mouse would be able to sense a plurality of forces and applied velocities. It went into great detail about advanced gesture profiles for new "brush, scoop, tilt, and slide" capabilities. In 2013 Apple was granted their first patent on force sensing related to the Magic Mouse. Today, Apple has applied for a second patent on this future feature with refinements. In one example of using this future version of their Magic Mouse, Apple notes that "the amount of force may correspond to a height that a character in a video game is instructed to jump." Apple also envisions force sensing capabilities in a future Magic Mouse could apply to very sophisticated custom applications such as flight simulator and beyond.
Future Magic Mouse with Force Sensing Feature
One of Apple's latest invention generally relates to systems and methods for providing force sensing input devices. A force sensing input device (such as a force sensing mouse) may include at least one force sensor and at least one top portion movably connected (such as pivotally and/or otherwise rotatably connected via one or more pivot, one or more ball joint elements, and/or other such pivotal connection elements) to at least one bottom portion. When a force is applied to the top portion, the top portion may exert pressure on the force sensor. The force sensor may obtain force data based upon the pressure. The amount of force applied to the top portion, within a range of force amounts, may be determined from at least the force data (such as by the force sensing input device or by an electronic device to which the force sensing input device transmits the force data).
In this way, a broader range of inputs may be receivable from the force sensing input device as compared to input devices that merely detect whether or not a button or similar element has been pushed.
In some implementations, the force data and/or the determined amount of force may be scaled based on a detected location where the force is applied. In some cases of such implementations, the top portion may be a touch sensitive surface, such as a capac |
wealth was not a worthy goal for Christians.
Clement of Alexandria counselled that property be used for the good of the community, he sanctioned private ownership of property and the accumulation of wealth.[20] Lactantius wrote that "the ownership of property contains the material of both vices and virtues but communism [communitas] contains nothing but license for vice."[19]
Medieval Europe [ edit ]
By the beginning of the medieval era, the Christian paternalist ethic was "thoroughly entrenched in the culture of Western Europe." Individualist and materialist pursuits such as greed, avarice, and the accumulation of wealth were condemned as un-Christian.[21]
Madeleine Gray describes the medieval system of social welfare as one that was "organized through the church and underpinned by ideas on the spiritual value of poverty.[22]
According to Kahan, Christian theologians regularly condemned merchants. For example, he cites Honorius of Autun who wrote that merchants had little chance of going to heaven whereas farmers were likely to be saved. He further cites Gratian who wrote that "the man who buys something in order that he may gain by selling it again unchanged and as he bought it, that man is of the buyers and sellers who are cast forth from God's temple."[23]
However, the medieval era saw a change in the attitudes of Christians towards the accumulation of wealth. Thomas Aquinas defined avarice not simply as a desire for wealth but as an immoderate desire for wealth. Aquinas wrote that it was acceptable to have "external riches" to the extent that they were necessary for him to maintain his "condition of life". This argued that the nobility had a right to more wealth than the peasantry. What was unacceptable was for a person to seek to more wealth than was appropriate to one's station or aspire to a higher station in life.[15] The period saw fierce debates on whether Christ owned property.
The church evolved into the single most powerful institution in medieval Europe, more powerful than any single potentate. The Church was so wealthy that, at one time, it owned as much as 20–30% of the land in Western Europe in an era when land was the primary form of wealth. Over time, this wealth and power led to abuses and corruption.[citation needed]
Monasticism [ edit ]
As early as the 6th and 7th centuries, the issue of property and move of wealth in the event of outside aggression had been addressed in monastic communities via agreements such as the Consensoria Monachorum.[24][25] By the eleventh century, Benedictine monasteries had become wealthy, owing to the generous donations of monarchs and nobility. Abbots of the larger monasteries achieved international prominence. In reaction to this wealth and power, a reform movement arose which sought a simpler, more austere monastic life in which monks worked with their hands rather than acting as landlords over serfs.[26]
At the beginning of the 13th century, mendicant orders such as the Dominicans and the Franciscans departed from the practice of existing religious orders by taking vows of extreme poverty and maintaining an active presence preaching and serving the community rather than withdrawing into monasteries. Francis of Assisi viewed poverty as a key element of the imitation of Christ who was "poor at birth in the manger, poor as he lived in the world, and naked as he died on the cross".[27]
The visible public commitment of the Franciscans to poverty provided to the laity a sharp contrast to the wealth and power of the Church, provoking "awkward questions".[28]
Early attempts at reform [ edit ]
Widespread corruption led to calls for reform which called into question the interdependent relationship of church and state power.[29] Reformers sharply criticized the lavish wealth of churches and the mercenary behavior of the clergy.[30] For example, reformer Peter Damian labored to remind the church hierarchy and the laity that love of money was the root of much evil.
Usury [ edit ]
Usury originally was the charging of interest on loans; this included charging a fee for the use of money, such as at a bureau de change. In places where interest became acceptable, usury was interest above the rate allowed by law. Today, usury commonly is the charging of unreasonable or relatively high rates of interest.
The first of the scholastics, Saint Anselm of Canterbury, led the shift in thought that labeled charging interest the same as theft. Previously usury had been seen as a lack of charity.
St. Thomas Aquinas, the leading theologian of the Catholic Church, argued charging of interest is wrong because it amounts to "double charging", charging for both the thing and the use of the thing.
This did not, as some think, prevent investment. What it stipulated was that in order for the investor to share in the profit he must share the risk. In short he must be a joint-venturer. Simply to invest the money and expect it to be returned regardless of the success of the venture was to make money simply by having money and not by taking any risk or by doing any work or by any effort or sacrifice at all. This is usury. St Thomas quotes Aristotle as saying that "to live by usury is exceedingly unnatural". St Thomas allows, however, charges for actual services provided. Thus a banker or credit-lender could charge for such actual work or effort as he did carry out e.g. any fair administrative charges.[citation needed]
Reformation [ edit ]
The rising capitalistic middle class resented the drain of their wealth to the church; in northern Europe, they supported local reformers against the corruption, rapacity and venality which they viewed as originating in Rome.[31]
Calvinism [ edit ]
One school of thought attributes Calvinism with setting the stage for the later development of capitalism in northern Europe. In this view, elements of Calvinism represented a revolt against the medieval condemnation of usury and, implicitly, of profit in general.[citation needed] Such a connection was advanced in influential works by R. H. Tawney(1880–1962) and by Max Weber (1864–1920).
Calvin criticized the use of certain passages of scripture invoked by people opposed to the charging of interest. He reinterpreted some of these passages, and suggested that others of them had been rendered irrelevant by changed conditions. He also dismissed the argument (based upon the writings of Aristotle) that it is wrong to charge interest for money because money itself is barren. He said that the walls and the roof of a house are barren, too, but it is permissible to charge someone for allowing him to use them. In the same way, money can be made fruitful.[32]
Puritanism [ edit ]
For Puritans, work was not simply arduous drudgery required to sustain life. Joseph Conforti describes the Puritan attitude toward work as taking on "the character of a vocation — a calling through which one improved the world, redeemed time, glorified God, and followed life's pilgrimage toward salvation."[33] Gayraud Wilmore characterizes the Puritan social ethic as focused on the "acquisition and proper stewardship of wealth as outward symbols of God's favor and the consequent salvation of the individual."[34] Puritans were urged to be producers rather than consumers and to invest their profits to create more jobs for industrious workers who would thus be enabled to "contribute to a productive society and a vital, expansive church." Puritans were counseled to seek sufficient comfort and economic self-sufficiency but to avoid the pursuit of luxuries or the accumulation of material wealth for its own sake.[33]
The rise of capitalism [ edit ]
In two journal articles published in 1904–05, German sociologist Max Weber propounded a thesis that Reformed (i.e., Calvinist) Protestantism had engendered the character traits and values that under-girded modern capitalism. The English translation of these articles were published in book form in 1930 as The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Weber argued that capitalism in northern Europe evolved because the Protestant (particularly Calvinist) ethic influenced large numbers of people to engage in work in the secular world, developing their own enterprises and engaging in trade and the accumulation of wealth for investment. In other words, the Protestant work ethic was a force behind an unplanned and uncoordinated mass action that influenced the development of capitalism.
Weber's work focused scholars on the question of the uniqueness of Western civilization and the nature of its economic and social development. Scholars have sought to explain the fact that economic growth has been much more rapid in Northern and Western Europe and its overseas offshoots than in other parts of the world including those that where the Catholic and Orthodox churches have been dominant over Protestantism. Some have observed that explosive economic growth occurred at roughly the same time, or soon after, these areas experienced the rise of Protestant religions. Stanley Engerman asserts that, although some scholars may argue that the two phenomena are unrelated, many would find it difficult to accept such a thesis.[35]
John Chamberlain wrote that "Christianity tends to lead to a capitalistic mode of life whenever siege conditions do not prevail... [capitalism] is not Christian in and by itself; it is merely to say that capitalism is a material by-product of the Mosaic Law."[36]
Rodney Stark propounds the theory that Christian rationality is the primary driver behind the success of capitalism and the Rise of the West.[37]
John B. Cobb argues that the "economism that rules the West and through it much of the East" is directly opposed to traditional Christian doctrine. Cobb invokes the teaching of Jesus that "man cannot serve both God and Mammon (wealth)". He asserts that it is obvious that "Western society is organized in the service of wealth" and thus wealth has triumphed over God in the West.[1]
Social justice [ edit ]
Much of Saint Thomas Aquinas's theology dealt with issues of social justice.
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being.[38][39] The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by the Jesuit Luigi Taparelli in 1840 based on the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas and given further exposure in 1848 by Antonio Rosmini-Serbati.[38][39][40][41][42] The idea was elaborated by the moral theologian John A. Ryan, who initiated the concept of a living wage. Father Coughlin also used the term in his publications in the 1930s and the 1940s. It is a part of Catholic social teaching, Social Gospel from Episcopalians and is one of the Four Pillars of the Green Party upheld by green parties worldwide. Social justice as a secular concept, distinct from religious teachings, emerged mainly in the late twentieth century, influenced primarily by philosopher John Rawls. Some tenets of social justice have been adopted by those on the left of the political spectrum.
According to Kent Van Til, the view that wealth has been taken from the poor by the rich implies that the redistribution of that wealth is more a matter of restitution than of theft.[43]
Catholic social teaching [ edit ]
Catholic social teaching is a body of doctrine developed by the Catholic Church on matters of poverty and wealth, economics, social organization and the role of the state. Its foundations are widely considered to have been laid by Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical letter Rerum novarum, which advocated economic distributism and condemned socialism.
According to Pope Benedict XVI, its purpose "is simply to help purify reason and to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just…. [The Church] has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice…cannot prevail and prosper",[44] According to Pope John Paul II, its foundation "rests on the threefold cornerstones of human dignity, solidarity and subsidiarity".[45] These concerns echo elements of Jewish law and the prophetic books of the Old Testament, and recall the teachings of Jesus Christ recorded in the New Testament, such as his declaration that "whatever you have done for one of these least brothers of Mine, you have done for Me."[46]
Catholic social teaching is distinctive in its consistent critiques of modern social and political ideologies both of the left and of the right: liberalism, communism, socialism, libertarianism, capitalism,[47] Fascism, and Nazism have all been condemned, at least in their pure forms, by several popes since the late nineteenth century.
Marxism [ edit ]
Irving Kristol posits that one reason that those who are "experiencing a Christian impulse, an impulse toward the imitatio Christi, would lean toward socialism... is the attitude of Christianity toward the poor. "[17]
Arnold Toynbee characterized Communist ideology as a "Christian heresy" in the sense that it focused on a few elements of the faith to the exclusion of the others.[48] Donald Treadgold interprets Toynbee's characterization as applying to Christian attitudes as opposed to Christian doctrines.[49] In his book, "Moral Philosophy", Jacques Maritain echoed Toynbee's perspective, characterizing the teachings of Karl Marx as a "Christian heresy".[50] After reading Maritain, Martin Luther King, Jr. commented that Marxism had arisen in response to "a Christian world unfaithful to its own principles." Although King criticized the Soviet Marxist–Leninist Communist regime sharply, he nonetheless commented that Marx's devotion to a classless society made him almost Christian. Tragically, said King, Communist regimes created "new classes and a new lexicon of injustice."[51]
Christian socialism [ edit ]
Christian socialism generally refers to those on the Christian left whose politics are both Christian and socialist and who see these two philosophies as being interrelated. This category can include Liberation theology and the doctrine of the social gospel.
The Rerum novarum encyclical of Leo XIII (1891) was the starting point of a Catholic doctrine on social questions that has been expanded and updated over the course of the 20th century. Despite the introduction of social thought as an object of religious thought, Rerum novarum explicitly rejects what it calls "the main tenet of socialism":
"Hence, it is clear that the main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected, since it only injures those whom it would seem meant to benefit, is directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind, and would introduce confusion and disorder into the commonwealth. The first and most fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property." Rerum novarum, paragraph 16.
The encyclical promotes a kind of corporatism based on social solidarity among the classes with respects for the needs and rights of all.
In the November 1914 issue of The Christian Socialist, Episcopal bishop Franklin Spencer Spalding of Utah, U.S.A. stated:
"The Christian Church exists for the sole purpose of saving the human race. So far she has failed, but I think that Socialism shows her how she may succeed. It insists that men cannot be made right until the material conditions be made right. Although man cannot live by bread alone, he must have bread. Therefore the Church must destroy a system of society which inevitably creates and perpetuates unequal and unfair conditions of life. These unequal and unfair conditions have been created by competition. Therefore competition must cease and cooperation take its place."[52]
Despite the explicit rejection of Socialism, in the more Catholic countries of Europe the encyclical's teaching was the inspiration that led to the formation of new Christian-inspired Socialist parties. A number of Christian socialist movements and political parties throughout the world group themselves into the International League of Religious Socialists. It has member organizations in 21 countries representing 200,000 members.
Christian socialists draw parallels between what some have characterized as the egalitarian and anti-establishment message of Jesus, who–according to the Gospel–spoke against the religious authorities of his time, and the egalitarian, anti-establishment, and sometimes anti-clerical message of most contemporary socialisms. Some Christian Socialists have become active Communists. This phenomenon was most common among missionaries in China, the most notable being James Gareth Endicott, who became supportive of the struggle of the Communist Party of China in the 1930s and 1940s.
Michael Moore's film Capitalism: A Love Story also features a religious component where Moore examines whether or not capitalism is a sin and whether Jesus would be a capitalist,[53] in order to shine light on the ideological contradictions among evangelical conservatives who support free market ideals.
Liberation theology [ edit ]
Liberation theology[54] is a Christian movement in political theology which interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of a liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions. It has been described by proponents as "an interpretation of Christian faith through the poor's suffering, their struggle and hope, and a critique of society and the Catholic faith and Christianity through the eyes of the poor",[55] and by detractors as Christianized Marxism.[56] Although liberation theology has grown into an international and inter-denominational movement, it began as a movement within the Roman Catholic church in Latin America in the 1950s–1960s. Liberation theology arose principally as a moral reaction to the poverty caused by social injustice in that region. The term was coined in 1971 by the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, who wrote one of the movement's most famous books, A Theology of Liberation. Other noted exponents are Leonardo Boff of Brazil, Jon Sobrino of El Salvador, and Juan Luis Segundo of Uruguay.[57][58]
The influence of liberation theology within the Catholic Church diminished after proponents using Marxist concepts were admonished by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in 1984 and 1986. The Vatican criticized certain strains of liberation theology – without actually identifying any particular strain – for focusing on institutional dimensions of sin to the exclusion of the individual; and for allegedly misidentifying the church hierarchy as members of the privileged class.[59]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]The Sangh Parivar has long argued that the special status accorded to Jammu & Kashmir in the Constitution has prevented its “full integration” into the Indian Union. Prominent among the “special privileges” available to J&K, the only Muslim-majority state in the country, are the ban on non-residents from acquiring property in the state and voting in the legislative Assembly elections, both of which are under challenge in the Supreme Court in a case against the constitutional validity of Article 35A.
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However, Jammu & Kashmir is not the only state for which special provisions have been laid down in the Indian Constitution — a wide range of safeguards are available to as many as 11 other states, listed in Articles 371, 371A to 371H, and 371J.
Art 371I deals with Goa, but does not include any provision that can be termed ‘special’.
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In 1947, Jammu & Kashmir negotiated the terms and conditions of its entry into the Indian Union. It acceded to the Union on Defence, Foreign Affairs and Communication, but wanted its own Constitution, to be drafted by its own Constituent Assembly. Art 370, which determines the contours of J&K’s relations with the Centre and exists as the constitutional cord between J&K and New Delhi, was introduced in the Indian Constitution after Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and J&K Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah negotiated it for five months between May and October, 1949.
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Art 35A, which empowered the J&K Constitution to define “permanent residents” of the state, is an offshoot of Art 370 of the Indian Constitution. It was added to the Constitution through The Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order, 1954, issued by the President under Art 370.
While the special provisions laid down in Art 371, 371A-H, and 371J are not as farreaching as Art 370, the existence of these provisions shows that other princely states, too, negotiated the terms and conditions of their entry into the Union, or sought special constitutional protections in view of their unique needs and conditions. Each of these constitutional provisions is, in fact, rooted in historical reasons.
One important difference between Articles 370 and 371, and Articles 371A-H and 371J, is that while the latter set of provisions were incorporated into the Constitution by Parliament through amendments under Art 368 (which lays down the “power of Parliament to amend the Constitution and procedure therefor”), Articles 370 and 371 have been part of the Constitution from the time of its commencement on January 26, 1950.
MAHARASHTRA & GUJARAT
(Art 371)
“Special responsibility” to Governor to establish “separate development boards” for “Vidarbha, Marathwada, and the rest of Maharashtra”, and Saurashtra and Kutch in Gujarat; “equitable allocation of funds for developmental expenditure over the said areas”; “equitable arrangement providing adequate facilities for technical education and vocational training, and adequate opportunities for employment” under the state government.
SIKKIM
(Art 371F, 36th Amendment Act, 1975)
The members of the legislative Assembly of Sikkim shall elect the representative of Sikkim in the House of the People. To protect the rights and interests of various sections of the population of Sikkim, Parliament may provide for the number of seats in the Assembly, which may be filled only by candidates from those sections. Governor shall have “special responsibility for peace and for an equitable arrangement for ensuring the social and economic advancement of different sections of the population”. All earlier laws in territories that formed Sikkim shall continue, and any adaptation or modification shall not be questioned in any court.
ASSAM
(Art 371B, 22nd Amendment Act, 1969)
President may provide for the constitution and functions of a committee of the Assembly consisting of members elected from the tribal areas of the state.
ARUNACHAL PRADESH
(Art 371H, 55th Amendment Act, 1986)
The Governor has a special responsibility with regard to law and order, and “he shall, after consulting the Council of Ministers, exercise his individual judgment as to the action to be taken”. Should a question arise over whether a particular matter is one in which the Governor is “required to act in the exercise of his individual judgment, the decision of the Governor in his discretion shall be final”, and “shall not be called in question…”.
NAGALAND
(Art 371A, 13th Amendment Act, 1962)
Parliament can’t legislate in matters of Naga religion or social practices, the Naga customary law and procedure, administration of civil and criminal justice involving decisions according to Naga customary law, and ownership and transfer of land and its resources, without concurrence of the legislative Assembly. This provision was inserted in the Constitution after a 16-point agreement between the Centre and the Naga People’s Convention in 1960, which led to the creation of Nagaland in 1963. Also, there is a provision for a 35-member regional council for Tuensang district, which elects the Tuensang members in the Assembly. A member from the Tuensang district is Minister for Tuensang Affairs; Governor has the final say on Tuensang-related matters.
MIZORAM
(Art 371G, 53rd Amendment Act, 1986)
Parliament cannot make laws on “religious or social practices of the Mizos, Mizo customary law and procedure, administration of civil and criminal justice involving decisions according to Mizo customary law, ownership and transfer of land… unless the Legislative Assembly… by a resolution so decides.”
MANIPUR
(Art 371C, 27th Amendment Act, 1971)
President may provide for the constitution and functions of a committee of elected members from the Hill areas in the Assembly; entrust “special responsibility” to the Governor to ensure its proper functioning. The Governor has to file a report every year on this to the President.
ANDHRA PRADESH & TELANGANA
(Art 371D, 32nd Amendment Act, 1973; substituted by the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014)
President must ensure “equitable opportunities and facilities” in “public employment and education to people from different parts of the state”; he may require the state government to organise “any class or classes of posts in a civil service of, or any class or classes of civil posts under, the State into different local cadres for different parts of the State”, and allot them. The President has similar powers vis-à-vis admissions in any university or state government-run educational institution. Also, he may provide for setting up of an administrative tribunal outside the jurisdiction of the High Court to deal with issues of appointment, allotment or promotion in state civil services. [Art 371E allows for the establishment of a university in Andhra Pradesh by a law of Parliament. But this is not really a ‘special provision’.]
KARNATAKA
(Art 371J, 98th Amendment Act, 2012)
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There is a provision for the establishment of a separate development board for the Hyderabad-Karnataka region, the working of which will be reported annually to the Assembly; there shall be “equitable allocation of funds for developmental expenditure over the said region”; and “equitable opportunities and facilities” for people of this region in government jobs and education. An order can be made to provide for reservation “of a proportion” of seats and jobs in educational and vocational training institutions and state government organisations respectively in the Hyderabad-Karnataka region for individuals who belong to that region by birth or domicile.JUST suppose that Darwin’s ideas were only a part of the story of evolution. Suppose that a process he never wrote about, and never even imagined, has been controlling the evolution of life throughout most of the Earth’s history. It may sound preposterous, but this is exactly what microbiologist Carl Woese and physicist Nigel Goldenfeld, both at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, believe. Darwin’s explanation of evolution, they argue, even in its sophisticated modern form, applies only to a recent phase of life on Earth.
At the root of this idea is overwhelming recent evidence for horizontal gene transfer – in which organisms acquire genetic material “horizontally” from other organisms around them, rather than vertically from their parents or ancestors. The donor organisms may not even be the same species. This mechanism is already known to play a huge role in the evolution of microbial genomes, but its consequences have hardly been explored. According to Woese and Goldenfeld, they are profound, and horizontal gene transfer alters the evolutionary process itself. Since micro-organisms represented most of life on Earth for most of the time that life has existed – billions of years, in fact – the most ancient and prevalent form of evolution probably wasn’t Darwinian at all, Woese and Goldenfeld say.
Strong claims, but others are taking them seriously. “Their arguments make sense and their conclusion is very important,” says biologist Jan Sapp of York University in Toronto, Canada. “The process of evolution just isn’t what most evolutionary biologists think it is.”
Vertical hegemony
How could modern biology have gone so badly off track? According to Woese, it is …Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 Is Getting A Free-To-Play Version In Japan In Early-Summer 2016
By Sato. March 17, 2016. 3:00am
Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 will release in Japan on March 24 for PS4 and PS Vita, but Koei Tecmo revealed in this week’s issue of Famitsu magazine that the game is also getting a free-to-play version in early-summer. [Thanks, Game Kana.]
While the content remains unknown for the free-to-play version, it’ll likely feature a similar kind of system as we’ve seen in Dead or Alive 5: Last Round’s free version, which allowed you to purchase characters and costumes separately.
Check out some of the links below for the character introduction trailers we’ve seen so far:
Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 will release in Japan on March 24, 2016 for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. The Asia version will have English subtitles, and can be pre-ordered via Play-Asia.Students at the American University in Washington, D.C. — our nation’s capital and the center of American political activity and bustle — can’t name a single one of the 100 U.S. senators.
Dan Joseph, a correspondent for MRCTV, interviewed students at the American U. campus and challenged them to answer incredibly simple questions about politics and government. Not only were the students unable to name U.S. senators, they didn’t even know how many senators comprise the Senate–and some of them were studying political science!
“Can you name one person currently serving in the U.S. Senate?” asked Joseph.
“Um, this is sad, I’m in a politics course,” said one female student, who couldn’t provide an answer.
“Oh, not a very good one,” replied Joseph.
Eventual suggestions were “John Ryan/Rarez,” and “Bernie Frank,” neither of which are actual people, let alone U.S. senators.
“I’m not big into the whole… America thing,” said another student.
The students performed much better when asked a pop culture question, however. Multiple people were able to identify “Let It Go,” the hit song from the latest Disney movie, “Frozen.”
What this says about American democracy is anyone’s guess.
Follow Robby on TwitterWhen New Jersey voters went to the polls last week they brought good news for those candidates — including Democratic Gov.-elect Phil Murphy — whose campaigns were backed by Planned Parenthood and other women’s healthcare advocates.
And if all goes as planned, the election results will also benefit the hundreds of thousands of women and their families who depend on free and low-cost clinics for cancer screenings, birth control, and other healthcare services.
In fact, advocates and one key legislative leader are looking to the incoming Democratic administration to work with them to provide an unprecedented influx of funding — as much as $15 million — over the next year or so to support certain women’s healthcare providers.
Supporters have said the dollars are desperately needed since Republican Gov. Chris Christie suspended in 2011 what had become an annual state appropriation of nearly $7.5 million to support Planned Parenthood and other women’s healthcare providers.
Murphy has prioritized the reinstatement of public funding for these clinics and highlighted the issue during his campaign to defeat Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, a Republican who said she supported women’s healthcare in general, but would not have allocated state dollars for this purpose.
Murphy: ‘We’ll find the money’
A poll conducted in June by the Rutgers Eagleton Institute of Politics and the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute found that more than three out of four voters surveyed supported the use of state and federal funds for such care.
While Murphy campaign staff declined yesterday to provide details on the specific timing of restoring the funding, the governor-elect has made clear the issue is high on his list. "We'll find the money — period," Murphy said at a meeting in June with Planned Parenthood representatives and other health advocates.
Democrats in the state Legislature are also eager to restore the budget line and Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) has said it will be among his caucus’ early goals after Murphy takes office in January. Democratic lawmakers passed a supplemental appropriation to restore the funding each time Christie omitted it from the budget, but the governor vetoed these attempts.
Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) who has spearheaded efforts to provide this funding, said yesterday she would introduce a supplemental appropriation early next year requesting $7.5 million for this work from the current budget, which lasts through June 2018. She will also advocate for the Murphy administration to include another $7.5 million in his first state budget, which takes effect in July 2018. If both are approved, it would represent a historic level of funding for these programs.
“Women’s health funding has been decimated under this administration, resulting in a decline in services and the closure of family planning centers in the state,” Weinberg said. “It is critical that we restore funding so that women have access to the vital services they need, including life-saving cancer screenings, birth control, sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, and more.”
$45M loss of funds during Christie’s tenure
Weinberg and other advocates note that, over time, the lack of additional funding has compounded to reach a $45 million loss for Planned Parenthood and other providers, which together operate some 58 facilities statewide. Since 2011, six clinics have been forced to shut down because of the loss of state dollars, advocates said.
Christie has framed his decision as both economic and ideological, given his opposition to abortion. Both he and state health officials have defended the policy, insisting that patients have obtained care at other low-cost facilities, including dozens of Federally Qualified Health Centers that provide women’s healthcare services. (Federal law prohibits public funding from paying for abortions, but this money can be used for other care.)
While healthcare issues, in general, did not occupy much bandwidth during this fall’s general election, Planned Parenthood and other advocates worked hard to keep funding for women’s care on the agenda. According to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund —the organization’s political arm — the group reached more than 4 million viewers through social media ads, emailed over 1 million supporters, and placed more than 4,800 calls to Garden State voters.
The text in one video ad created by the group speaks of “eight long years of an anti-women’s health administration.” The message begins over a black and white picture of Christie and Guadagno, and then morphs into a brightly colored campaign shot, with Planned Parenthood volunteers in pink tops. “Planned Parenthood support was a key issue for New Jersey voters,” the text continues.
Planned Parenthood also invested directly in the elections, in which Democrats picked up several new seats in the state Senate and Assembly. The group spent at least $22,000 to support Murphy and other candidates and more than $120,000 on advertising, campaign supplies, phone banks, and food and other supports for volunteers, according to reports filed with the state’s Election Law Enforcement Commission.
The strategy appears to have paid off. Three out of four Planned Parenthood-endorsed candidates won last Tuesday in dozens of districts stretching across the Garden State. In several of the tightest races — like the 11th and 16th districts — winning candidates campaigned heavily on women’s healthcare messages, the group said.
“New Jersey should be a leader when it comes to reproductive health,” said Christine Sadovy, the action fund’s political and legislative director. “Our supporters will continue to take action in 2018 and beyond to make women’s rights and health a priority.”Rep. Al Green (D-Tex.) listens to Hillary Clinton at the NAACP annual convention in Cincinnati on July 18. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
The NAACP has long expressed concern about charter schools, but now its members are taking a tougher stance. At their recent annual national convention late last month, members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People approved a resolution that included language calling for a moratorium on the expansion of privately managed charters.
For years, resolutions at annual national conventions of the historic organization have raised issues about charters, but the 2016 resolution uses stark language. The new resolution (see text below) notes that “charter schools with privately appointed boards do not represent the public but make decisions about how public funds are spent,” and it cites a number of problems with some charters, including punitive disciplinary policies, fiscal mismanagement and conflicts of interest.
The resolution won’t be official NAACP policy until the organization’s national board meets soon and decides whether to approve it — but the message from the majority of its members are clear. It says in part:
* “Charter schools have contributed to the increased segregation rather than diverse integration of our public school system.” * “Weak oversight of charter schools puts students and communities at risk of harm, public funds at risk of being wasted, and further erodes local control of public education.” * ” [R]esearchers have warned that charter school expansions in low-income communities mirror predatory lending practices that led to the sub-prime mortgage disaster, putting schools and communities impacted by these practices at great risk of loss and harm…”
Charter advocates criticized the NAACP vote, with charter school founder and operator Steve Perry telling NewsOne Now that the NAACP convention is out of touch with its members in the states. Education Secretary John King told participants at the annual National Association of Black Journalists–National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention in Washington that there shouldn’t be “artificial barriers” to the growth of quality charters, which he called “drivers of opportunity for kids,” according to TakePart.com.
Here’s a post about the resolution and why it matters in the school reform debate. It was written by Carol Burris, a former New York high school principal who is now executive director of the nonprofit Network for Public Education, explains why putting the word “public” in front of “charter school” — which are funded with tax dollars — is “an affront” to people for whom public education is a mission. Burris was named the 2010 Educator of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York State, and the same organization named her the New York State High School Principal of the Year in 2013. She has been chronicling botched school reform efforts in her state for years.
By Carol Burris
The democratic governance of our public schools is an American tradition worth saving. Although results are not always perfect, school board elections represent democracy in its most responsive and purest form. Sadly, it has become no more than a memory in many communities — especially in urban neighborhoods of color where citizens are already disenfranchised in so many ways.
In those communities, privately managed charters have accelerated a decline that began with mayoral control of public schools. The good news is that there is a growing awareness and resistance to privately managed schools. This is evidenced by the remarkable stand taken by the NAACP at its recent annual convention in Cincinnati, during which members passed a resolution that called for a moratorium on these charter schools.
Professor Julian Vasquez Heilig is the education chair of the California and Hawaii NAACP. He said he supported the resolution put forth by the San Jose delegation because he believes that when it comes to charters, it is “time to pump the brakes and reevaluate.” At a recent debate on the resolution at the National Urban League convention, Vasquez Heilig had the following to say in defense:
“What the education reformers have put on the table is top-down, private control and privatization of schools. Choice does not have to be that way; choice can be about |
(aka Kindred AI), a stealthy startup he founded with others in 2014 dedicated to delivering advanced teleoperated and autonomous robots. The goal is making programming robots faster and less costly–and possibly revolutionize the world of work.
Kindred has so far received well over US $10 million in funding, according to Data Collective, the venture capital firm that led one of the rounds. Another Silicon Valley VC firm, Eleven Two Capital, also has a stake in the company. In a blog post, Data Collective described Kindred as using “AI-driven robotics so that one human worker can do the work of four.”
Kindred recently filed a U.S. patent application describing a system in which an operator wearing a head-mounted display and an exo-suit carries out everyday tasks. Data from the suit and from other external sensors is then analyzed by computers and used to control distant robots.
Kindred has kept a very low profile, issuing no press releases and maintaining only a very basic website. However, last November, Suzanne Gildert, a former D-Wave researcher who is a cofounder and CTO of Kindred, told an audience of technologists that the company was building personal robots that use machine learning to recognize patterns and make decisions. “Quantum mechanics is cool, but humanlike intelligence in robots is cooler,” she is reported as saying.
Kindred, based in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, recently filed a U.S. patent application revealing the extent of its ambitions. The document describes a system where an operator wearing a head-mounted display and an exo-suit of sensors and actuators carries out everyday tasks. Data from the suit and from other external sensors is then analyzed by computers in the cloud and used to control distant robots. The data could also be used to train machine learning algorithms that would allow the robots to imitate the operator’s actions autonomously.
“An operator may include a non-human animal such as a monkey,” says the patent, “and the operator interface may be…re-sized to account for the differences between a human operator and a monkey operator.” (This isn’t the first device to enable monkeys to direct robots, but previous research has focused on brain-machine interfaces, not robot control and autonomy.)
Image: U.S. Patent Application US20160243701A1 via Google Patents A rendering shows the exo-suit of sensors and actuators that an operator would wear to control a robot at a distance.
The application goes into some detail about the operator interface, a wearable robotic suit [image, right] that includes head and neck motion sensors, devices to capture arm movements, and haptic gloves. The operator can use foot pedals to control the robot’s movement and a virtual reality headset like the Oculus Rift to experience what the robot is seeing. The suit could even feature chemical and biometric sensors, as well as EEGs and MRI devices to capture brain waves.
The robot is envisioned as a 1.2-meter-tall humanoid, possibly covered with synthetic skin, with two (or more) arms ending in hands or grippers, and wheeled treads for locomotion. Cameras on its head would stream high-definition video to its simian operator, while other sensors might include infrared and ultraviolet imaging, GPS, touch, proximity, and strain sensors, and even a radiation detector.
This system could be used for straightforward teleoperation, where an operator would control a distant robot to complete industrial or domestic tasks. Legendary robotics lab Willow Garage trialed just such a system, called Heaphy, with some success back in 2011.
Now Kindred wants to take telerobotics to the next level. “Although a wealth of information included in human brains for performing various human executable tasks is available, robotic-related devices used to execute these tasks have historically not utilized this information or not made good use of it,” says Kindred’s patent document.
“An operator may include a non-human animal such as a monkey,” says the patent document, “and the operator interface may be... re-sized to account for the differences between a human operator and a monkey operator.”
More significant, the company wants its system to be able to learn from its operators, and ultimately carry out tasks without a human—or monkey—in the loop. “Device control instructions and environment sensor information generated over…multiple runs may…be used to derive autonomous control information which may be used to facilitate autonomous behavior in an autonomous device,” says the patent application.
The document suggests that Kindred will manage this using “deep hierarchical learning algorithms” such as a conditional deep belief network (CDBN) or a conditional restricted Boltzmann machine (CRBM), a type of powerful recurrent neural network.
Image: U.S. Patent Application US20160243701A1 via Google Patents A diagram illustrates how multiple operators and robots could communicate through Kindred’s AI system in the cloud.
In fact, there are references to research on CDBN and CRBM done by Graham Taylor, who is one of the inventors named in the patent application. Taylor leads the Machine Learning Research Group at the University of Guelph, in Ontario. He studied at the University of Toronto under deep-learning pioneer Geoff Hinton, who now works part-time for Google and coinvented Boltzmann machines in 1985.
Quantum computing firm D-Wave says that the operation of its system is “analogous to a…restricted Boltzmann machine,” and that its research team is “working to exploit the parallels between these architectures to substantially accelerate learning in deep, hierarchical neural networks.” In 2010, Geordie Rose coauthored a paper that claimed a quantum computer could perform some types of machine learning applications more efficiently than software on a traditional computer. Could this be the beginning of a new field: quantum robotics?
Neither Kindred nor D-Wave replied to Spectrum’s request for comment, but according to LinkedIn and Canadian government records, Kindred has about 25 employees in Vancouver, including several who previously worked at D-Wave. It also appears to have employees in the Bay Area, including a mechatronics engineer focusing on mechanical design and electromechanical integration.
As for practical applications, the patent document mentions industrial manufacturing, domestic chores, and even entertainment. “The task may for example be making a cup of coffee, or performing a choreographed dance,” it says. “An operator…may be an actor providing a recordable set of behaviors (e.g. a set of verbal communications…to be played through a speaker on the [robot]).”
More significant, the company wants its system to be able to learn from its operators, and ultimately carry out tasks without a human—or monkey—in the loop.
While it is unclear how far along Kindred is in actually building the telerobotics system described in its patent application, the document does include renderings of 3D models of the exo-suit, details of some components, and photos of glove assemblies and robotic tracks.
Robotics experts contacted by Spectrum said that making programming robots easier, as Kindred hopes to do, would be a huge advance for the field. But some were skeptical of the company’s ability to deliver the system as described. “The section on applying machine learning is far ahead of the state of the art,” says Tim Field, who developed the Heaphy telerobotics system at Willow Garage. “The amount of data that’s required is astronomical.” He mentions a Google Research system that required 800,000 attempts for a robot arm to learn to pick up objects from a basket. “Think about the time it would take to perform 800,000 trials using a human operator,” he explains. “It’s just not possible right now.”
“It’s not a bad idea in principle, but the trick is going to be to capture the context of the task,” says Bill Smart, a roboticist at Oregon State University. “Plus, I’m willing to bet that the human isn’t going to move the robot optimally, since it’s going to have a different set of dynamics.”
And what about the idea of using primates to teach robots how to sing and dance? “If you had an infinite number of monkeys, maybe you’d get an optimal controller?” jokes Smart. “But keeping them on task would be a nightmare.”
If you think the whole idea is bananas, you might not have to wait long to learn more. Rose and Gildert are due to speak at a Machine Learning conference in Toronto next month.
Last updated 22 September 2016 6:25 pm E.T.Seattle officials hope to buy and install a new public toilet in Pioneer Square by the end of this year. An earlier proposal called for a developer to purchase the restroom, but that pact fell through.
Seattle is trying yet again to relieve itself of its Pioneer Square public-toilet problem.
The city’s current budget includes $230,000 for the purchase, transportation and installation of a stand-alone restroom in the historic downtown neighborhood, where large numbers of tourists, sports fans and homeless people lack a reliable option. An official leading the project said he hopes to open the unit by the end of the year.
“Our goal is to make this happen ASAP,” said Gary Johnson, who coordinates the Seattle Department of Planning and Development’s center-city strategy.
The last time officials addressed the issue, they wound up with a mess. The city spent $5 million on five high-tech, self-cleaning toilets for Pioneer Square and other neighborhoods in 2003, only to have the units become refuges for drug use, prostitution and hanky-panky. They were sold on eBay in 2008 for $2,500 each.
Johnson insists the new toilet — a Portland Loo-style model — will be much better. Named for the Oregon city, which installed its first unit in 2008, the Loo is small, solar-powered and made from heavy-gauge stainless steel with a graffiti-resistant finish.
Its sink for hand-washing is located on the outside, to discourage people from using the unit to bathe and wash clothes. Angled steel louvers at the top and bottom of the unit allow passers-by and police to observe how many people are inside without compromising privacy.
The unit on its own costs less than $100,000; another $100,000 or more will be spent on installation and other items, Johnson said. If the Loo is a success, the city may add more in neighborhoods such as Ballard and the University District. Seattle Parks and Recreation is siting two at the Rainier Beach Playfield, said Johnson.
Portland now has seven Loos, adding one as recently as 2013.
Some are in neighborhoods where people living on the street congregate, as in Pioneer Square, and the unit’s popularity is growing. Portland has exported Loos to three California cities, including San Diego, and Cincinnati will open its first next month.
The Loo has a concrete floor and a back door that swings open so workers can use a pressure-washer multiple times each day to hose the unit down, Johnson said.
“You get just enough privacy,” said Johnson. “Based on Portland’s experience, this public toilet doesn’t just work well for homeless people — it works well for everybody.”
The self-cleaning toilets were an embarrassment for Seattle. But merchants, residents and social-service providers have continued to push for restroom service, said Leslie Smith, executive director of the nonprofit Alliance for Pioneer Square.
Between Jan. 1 and May 5 this year, Pioneer Square accounted for 3,496 of 11,120 human- and animal-waste cleanups by the Metropolitan Improvement District (MID), which patrols every neighborhood downtown, according to MID statistics.
Some homeless shelters in Pioneer Square close down in the morning, forcing the people who sleep there onto the street right away, Smith pointed out. “Then we have hundreds of thousands of people every year going to sports events (at CenturyLink Field and Safeco Field) and we also have people coming for the nightlife,” she said.
Pioneer Square identified restroom service as a priority in a 2010 neighborhood plan, but progress has been sluggish. There was a proposal in 2013 for a real-estate developer to buy, transport and install a Loo for the city in exchange for 30 extra feet of height atop a residential and commercial project on the east side of Occidental Park.
That deal fell through when the developer decided to instead build an office building for Weyerhaeuser on the site and no longer needed the extra height.
The City Council last week changed how the toilet will be paid for, choosing to tap real-estate excise taxes rather than the general fund, as the budget initially called for.
“We’ve been working on this for five years, and it’s been slow going,” said Johnson, from the city, attributing the delay in large part to the scrapped development pact.
“There have also been some challenges around where to site the toilet,” he said.
Some merchants and property owners want the Loo installed near them, while others want the opposite, said Smith, from the Alliance. Portland officials have noted that the toilets are best used in spots with heavy pedestrian traffic, Smith said.
Greg, who is homeless and who declined to give his last name, said he wouldn’t mind having a toilet to use near Occidental Park. But he struck a dubious note, raising his eyebrows when told the Loo will be kept open all day and all night.
“People are going to do drugs in there,” Greg predicted. “They’re going to have to clean it more than once a day. It might not be worth it.”
But Phil Bevis, who owns Arundel Books at the west side of Occidental Park, said a public restroom is overdue. People often traipse into Arundel to use his toilet, he said.
“This is about a basic human right. This is a long time coming,” he said, adding that the city will need to monitor the Loo closely to make sure women feel safe using it.Share. How to make a scary game even scarier. How to make a scary game even scarier.
Jurgen Post, Sega's European boss, has teased that a virtual reality version of Alien: Isolation is a possibility.
“VR has caught the whole company’s attention,” said Post in an interview with MCV about the studio's future plans. "We have a lot of VR kits in the office and people are playing with it. We are exploring ways to release games. We’ve not announced anything, but we are very close to making an announcement."
Exit Theatre Mode
"We did Alien: Isolation about three years ago on Oculus Rift, it was a demo that was bloody scary," said Post. "To bring that back to VR would be a dream and dreams can come true... VR will take time, but we will start releasing some titles just to learn. It is a platform for the future."
Alien: Isolation released in 2014, and there's now a collection which includes the original game, all the DLC, and two standalone missions.
IGN's review of the game says its "epic length really does work against it."
Matt Porter is a freelance writer based in London. Make sure to visit what he thinks is the best website in the world, but is actually just his Twitter page.Nureddin Sabir, Editor, Redress Information & Analysis, writes:
It has been an open secret for a while, but now it is no longer even a secret. Israel is helping the Al-Qaeda terrorists who are fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Asad. It is official.
The news was broken to the English-speaking world by Allyn Fisher-Ilan, the Reuters correspondent in Israel and the Palestinian territories. In a tweet on 9 May, she reported that the Israeli news website Ynet has released footage of Israeli army medics treating seriously wounded Syrian Al-Qaeda terrorists:
Israel Ynet releases rare footage it says of Israeli army medics treating seriously wounded Syria Qaeda linked rebel http://t.co/EgekZpH02W — Allyn Fisher-Ilan (@AFilan) May 9, 2015
Here is the video – it is in Hebrew with English subtitles.OK, when I introduced our new optical bench, I mentioned that it generates a lot of data. We gathered data for a nice comparison test (I mean who wouldn’t want to know how the Zeiss Otus and Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art stack up against some nice Leica 50mm lenses). Since then I’ve spent about 20 hours wading through data and trying different ways to present it. I’ll wallow through that article, but I can’t say I’m totally happy with my efforts.
A number of people have left posts that if I’d furnish them some raw data they’d take a shot at graphing and presenting it. Which seems like a wonderful idea, especially after I went cross-eyed over the holiday weekend trying it myself. So this morning Aaron collected a small data set that anyone who wants to play with is welcome to.
Basically we’ve tested 5 copies of the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art lens, and 5 copies of the Canon 35mm f/1.4 lens. We’ll limit this to just MTF numbers across the field (from side-to-side). Each lens is tested 3 times, rotating from 0 to 45 and then 90 degrees. (Since the optical bench makes one ‘slice’ across the lens, we need to take several slices to make sort of a 3-dimensional picture.) We’ve considered making a 4th slice at 135 degrees (180 degrees takes us back to zero), but have found after testing a lot of lenses we’ve never seen anything revealed at 135 degrees that the other three cuts don’t show us.
So if you want to participate, you’ll receive 2 Excel spreadsheets, one for the Canon lenses, one for the Sigma. Each spreadsheet has 5 lenses on separate pages, each page looking like this:
Object angle is simply the degrees off axis (“0” being the center of the lens). The other data is Tangential and Sagittal MTF at each position for 10, 20, 30, and 40 line pairs / mm.
The goal is to create a graph that shows the MTF across the field for each type of lens, along with some way of describing variation, and astigmatism. Then we should be able to compare the two types of lenses and detect any significant difference between the Canon and Sigma lenses.
Five copies is not a huge sample size, particularly for demonstrating range, but I wanted to start small and simple. We usually try to test about 10 copies of each lens when doing comparisons. I don’t expect anyone to find a statistical analysis that will actually differentiate scientifically with 5 copies, but I’m open to any attempts.
To make things more interesting, the 5 Canon samples all passed our standard testing (including Imatest) easily. The Sigma samples include one lens that was borderline and another that failed our other tests. My hope is that being able to detect the Sigma outlier will make certain your efforts are sufficiently sensitive to bad lenses. (Had this been an actual test, the one Sigma copy would not have been used.)
Let’s make it a Contest
I know some people will just enjoy playing with the data (btw, you’re free to use it anywhere you like, just mention that it’s our data when you do). But I’m hoping to get something out of this (an exceedingly easy, automated way to present data so that I can write blog articles by just pushing a button). So if someone comes up with a method I’m going to use, there will be a prize.
Actually, since I’m a history buff, let’s model this after the original French Society for the Encouragement of National Industry contest for a new photography lens and offer several levels of prizes. We may not award all prizes, or one person may win all three prizes.
Platinum Medal Prize: $500
To win the Platinum Prize you must write a program or macro that fulfills my wild fantasy – Aaron spends hours collecting data on dozens of lenses, then I push a computer button and beautiful, logical graphs are generated that are easy to follow, present the data and variation, and offers an easy way to compare different types of lenses. I will be a bit flexible on what constitutes pushing a button, but if it takes me hours, it’s not winning.
Gold Medal Prize: We will do the lens test of your choice (within limits of our mounts for the optical bench and lens availability) and a $100 rental credit
So if you’ve always wanted a comparison between the Canon 18-55 IS kit lens and the Olympus 16-50, or just want your ownt lenses tested, here’s your chance. To win the Gold Medal Prize you develop a fairly simple way to create logical, easy to understand graphs that demonstrate the variation of copies for each type of lens, and offers an easy way to compare different types of lenses.
Bronze Medal Prize: Our undying gratitude and we’ll test 2 of your lenses on our optical bench and provide you printouts.
To win the Bronze Medal you simply have to demonstrate a graphing method that presents the average (mean) results for multiple copies of a lens in a way that’s easy to follow and understand. If we use your graph methods, you win a Bronze Medal.
Enter Soon, Enter Often
To enter, just email me at Roger at Lensrentals dot com and I’ll send you the spreadsheets. Let’s put a June 15th deadline on submissions. And remember, an actual test run will usually be 10 samples or more of each lens, and for zooms will include test runs at 3 zoom positions, so whatever you think of has to be able to handle a lot more data than what we’re using on this trial run.
Roger Cicala and Aaron Closz
Lensrentals.com
May, 2014Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
Because it is so cruel and so stupid, so petty and also so astonishingly vast, it is difficult to fully get a handle on the $1.5 trillion tax bill that the Republicans pushed through the House and Senate on Wednesday. A disconcerting number of little fees and insults in the bill are only now becoming known, but the basic numbers are there to see, and the numbers are extremely bad and extremely unpopular. But the numbers are also so big and so abstract as to feel unreal; it happened more or less as the people pushing it wanted it to happen, but it just still beggars belief that anyone could want this, or do it.
That unreality will change again once the bill becomes law, and then we’ll have a darker and more specific unreality to reckon with—the needless and intentional immiseration of tens of millions of Americans and the suffering that will result, and the simultaneous knowledge that all this happened so that a small number of very rich people and criminally rich corporations could keep more of what they already have and get some of yours besides. At the moment, though, as the specifics of a bill passed without any oversight or transparency continue to round horrifically into view, we are still stuck in this dreary and dreamlike state of suspension. This has been something like the dominant mood of 2017, and it fits that it has found its idiot apotheosis at the year’s end. It fits, too, that after a whole year of this shit it is still so difficult to understand any of it. It is, all of it, just so much crueler and so much dumber and so much more shameless than ever seemed possible, even in the cruel and dumb and shameless recent past.
Thankfully, this great pink lad is here to help with that.
His name is Wyatt Koch, and he is, in order of importance, 1) the 31-year-old son of the billionaire heir Bill Koch and 2) the proprietor of a Florida-based company named Wyatt Ingraham—the company’s name appears to be pronounced “Wyatt Ingra-ham”—that sells garish $120 shirts to idiots. It is, I think, not unfair to Wyatt to say that point 2) in that last sentence is wholly dependent on point 1). Bill Koch is the least well-known of the hugely rich Koch brothers—where Charles and David Koch are let’s say famous for spending billions of dollars to elect/procure politicians who will support the arch-libertarian anti-tax economic policies they prefer, Bill is probably best known for having built a sprawling (and private) Wild West Village for his collection of memorabilia on his Colorado ranch. (A fourth brother, Frederick, is an art collector.*) As with everything about the Koch family, from their father’s economic ties to Stalin-era Russia on forward, it is all just a little bit too much—too on-the-nose in the broad strokes of its villainy, too thuddingly obvious in the picayune unpleasantness of the particulars. In this sense, and also in the sense that they seem finally to have succeeded in buying something like the country that they wanted, the Kochs are very much of this shared national moment. Wyatt, though, seems a little more of the moment than the rest.
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It’s not just that Wyatt is precisely the sort of person who stands to benefit most from the new tax bill, although as it so happens his combination of wealth-without-wages, eventual massive inheritance windfall, and LLC company mean that he absolutely is. He absolutely is that person, but also and more importantly and most 2017 of all, he fucking sucks at it. At this point in the current presidency, the idea that there is some inherent virtue to wealth or wealthy people just won’t play. Wealthy people do, on balance, tend to have larger homes and boats than less-wealthy people, but there is no way to look at the collection of fameball defectives and venal louts and thrice-divorced golf creatures that comprise Donald Trump’s extravagantly wealthy court and see any way to connect the valuable things they have with any of the values that they possess. The only exceptional thing about the rich people presently remaking the country in their own selfish image is their bulletproof self-regard.
If you start from the things they have and reverse-engineer your way backwards, you can kind of almost rig something together, and given that they’re willing to let a few thousand people starve to death in order to pay a little less in taxes I guess you can call them determined or focused or something. But again the evidence against their merit is towering and all around us. Trump has pasted his stupid name on numerous buildings in big gold letters, but that does not mean he cannot be a doddering old gossip whose mind has been turned to fudge by television and inattention. He insists, every day and in every possible way, that he is just that. Wyatt Koch has a passion for dumb shirts and a dumb shirt company to go with it, but that does not mean... let’s just say that it does nothing whatsoever to rebut the reality of this:
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What Wyatt does right, in that effortlessly perfect one-minute promotional video, is be himself. He insists, boldly, on boldly asserting his boldness, and then talks up his prank shirts for assholes. He wears a shirt printed with literal moneybags and holds forth on his boat about the importance of authenticity and passion. Because our reality unfolds entirely within the Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job cinematic universe, he brings his dad—a reclusive reactionary known for hoarding away historical doodads and getting defrauded to the tune of $2.1 million over bottles of counterfeit wine—into the damn thing somehow. He makes clothing so garishly oafish that they effectively cannot be worn outdoors and calls it a lifestyle. “Not everyone can live the Palm Beach Lifestyle,” one promotional video on the company’s Instagram proclaims, “but everyone can be bold.”
Look: This is, in the end, Wyatt’s business. It’s his business in a literal sense, of course, although the success or failure of Wyatt Ingraham LLC will have no impact whatsoever on the material comfort of Wyatt Ingraham Koch’s life. What I mean is that his dumbass life is his business. He will go on winning WILD Pants Party contests at Palm Beach galas and racing dune buggies with his friends and wooing and suing a line of rich Floridian women until his last days on earth, and I suppose I wish him well in all that. He will always have more money than anyone needs, and if this is what he wants to do with it—the dumb shirts and the drowsy holding-forth about said shirts—then he is certainly free to go ahead and do it. It’s all shameful, but also none of it is going to hurt him, ever, because he is not really at risk.
But there is something clarifying about staring all this smug and gaudy uselessness in the face. There is the amazing howling shameless lameness of it, but also the reflex towards self-congratulation and self-celebration; the tone-deaf vanity, but also the deep and innate clownishness of that vanity’s performance. The ridiculousness of all this is disorienting in a different way than the odiousness of the GOP tax bill, but it all resolves in the same way, and towards the same point. It’s a reminder to take the rich at their word when they tell you that they don’t care about you. It’s a reminder that their wealth has made them both dumb and weak, that it’s made them strange and cruel. And it’s a reminder that they want the rest of what you have and that they would also like you to congratulate them, in a respectful way, on how stylishly they are stealing it. Bold is a good word for it.Traditional power run teams have decreased over the past decade, but rushing numbers have gone up.
Sound counterintuitive?
Maybe at first. But there is a simple explanation.
"That's easy," Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi said recently. "It's the spread offense."
An offense that is more known for dual-threat quarterbacks and dynamic receivers is actually producing more prolific backs than ever. In each of the past three seasons, eight players have gone over 1,700 yards -- more than any stretch dating back to 2000, when the spread started gaining serious traction nationally.
In the past two seasons, three running backs have crossed over 2,000 yards rushing -- including Tevin Coleman, out of a spread offense at Indiana.
With 2015 being dubbed by some as the "Year of the Running Back," those numbers stand to grow higher. Five of the eight backs with more than 1,700 yards last year return, along with a slew of other outstanding players -- from Nick Chubb at Georgia to Paul Perkins at UCLA to Royce Freeman at Oregon.
"We saw it. The more teams would spread and look to run -- not just to throw out of the spread -- there would be more explosive plays and more 1,000-yard rushers," Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez said. "We use it a lot in recruiting: 'Hey, you don't have to go to an I-formation team to get rushing yards. You can get as many or more playing in our style of offense than anything else.'"
Rodriguez would know. Since he took his first head-coaching job at West Virginia in 2001, Rodriguez has coached five 1,700-yard players -- more than any other head coach. Over the same time frame, Oregon has produced four rushers with more than 1,700 yards. So the question to answer: Why has the spread opened up the run?
When Rodriguez first started implementing the spread as an assistant 27 years ago, it was with throwing more in mind. But as the offense evolved, he found himself spreading more to run. The reason? A simple numbers game.
"We felt you had to have less good blocks to have a successful run than if you put everybody in there tight," Rodriguez explained. "If we got two or three blocks at the point of attack, and the rest of the guys get run over slowly, we've got a chance -- as opposed to having to make five or six blocks. So that was our reasoning behind spreading to run. And having the quarterback with a threat to run makes defenses play all 11 guys instead of playing 11 on 10."
Spreading the offense meant spreading the defense too, creating bigger seams and wide-open running lanes as defenses guessed whether the quarterback would run it, throw it or dish it to the backs.
Rich Rodriguez has coached more 1,700-yard rushers (five) than anyone else. Christian Petersen/Getty Images
Since 2004, 30 teams have had multiple 1,000-yard rushers. Eighteen have featured 1,000-yard quarterbacks; 16 teams with multiple 1,000-yard rushers played in a spread-type offense, including Oregon (2008), Auburn (2010, 2013) and Ohio State (2013).
Defenses have been struggling to catch up. Over the past three seasons, running backs have averaged 5.1 yards per carry -- higher than any point since 2004. According to ESPN Stats & Information, teams faced an average of 6.8 defenders in the box last season, a number that has been slowly dropping since the average was 7.0 in 2011.
Fewer men crowding the box means some teams are playing their linebackers outside. Others put one player in the middle of the field to try to combat all the different options the spread presents. Narduzzi, one of the top defensive minds in the game, remains old school in his approach -- no matter the offense.
"That's a nice safety thing, but they've got 11 and you've got 10," Narduzzi said. "We run Cover 4 -- that guy never goes to the middle of the field. Now it's at least 11-on-11. We're trying to keep the middle of the field open, which maybe creates some other problems. But my philosophy has always been to stop the run. We're going to let Baylor throw the ball out there for 600 yards but they're going to rush for minus-20 yards. We're very risky in what we do, so it's high risk, high reward, but it's been very effective for us."
Traditional power run teams might be dwindling, but some coaches believe they have benefited from the spread too. With more defensive schemes predicated on slowing down the spread, players are not accustomed to playing downhill, power run teams.
Virginia assistant Chris Beatty worked at Wisconsin last year and watched Melvin Gordon run for 2,587 yards -- the second-highest total in NCAA history. Gordon is a rare talent in his own right, but defenses not only struggled to tackle him, they struggled to defend the right gaps.
"It's harder and harder on defenses, and I think an advantage for us at Wisconsin was everybody's geared to stop the spread now," Beatty said. "We were one of a handful of teams that runs a pro-style offense, so it creates an issue personnel-wise for defenses -- how do they want to be? For us with Melvin Gordon, it was hard for people to match up."
Boston College running back Andre Williams went over 2,000 yards in 2013 -- the first player to hit the mark in five years. He did it on a team that emphasized the power run game. His head coach, Steve Addazio, learned spread principles under Urban Meyer at Florida. But without a running quarterback, Addazio knew he had to rely on Williams to set the tone.
But neither Addazio nor Williams believes defenses were caught off guard because BC ran a less common offensive scheme.
"At the end of the day, you're trying to put the ball in the hands of the best player on your team," Addazio said. "Andre Williams was that for us that year. My experience with the spread was your quarterback ran. That was the way to get rid of the extra hat. With Andre, we had nine-man boxes so it had a lot to do with the quality of the front and the quality of the back."
Added Williams: "I don't think we were fooling anybody. They knew what was coming when they were playing BC. Whether or not they were geared for it based on the prevailing offense of the day, I'm not sure. We knew we were good at what we were doing, and we told ourselves that we weren't going to let anybody stop us."
The no-huddle philosophy that accompanies the spread offense also has helped push up rushing numbers, as more and more teams run more and more plays. So have the added games to the schedule. Also remember, the NCAA did not start counting bowl stats until 2002. Ezekiel Elliott ran for 1,878 yards last season in 15 games at Ohio State. In fact, of the eight players with more than 1,700 yards last season, only Coleman played in 12 games.
For argument's sake, let's use the old standard -- a 1,000-yard season. Last year, 53 players went over that mark. Compare that to the year 2000, when 40 players hit 1,000, not counting bowl games. Only two backs went over 1,700 yards that year. LaDainian Tomlinson at TCU (2,158 yards) played in 11 games; Damien Anderson at Northwestern had 1,914 yards in the regular season, but went over 2,000 if bowl stats are included.
Indiana coach Kevin Wilson was offensive coordinator at Northwestern that year. He decided to bring the spread to the Wildcats after learning it from Rodriguez, believing that would be the best way to make his team competitive in the 3-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust Big Ten.
As an offensive coordinator and head coach, Wilson has mentored four backs to go over 1,700 yards since 2000, plus two backs to go over 1,000 yards in the same season (DeMarco Murray and Chris Brown at Oklahoma in 2008).
"Initially, I think people believed the spread was cute," Wilson said. "But sometimes football is like going to a museum and looking at a piece of art. Different people look at different pictures and see different things. As people started spreading, it's neat looking at some of the ideas guys come up with. A lot of them aren't new ideas. It's the old ideas with some cute little window dressings. The beauty of the last couple years is the way the ball's been spread. But there also have been some decent lines and some really good players as much as anything."
Nobody will argue that point. There is as fine a collection of running backs returning to college football as there has been in quite some time. But it is worth noting that schemes have opened up many more possibilities. "It's going to become where 1,500 yards used to be the benchmark," Beatty said. "There's going to be a handful of guys that threaten 2,000 every year for the foreseeable future."The basic denominator of a systems workload instance, the VM, is shrinking, and quickly. In some ways, this bodes well for security, but may ultimately fork how we think about operating systems.
An old metric, used since the beginning of modern computing, has been the operating system instance, and it grew to use Moore’s law of the shrinking CPU and drop in cost. It was not so long ago that another huge barrier in technology was lifted |
done and when people would ask me what I’m doing, I’d reply with “I am very busy right now” or tell them that I am swamped with work. I thought that being swamped with work is something to be proud of. Boy, was I wrong.
The more I told myself that I had a lot of workload, the less time I had to focus on things that actually matter and incidentally, the less productive I became. Perhaps I became victim to the myth that one must work harder and longer to be more productive, and that in turn will produce a better life and better economy.
A few weeks ago I read this post on Tiny Buddha about productivity and happiness. It really made me think and I started becoming more aware of the work I do and how I feel when I do it and it hit me that really, busyness does not equal productivity. Here’s why:
You place value on how busy you are rather than how effectively you work
You may be accepting (or even giving yourself) more work just so you can be busy but how effectively are you working? Being busy means you are rushing your work as you get to completing your to-do list. You focus more on the to-do list rather than what’s on it and therefore you place emphasis on finishing your work instead of how effectively you are doing it. Would you say you’ve been productive when you’ve squeezed lots of tasks in one single day and then cut corners to complete them? I personally wouldn’t. I would feel as if I did my work halfheartedly and that’ll diminish the pride I have in my work.
You have less time to take care of yourself leading to negative stress
When I am stressed, I cannot get any work done. I’d be feeling lethargic and my work day would end (or won’t even begin) then. So it’s very important not only to my well-being but my clients and business that I’m stress-free and feeling refreshed when I tackle work. I get more done and effectively because I’m not feeling tired and able to focus on the task on hand with enthusiasm. Note that I wrote “focus on the task on hand.” By that I mean I’m not focusing on when I’ll finish something to start another but on what I am doing.
I think as business people, we often forget that we are only humans and human beings do not survive on being ineffectively busy 24/7. We need time away from work (that’s why vacations exist, haha!), we need to spend time with other human beings who we love and some days we just need to not do any work at all (even the bible has the Sabbath written as a law).
Your work becomes less enjoyable
When we’re busy, we start resenting the fact that we’ve got work to do and no time to do what we’d like to do to other than work and consequently work becomes annoying. We start seeing work more as a displeasing chore and who wants to dedicate hours of their days doing displeasing chores?
When I started Allebasi because it was something I’m passionate about. Imagine if I stopped enjoying the work that I do; there would be no point and it would feel as if months of dedicated hard work have gone done the drain and it would mostly feel like a drastic waste of time. People who enjoy their work are more productive because they are excited to be working and thus get work done, and effectively.
You take focus away from your goals
I am not saying you shouldn’t work hard to reach your goals. However, you shouldn’t give yourself the impression that filling your schedule with unnecessary tasks is crucial for you to reach your goals faster. You’ll just be setting yourself up for burnout and you’ll probably forget why you set yourselves those goals in the first place. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work we have to do and that makes it easy for us to give up. By taking one step at a time, we
We believe working long hours leads to more productivity
What we need to remember is to take one step at a time and focus on one thing at a time. Sure, time is valuable but we actually have a lot of it in a day. We just need to work more effectively and get our productivity that way.
I used to believe that the longer I worked, the more productive I was being but it turns out working longer just meant wasting time doing unnecessary tasks. Today if I tell myself that I have to do something I make sure that it is really necessary and aligned with my goals and well-being. If not, I forget about it and don’t do it. This frees up a lot of my time and I’m able to focus on things that make me happy and new ideas that actually get things moving along.
It was actually proven that working long hours does not lead to higher productivity. John Hicks, a British economist, reckoned that “probably it has never entered the heads of most employers…that hours could be shortened and output maintained.” Hicks reasoned that with longer hours, output per hour would fall. As workers slaved away for longer and longer, they would lose energy, which would make them less productive.” Makes sense doesn’t it?
Nowadays I shy away from taking on unnecessary tasks. I am more responsible with my time and I look forward to work every day. If I am busy doing something and a friend or family member wants to chat and they ask me if I’m busy, I’ll reply with, “Only just finishing up a blog post.” I reckon that if I have time to reply to them, that I’m not really busy am I? If I was busy, I wouldn’t have time to read the message or reply. So simple! But I do make a conscious effort to have time for my family and friends.
When scheduling work to be completed, I have to make sure that I also schedule time for non-related work. Because I now know the difference between being busy and being productive, I was able to find a blance and I’m not as stressed as I was 3 weeks ago. Bye-bye hair shedding and breakouts! Haha!
I want to hear what you have to say. Did you ever believe that being really busy meant being productive? How do you think people could be more productive without being unnecessarily busy?
P.S Don't forget that I'm co-hosting a Twitter chat for entrepreneurs this Friday. Check out this post for more details.
RELATEDThe United States and South Korea began large-scale air-defense exercises on Monday, ignoring pleas from Russia and China to call off the annual military drills in hopes that, in exchange, North Korea would slow its weapons programs. The decision signaled that the U.S. and its regional allies, including South Korea and Japan, are losing faith in the prospects for negotiations with the regime in Pyongyang.
“People may ask why we do not engage with North Korea. We have been engaging with North Korea for more than 20 years,” a Japanese government official told Yahoo News at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters in Kasumigaseki, Tokyo. “Our sincere will for dialogue with North Korea was betrayed, simply put.”
North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) last week that flew higher and farther than any previous launches, before landing in the sea within 200 nautical miles of Japan’s coast. The launch defied international pressure for the nation to halt testing of offensive weapons.
The Kim Jong Un regime said the new Hwasong-15 ICBM reached an altitude of about 2,780 miles and traveled 590 miles during its 53-minute flight. U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said that Pyongyang was determined to build missiles that could “threaten everywhere in the world, basically.”
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the state-run news agency for North Korea, claimed the “breakthrough” ICBM was robust enough to withstand reentering the atmosphere with a warhead and could reach the U.S. mainland.
The launch was North Korea’s first since President Trump put the country back on a list of state sponsors of terror on Nov. 20. It ended the fragile hope that stronger oil sanctions against North Korea would dissuade it from testing more ballistic missiles. The regime’s last ballistic missile exercise before last Tuesday took place on Sept. 15.
North Korea has tested ballistic missiles dozens of times over the past two years, rapidly increasing their reach — and altitude, which creates a lofted trajectory that’s more difficult to intercept.
The country has carried out six nuclear tests since October 2006. The government said the fifth test, on Sept. 9, 2016, was its first successful test explosion of a nuclear warhead – i.e., a bomb that could be delivered by a missile. After the sixth test, on Sept. 3, 2017, Pyongyang announced that it had successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb with an estimated yield of 160 kilotons, 10 times larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
North Korea’s accelerated weapon development is a top security concern for one of the United States’ closest allies, Japan. Tokyo is less than 800 miles from Pyongyang. Despite its pacifist ideals, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces (SDF) have a system in place to counter this threat — if need be.
The first line of defense relies on warships off the coast armed with anti-ballistic-missile technology. American aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin originally designed this technology — known as the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system — for the U.S. Armed Forces to stop short- and medium-range missiles from the sea. Nancy Nelson, a spokeswoman for Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems, said it is the most advanced maritime combat system on earth. She said six allied nations currently use the system: the U.S., Japan, Australia, Spain, Norway and the Republic of Korea.
The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces operate many vessels, but four, in particular, play a major role in missile defense: the “Kongo-class destroyers” equipped with the Aegis fire control system. Each ship takes its name from a different Japanese mountain. Kongo and Chokai home port in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture; Myoko home ports in Maizuru, Kyoto Prefecture; and Kirishima home ports in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.
Yosuke Nagata, the deputy director of the Strategic Planning Division for the Bureau of Defense Policy at Japan’s Ministry of Defense, said these ships are equipped with SM-3 missiles, which were designed by American defense contractor Raytheon.If you’ve read the Old Testament, a grueling task that I actually accomplished, you’ll know about the many genocides ordered by Yahweh. Many were the tribes slain by the Israelits on God’s command, including, besides the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. Theologians have spent a lot of time trying to justify why God wiped out innocent children (and even animals), and of course they’ve succeeded. Today we’ll occupy ourselves with the wholesale slaughter of the Canaanites, described in Deuteronomy 7:1-2 and 20:16-18. As God said in Deuteronomy 20:16, “But of the cities of these peoples which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive.. ” That could imply that not only were all the Canaanites (including women and children) slaughtered en masse, but so were their animals. Or at least so some theologians have argued, forcing them to then justify why God would commit genocide of animals. But theologians are up to the task! First, here are a few explanations for the mass slaughter of humans: Reader John sent me this video made by the disgraced (just out of prison for tax evasion and other crimes) but still active young-earth creationist Kent Hovind. While the 35-minute video includes Hovind’s usual blather about evolution and creationism, the reader wanted us to see Hovind’s justification for the Canaanite genocide. His/her email:
“Dr.” Kent Hovind has recently been released from prison and is back online, answering emails from the public in a daily Youtube broadcast. In his November 5th 2015 video, he put his own spin–the most monstrous I’ve yet encountered–on the fictional Yahweh’s proclivity for genocide: apparently, mass murder of the Canaanites by Yahweh’s servant Joshua was a necessary public health response to the population’s bestiality-induced infectious disease burden! According to Hovind, the extermination of the Canaanites, innocent children included, can be considered entirely analogous to a physician prescribing an antibiotic to eradicate bacterial infection! Imagine if you or Richard Dawkins or Peter Singer said such a thing! The relevant excerpt of the video–amongst a half-hour of inane blather–begins at 6:30 minutes in:
The following is my [John’s] transcript (verbatim by intention, or, at least, as close to verbatim as I can manage): “As far as God telling ’em to wipe out the Midianites, well, there were nations that were so full of diseases and things like that … that God said, “Yes, they need to all be wiped out, especially, like, the Canaanites in that land”. God told Joshua, “When you go into the land, utterly annihilate them! Kill ’em all!” Well, one of the things the Canaanites did was sex with animals, and had all kinds of diseases … and … and … just endemic in the civilization, and God said, “Wipe ’em all out!” No different than a doctor saying, “Take this pill that’s gonna kill every bacteria [sic], even the little baby ones that haven’t done anything wrong. Yeah, we’re gonna kill ’em all, ’cause if you leave onebehind or one resistant one behind, the disease can come back with a vengeance!”
Well, Hovind isn’t the only one to justify the murder of all the Canaanites, including their children AND the animals that they had sex with. William Lane Craig famously justified the human genocide; you can see some of his disgusting apologetics here. An excerpt:
So the problem isn’t that God ended the Canaanites’ lives. The problem is that He commanded the Israeli soldiers to end them. Isn’t that like commanding someone to commit murder? No, it’s not. Rather, since our moral duties are determined by God’s commands, it is commanding someone to do something which, in the absence of a divine command, would have been murder. The act was morally obligatory for the Israeli soldiers in virtue of God’s command, even though, had they undertaken it on their on initiative, it would have been wrong. On divine command theory, then, God has the right to command an act, which, in the absence of a divine command, would have been sin, but which is now morally obligatory in virtue of that command.... By setting such strong, harsh dichotomies God taught Israel that any assimilation to pagan idolatry is intolerable. It was His way of preserving Israel’s spiritual health and posterity. God knew that if these Canaanite children were allowed to live, they would spell the undoing of Israel. The killing of the Canaanite children not only served to prevent assimilation to Canaanite identity but also served as a shattering, tangible illustration of Israel’s being set exclusively apart for God. Moreover, if we believe, as I do, that God’s grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation. We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven’s incomparable joy. Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives.
Talk about making a virtue of necessity! The children had to die because God said so, because they’d grow up to worship pagan idols and so had to be extirpated, and because it wasn’t so bad after all because the children would reap their reward in Heaven. (Why, I wonder, would these children even go to Heaven, since that’s not an Old-Testament concept?) It is a fact universally acknowledged that there is no act of cruelty that cannot be justified by theologians as an aspect of God’s beneficence. Craig’s apologetics are monstrous.
But why destroy the Canaanites’ animals, too: the passive and probably unwilling victims of bestiality? Well, Clay Jones, Associate Professor of Christian Apologetics at Biola University, has explained that away on his website:
The Lord ordered that those who have sex with animals should be put to death along with the animal (Lev. 20:15). Atheist Richard Dawkins objects that it adds “injury to insult” that “the unfortunate beast is to be killed too.” ([Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York: Houghton, 2006),248.]) But, what Dawkins and others don’t grasp is that only the depraved would want to have animals around who were used to having sex with humans.
Jones goes on to describe a story by Robert Yerkes about a female gorilla who tried to press her genitals against his feet, and intimates that she had either had sex with a human or, if she hadn’t but might have in principle (although there were no gorillas in the Mideast), she’d be even more sexually demanding. That would be not only “embarrassing,” but even dangerous! And that’s why the Canaanites’ animals had to die—they were rape victims who became sluttish. It was honor killing! Jones:
Now the objection could be made that some of the animals may not have been subject to such abuse, but that’s not something that an Israelite would be able to know. Thus they all had to die. Major takeaway: sometimes beings innocent of committing sin can be harmed and corrupted by others who misuse their free will, as seems to be the case with animals involved in bestiality. It is a tragedy that these animals had to be killed but that’s one of the big lessons about sin: Sinful beings can hurt the innocent sometimes permanently.
Can you imagine a grown person being paid to utter such idiocy? But such is theology: the post hoc rationalization of things you want to believe. The argument that God killed the Canaanites’ animals because the poor beasts were sexually abused is simply an example of theologians making stuff up. After all, we don’t even know (if the Bible were true) that the animals were even killed. And the argument is no sillier than Edward Feser’s claim that dogs and cats won’t be admitted to Heaven.
The proper response to such arguments is not respect, but mockery.NEW YORK – In an emotional Breitbart News exclusive video interview, Kathy Shelton, who was raped by a 41-year-old drifter when she was only 12 years old, said that in the course of defending her rapist as a lawyer, Hillary Clinton “hurt a child inside too very bad.”
“And she says she’s for children and women? If she was for children she could have never went there with me as a 12-year-old girl,” added Shelton.
Watch video here:
Fighting tears, Shelton reacted as this reporter played audio, unearthed in 2014, in which Clinton can be heard laughing at several points in the recording while discussing the case in which she got Taylor off the hook in a plea bargain.
As part of the case, Clinton filed numerous affidavits attacking Shelton’s credibility and family, even accusing the 12-year old of a tendency to “seek out older men and to engage in fantasizing.”
She also demanded that Shelton be put through a psychiatric examination, although the judge in the case reportedly denied Clinton’s request.
Clinton took these actions despite strongly implying in the audio – recorded as part of an interview with a local reporter that was never published – that she knew Taylor to be guilty.
Shelton’s current attorney, Candice Jackson, points out that some of Clinton’s harsh tactics against the child rape victim would likely have been illegal under Arkansas’s rape shield act, which was not in force at the time.
During the Breitbart News interview, Shelton recounted the rape by Thomas Alfred Taylor and an underage male, which took place in Arkansas in 1975. The assault was particularly brutal, resulting in Shelton remaining in a coma and waking up with stitches on her private parts, she says.
Shelton stated in the interview:
I was going like a couple of blocks to go to church and these two guys stopped in a truck and started approaching me, which one was underage so they couldn’t bring him into it. They said I was going with them. And I said, “No I’m not.” And I tried to take off. And they jerked me off my bicycle and they put me in a truck and they were hitting me and I was screaming and crying that I didn’t want to go.
And I guess no one heard me. And we went on to a road where there was fields. And I’m not sure what road it was today. And by the time we got there, all of my clothes was ripped off of me and they raped me … in the car.
And they were hitting me and beating me so bad that parts of it I don’t even remember. They threw me out of the truck into the field or the edge of the field and they were beating me. And I’m pretty sure they thought I was dead.
Shelton says she remembers crawling, with blood on her body, to the porch of a nearby resident, and then she collapsed.
And I started crawling and I crawled. And I found this house and I crawled up on the porch. And knocked on the door. And she answered the door and the porch light came on and I seen them coming back and at that point I went out and I don’t remember anything until five days later after coming out of a coma in the hospital. …
I was totally beaten. I had blood all over me. … I went into a coma because I had some pretty hard head issues where they threw me up against the door. Punching me and so forth. I just know that I had cuts and bruises all over me. I had stitches around my private part and I was told at that point by the doctor that there was a 99 percent chance that I could never have kids.
While Shelton says she was in a coma for five days, the Washington Post found court documents showing that four days after the rape, an investigator filed a signed report stating that he had “personally interviewed” Shelton, whose name was removed from the report because she was a minor.
Jackson, Shelton’s attorney, responded, “There are a lot of details in those documents that turn it to be questionable. For example, in the same document it says the victim’s ‘parents’ reported this – yet Kathy was being raised by a single mom and her dad had been out of the picture for a long time. And I don’t think four days/five days is a significant enough detail to call into question Kathy’s veracity; it’s the Washington Post doing all it can to question Kathy and defend Hillary.”
Shelton reacts to Clinton audio: ‘It makes me sick’
The audio, archived at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, comes from a 1980s interview with Arkansas reporter Roy Reed intended for an Esquire magazine profile that was never published. It was unearthed in 2014 by the Washington Free Beacon.
In the audio, Clinton says she took on Taylor’s case as a favor to another attorney who wanted the rapist to be represented by a woman. “A prosecutor called me years ago, said that he had a guy who was accused of rape, and the guy wanted a woman lawyer,” Clinton can be heard saying. “Would I do it as a favor to him?”
Later, Clinton said she was picked by a judge to defend Taylor and that she was not happy with the assignment.
As part of the case, Clinton filed numerous affidavits attacking Shelton’s credibility and family, even accusing the twelve-year old of having a tendency to “seek out older men and to engage in fantasizing.” She also demanded that Shelton be put through a psychiatric examination, although the judge in the case reportedly denied Clinton’s request.
“I have been informed that the complainant is emotionally unstable with a tendency to seek out older men and to engage in fantasizing,” Clinton wrote in one affidavit without citing any evidence. “I have also been informed that she has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body. Also that she exhibits an unusual stubbornness and temper when she does not get her way.”
“I have also been told by an expert in child psychology that children in early adolescence tend to exaggerate or romanticize sexual experiences and that adolescents in disorganized families, such as the complainant’s, are even more prone to exaggerate behavior,” Clinton further claimed.
In another affidavit, Clinton claimed that Shelton “exhibits an unusual stubbornness and temper when she does not get her way.”
In the audio, Clinton is heard laughing when she says: “Of course he [the defendant] claimed he didn’t [rape]. All this stuff. He took a lie-detector test. I had him take a polygraph, which he passed, which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs.”
She also boasts that she “Got [Taylor] off with time served in the county jail. He had been in the county jail about two months.”
The court records show Taylor was eventually sentenced to one year in prison, with the two months reduced for the time he served in the county jail.
Listening to the audio during the Breitbart News interview, Shelton reacted that some of Clinton’s statements are “totally uncalled for.” Shelton, of course, had heard the audio several times since it has been released.
“Some of the stuff she says about me,” she added. “She didn’t even know me and she is just putting this in her own mind to lie about it. To make herself look good… She knew they were guilty the whole time. But she wants to look big.”
Continued Shelton:
It makes me sick. I… seeing Hillary for the first time in the last debate. And three times I almost come up from there. If my attorney hadn’t been sitting beside me and helping me stay calm I think I would have come up from there. Sitting there, every statement I hear she is for women and children. If she was for women or for children she wouldn’t have put me through what she has put me through. …
She don’t care if it’s lie, cheat, or steal. She is going to get there one way or another. As long as she can get what she wants. She hurt a child inside too very bad. And she says she’s for children and women? If she was for children she could have never went there with me as a twelve-year-old girl.
Shelton says she didn’t know it was Clinton who defended her rapist until being informed of the matter by a Newsday reporter in 2007.
She was not aware of the existence of the audio until it was unearthed and published by the Washington Free Beacon in 2014.
The Free Beacon further reported on the recording: “Clinton can also be heard laughing at several points when discussing the crime lab’s accidental destruction of DNA evidence that tied Taylor to the crime.”
“The crime lab took the pair of underpants, neatly cut out the part that they were gonna test, tested it, came back with the result of what kind of blood it was what was mixed in with it – then sent the pants back with the hole in it to evidence,” said Clinton in the audio. “Of course the crime lab had thrown away the piece they had cut out.”
Clinton was referring to underwear stained with blood and possibly semen that she took to a renowned New York City blood expert whose opinion she successfully used to raise questions about the forensic evidence because part of it was misplaced by a crime lab. That detail was key to Clinton’s ability to obtain a plea deal for Taylor.
Continued the Free Beacon:
Clinton said she got permission from the court to take the underwear to a renowned forensics expert in New York City to see if he could confirm that the evidence had been invalidated.
“The story through the grapevine was that if you could get [this investigator] interested in the case then you had the foremost expert in the world willing to testify, so maybe it came out the way you wanted it to come out,” she said.
She said the investigator examined the cut-up underwear and told her there was not enough blood left on it to test.
When Clinton returned to Arkansas, she said she gave the prosecutor a clipping of the New York forensic investigator’s “Who’s Who.”
“I handed it to Gibson, and I said, ‘Well this guy’s ready to come up from New York to prevent this miscarriage of justice,’” said Clinton, breaking into laughter.
“So we were gonna plea bargain,” she continued. …
Reed asked what happened to the rapist.
“Oh, he plea bargained. Got him off with time served in the county jail, he’d been in the county jail for about two months,” said Clinton.
When asked why Taylor wanted a female lawyer, Clinton responded, “Who knows. Probably saw a TV show. He just wanted one.”
Speaking last month to Arkansas Online, Reed said he doesn’t believe that Clinton was laughing at Shelton:
“As far as her laughing, God knows she was not laughing over the notion that this rapist was going to go free,” said Reed. “I challenge any fair-minded reader of that transcript to make a case that Hillary Rodham was a coldblooded lawyer who was laughing over the plight of the 12-year-old rape victim.”
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.A disabled dog is finding ways to lift peoples' spirit thanks to the companionship he offers.
Xander lost both of his eyes and developed breathing issues early in life following an accident. Soon after, the pug was given up for adoption at the Klamath Animal Shelter in Klamath Falls, Oregon. There, volunteers cared for Xander until Marcie and Rodney Beedy took him into their home.
The Beedys saw potential for Xander to improve the lives of others around him. They enrolled the 1-year-old dog in the American Kennel Club’s Canine Good Citizen program. Rodney is a member of the Double C team.
On Xander's official website, his owners explain part of the process.
"Xander's first accomplishment was to pass Beginning obedience class with about 20 sighted dogs," the Beedys wrote. "Momma wore a bell attached to her pant leg to keep him by her side. It wasn't long after that he could just listen to her footsteps and heel beside her."
Three weeks later, the blind pug earned his degree and became a certified Pet Partners Therapy Dog. In the role, he greets and visits with the young and old at hospitals, nursing homes, schools, and animal shelters.
What Rodney saw in the pug that made him fit to be a therapy dog: "It mainly was his gentleness and his ability to adjust to the circumstances. If he was with one person, he would play. If it were another person, he would calm down nicely. He's very gentle with what he does."
The Air Force veteran trains dogs for a living. Despite owning seven pugs and one Labrador, Rodney says, Xander is his first therapy dog.
"I think he was born for this type of work," the proud owner continued. "He's pulled me aside when a child was crying over 500 feet away because he wants to go over and comfort the child."
But when asked to recollect the most touching story of Xander bringing joy or ease to someone, Rodney remembers a particular hospital patient.
"We got a call to go up to the hospital for this one lady who was terminally ill," Rodney said. "We didn't know how long she had. My wife agreed to go up there every day after work for an hour, hour and a half. [The patient] went and played with his face. Xander would kiss her whenever she would cough. [Her] last few days, my wife continued to go up there with Xander."
The compassionate pug calmly stood by his newfound friend during her final days. She died a week and a half later.
"He's amazing in that his blindness does not affect his ability to do his work," Rodney remarked, although the work that Xander accomplishes is pretty amazing in itself.In this age of widespread education and flagging creativity, new translations abound. The old standbys who nurtured our youth—Constance Garnett rendering the Russians, C. K. Scott Moncrieff putting his spin on Proust, the Muirs translating Kafka, H. T. Lowe-Porter doing Thomas Mann—are all being retired, with condescending remarks about their slips and elisions, by successors whose more modern versions infallibly miss, it seems to this possibly crotchety scanner, the tone, the voice, the presence of the text that we first read. In general—if it’s generalizations you want—the closer the translator is in age to the translated, the more closely shared their vision and style will be. The Modern Library chose to reprint the 1700-03 translation of “Don Quixote” by Peter Motteux; after that peppery stew of italicized names and apostrophe-bedeck’d past tenses, every other “Quixote” feels watered down.
Of all translations into English, the one most read and universally admired is, of course, the King James Bible (1611), our language’s lone masterpiece produced by committee, at least until this year’s “9/11 Commission Report.” Nevertheless, new translations of the Bible—the world’s best-seller, long out of copyright—tumble forth, for the reasons, if any are offered, that contemporary scholarship presents a superior understanding of ancient Hebrew and that Renaissance English is increasingly, inconveniently archaic. The Hebrew scholar and literary critic Robert Alter, in introducing his thousand-page version, with copious commentary, of the first five books of the Bible—commonly called the Pentateuch or Torah—under the title “The Five Books of Moses” (Norton; $39.95), writes:
**{:.break one} ** Broadly speaking, one may say that in the case of the modern versions, the problem is a shaky sense of English and in the case of the King James Version, a shaky sense of Hebrew. The present translation is an experiment in re-presenting the Bible—and, above all, biblical narrative prose—in a language that conveys with some precision the semantic nuances and the lively orchestration of literary effects of the Hebrew and at the same time has stylistic and rhythmic integrity as literary English. **
Professor Alter, whose earlier works include “Fielding and the Nature of the Novel” (1968) and “A Lion for Love: A Critical Biography of Stendhal” (1979), has been tilling the Biblical fields ever since “The Art of Biblical Narrative” (1981) and “The Art of Biblical Poetry” (1985). As his footnotes, which take up at least half of all but a few pages, make clear, Alter is profoundly steeped not just in the linguistic details of Hebrew but in the nigh-overwhelming amount of previous commentary, including the Midrash of rabbinical interpreters going back to the early centuries of the Christian era. At the same time, he has, as his oeuvre shows, an appetite for literary theory—“Motives for Fiction” (1984), “Partial Magic: The Novel as Self-Conscious Genre” (1975)—and, as the passage quoted above indicates, a resolute sense of the Biblical style to be achieved.
He sees Biblical Hebrew as a “conventionally delimited language, roughly analogous in this respect to the French of the neoclassical theatre” and significantly though indeterminately distinct from the vanished vernacular of three thousand years ago. (The vernacular vocabulary, according to the Spanish Hebrew scholar Angel Sáenz-Badillos, must have exceeded the Bible’s—a lexicon “so restricted that it is hard to believe it could have served all the purposes of quotidian existence in a highly developed society.”) Alter has set himself to create a corresponding English—“stylized, decorous, dignified, and readily identified by its audiences as a language of literature,” with a “slight strangeness,” “beautiful rhythms,” and other qualities (suppleness, precision, concreteness) that “by and large have been given short shrift by translators with their eyes on other goals.” Why should not Alter’s version, its program so richly contemplated and persuasively outlined, become the definitive one, replacing not only the King James but the plethora of its revised, uninspired, and “accessible” versions on the shelf?
Several reasons why not, in the course of my reading through this massive tome (sold sturdily boxed, as if to support its weight), emerged. The sheer amount of accompanying commentary and philological footnotes is one of them. The fifty-four churchmen and scholars empowered at a conference at Hampton Court in January of 1604 to provide an authoritative English Bible had a clear charge: to supply English readers with a self-explanatory text. When they encountered a crux, they took their best guess and worked on; many of the guesses can be improved upon now, but no suggestion of an unclear and imperfect original was allowed to trouble the Word of God. Alter’s more academic and literary commission allows him to luxuriate in the forked possibilities of the Hebrew text, in its oldest forms written entirely in consonants, and without punctuation. Sample footnotes, taken at random from Deuteronomy:
*{:.break one} ** Some recent scholars have accepted Jacob Milgrom’s proposal that here the verb q-r-b (“approach”) is used in a political extension of its cultic meaning, “to encroach upon,” though there is no compelling necessity to see that sense of the word in this verse. **
*** ** The second of the two Hebrew words here, we’oyveinu pelilim, is a notorious crux, evidently already a source of puzzlement to the ancient Greek translators…. If one notes that pelilim rhymes richly with ’elilim, “idols,” and if one recalls this poet’s verbal inventiveness in coining designations for the nonentity of the pagan gods, “would-be gods” is a distinct possibility. **
It is difficult for the reader, given the overload of elucidation imposed upon the basic text, to maintain much momentum, and, indeed, one finds welcome refuge from the tedium and harshness of some Biblical passages in the companionable contemporary voice of the learned commentator. However, in his very zeal to communicate the nuances of the underlying Hebrew, Alter falls into the error |
songs used to rally the republican faithful which I often heard on Dublin streets when the Provos were in their pomp?
If Adams is right, and “they haven’t gone away, you know”, they seem nevertheless to have lost their voices.
Eunan O’Halpin is Professor of Contemporary Irish History at Trinity College DublinFor the next week and a half, all eyes will be focused on Jasper’s night sky. As the second largest dark sky preserve in Canada, Jasper offers some of the best night sky viewing in the country, and even the world.
A dark sky preserve is an area where no artificial lighting is visible and active measures are in place to educate the public and reduce light pollution.
Since receiving its designation as a dark sky preserve in 2011, Jasper has celebrated its night skies each October with the Jasper Dark Sky Festival. In anticipation of this year’s event, the Fitzhugh talked with Robert Dick, manager of the dark sky preserve program with the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) and asked him a range of questions about dark sky preserves.
Below is an edited version of our conversation.
Fitz: What is the dark sky preserve program?
Robert Dick: The dark sky preserve program is a program that we set up around 2000 in response to an approach made by a fellow named Peter Goring of the Muskoka Heritage Foundation, as it was called in those days. Muskoka is north of Toronto and is the cottage country for Toronto. A couple years earlier they designated an area in that region and they called it the Torrance Barrens. He spent a lot of his life up there and knew the impact light has on the environment, so he decided to come up with the idea of a dark sky reserve and he approached us about it and we allowed it to grow wings.
Fitz: What is the process involved with becoming a dark sky preserve?
RD: The main thing to start with is compliance with the guidelines for outdoor lighting. This is generally a relatively easy thing to do in principle.
The problem is every park manager ends up putting in lights. They never take lights out, they always add more so they just accumulate over the years. The manager needs to figure out what lights they have—that requires an audit—go out and actually find these lights, and then rationalize if they really need them or not.
In most cases they can be removed because it really doesn’t matter. The park should also be compliant or at least have a plan and a schedule to be compliant. It’s expensive to replace old lights with new lights that are more compliant, so we give that flexibility to the park, but they should have a plan and a schedule to replace those lights.
The other aspect of it is outreach. They should communicate this information. Communicate the need to protect the natural night to their visitors so that the visitors take that back to their homes.
Another component is to look outside of the park because light pollution knows no boundaries. They should talk to communities around the park and in that way, as those communities grow, if they are approached early enough or often enough, then whatever lighting they put in will also be low impact and that will protect the park well into the future.
Fitz: Why are dark sky preserves important?
RD: The knee jerk answer is to protect the environment, but in the RASC we also have an agenda and the agenda is to raise public awareness of the need for night.
Even though we are an astronomical organization, we rebranded the dark sky preserves not just for astronomy, but for the environment.
The astronomy gives you the eye candy, but the environment is what you’re trying to save. What is needed is some tool or mechanism to show the public what can be done with very little light and they can’t get that out of the cities because cities by definition demand high impact lighting.
When the public sees what can be done with very, very little light they’re literally quite amazed with how little light you actually need.
It also lets them gain an appreciation for the night environment, because unless you are exposed to it there is no way you can really learn to appreciate it. By demonstrating this to the public, the public can then communicate these lessons back to their cities and in this way we can leverage the dark sky preserve to improve our city policies as well.
Fitz: What are the biggest threats to dark sky preserves?
RD: I think the greatest threat is complacency. People think it’s hopeless, you can’t fight a city, but you actually don’t fight with them, you work with them and inform them.
Another threat would be ignorance because people think light has no affect. We always take a human centric view of it and we use stories and analogies to explain why it doesn’t really matter.
Right at the top, along with complacency and ignorance, would be fear of darkness. That’s literally innate. We should be scared of the dark if we’re hunters and gatherers because there’s a lot of predators out there, however with our technology, with the way we behave now, really there is very little danger when we’re out in the country at night.
We manifest this innate fear as a fear of crime so we assume in the dark there is lots of crime, well it turns out there is almost no crime. There’s very little crime at night and most of the crime that does occur, especially violent crime, 70 per cent of it is between people that know each other.
Fitz: What are the minimum requirements for becoming a dark sky preserve?
RD: The minimum requirements are fully shielded light. Unfortunately industry is changing their definition of what fully shielded means. When it was written, fully shielded wasn’t actually the correct term, it’s suppose to be full cut off shielding [which] does not let any light above the horizon.
It also restricts the light that shines out of the fixture just below the horizon and the reason why that’s important for dark sky preserves is that that’s the light that shines for kilometres across the landscape. You can literally see that from 10 kilometres away. It’s obviously shining beyond where the light was initially needed and that affects the migration of rodents, insects, birds and so on.
The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada has designated 17 areas dark sky preserves since 1999. The first was Torrance Barrens. Jasper received its designation in 2011, making it the largest dark sky preserve in Canada until Wood Buffalo National Park received its designation in 2013.
To learn more about dark sky preserves, check out the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada’s website at www.rasc.ca/dark-sky-site-designations.
Paul Clarke
reporter@fitzhugh.caA team of astronomers announced this year that they had found no fewer than eight planets orbiting the so-called Goldilocks zone around their parent stars, inside which the temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold to support life as we know it on Earth. Two of these, called Kepler-438b and Kepler-442b, are the most Earth-like candidates yet seen among the 1,900 or so exoplanets (planets outside our solar system) now known to exist.
“Earth-like” means, in part, that a planet has a good chance of carrying liquid water—something more likely to be true inside the Goldilocks zone. “Follow the water” has become a mantra for astrobiologists seeking signs of life elsewhere in the cosmos. With the new ability to detect the characteristic fingerprint of water in the light reflected from the atmospheres of exoplanets, some astronomers hope to spot a world that hosts life soon.
But is liquid water really necessary to life?
There’s a long history to the belief that it is. In 1913, the Harvard biochemist Lawrence Henderson proposed a curious inversion of Darwinian evolution, in which organisms become “fit” for their environment by adaptation. Henderson’s book The Fitness of the Environment argued that the cosmic environment is itself peculiarly “fit” to host life.
This was deeply puzzling. How could an environment acquire fitness? Also in Astronomy The Inside of a Neutron Star Looks Spookily Familiar By Matthew R. Francis Hot fluids of neutrons that flow without friction, superconductors made of protons, and a solid crust built of exotic atoms—features like these make neutron stars some of the strangest objects we’ve found in the cosmos...READ MORE
Henderson pointed out that water, in particular, seemed replete with “biocentric” attributes, as if it were uniquely designed as life’s solvent. The fact that it is a liquid at all on Earth is more unusual than it might seem. Other simple hydride molecules—methane, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, hydrogen chloride— are all gases at room temperature and pressure—but not “oxygen hydride” H 2 O. There seems to be some extra stickiness binding water molecules together.
And because water has a high heat capacity (it can absorb a lot of heat without much increase in temperature), ocean currents can redistribute huge amounts of solar heat and help make planetary conditions more uniform and stable. What’s more, while most liquids shrink and get denser when they freeze, ice expands and floats. As a result, ponds don’t freeze solid from the bottom up and then become almost impossible to thaw; instead, a frozen lid insulates the water beneath.
Water also dissolves a wide range of substances, so that it helps to carry essential nutrients and elements to organisms that need them. Without water’s exception al ability to host ions (electrically charged atoms and molecules), we wouldn’t have photosynthesis or nerve impulses. The large surface tension of water makes it possible for sap to rise up great distances through capillary action, so that plants can stand tall. And so on.
This was deeply puzzling. How could an environment acquire fitness? After all, the chemical ingredients of a planet—water, rocks, air—don’t mutate and reproduce, the key attribute for achieving Darwinian fitness. Yet some of these vital attributes of water had been noted before. In the mid-19th century, several British scholars were commissioned by the Earl of Bridgewater to write a series of books showing “the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation”—in other words, how God’s wisdom was revealed in the discoveries of science, an objective called natural theology. In one of these Bridgewater Treatises, published in 1834, the English chemist William Prout asserted that liquid water’s expansion close to its freezing point was an example of this divine providence.
Henderson was not so ready to cede ground to God, but he admitted that it was not easy to find any alternative explanation for water’s apparent “fitness.” All he could say was that there was “exceedingly little ground for hope that any single explanation of these coincidences can arise from current hypotheses and laws.” If they are ever to be understood, he said, “it will be in the future, when research has penetrated far deeper into the riddle of the properties of matter.”
The century or so of research since Henderson has revealed a compatibility between water and life as we know it that is even more remarkable and intricate than was imagined.1 But it has also shown that the relationship may not be especially exclusive—the strange harmony between life and water may just be another example of the remarkable adaptability made possible by Darwinian evolution.
Joseph Van Os
From the modern view, water is far from being a passive backdrop on which life’s biomolecules play out their dramas. It is, instead, an active participant.2 A delicate web of weak chemical bonds between water molecules, called hydrogen bonds, is draped around those biomolecules in ways that weave them into the tapestry of the liquid. This unites the biomolecular solute with its solvent in a mutually responsive dance. To do their job of catalyzing biochemical reactions, proteins have to be rather flexible, changing shape as they guide a reaction along the right path. But these shape-changes remold the surrounding shell of water too, while the wobbles and fluctuations of the water “inject” dynamism into the protein.
Matthias Heyden, Max Planck Institut für Kohlenforschung, Mulheim
Such interplay can be astonishingly subtle. For example, researchers at the Ruhr University of Bochum in Germany and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel have found that, as a protein binds its target molecule (called its substrate) in preparation for transforming it, the water molecules close to the binding site seem to slow down, almost as if thickening to hold the substrate in place.3 And there are subtle gains and losses of energy and entropy, connected to changes in the amount of hydrogen bonding and to the freedom of the water molecules to move around, which can dictate and drive a number of exquisitely tuned and highly selective biochemical processes.
These include the binding of an enzyme with its target molecule or substrate, when water gets expelled from nooks and crannies to make room for the substrate; the folding of a newly made protein chain into the compact shape of an enzyme; the assembly of proteins into multi-part biomolecular machinery; and the assembly of fatty lipid molecules into cell membranes. Each of these processes benefit from the fact that immersion in water somehow induces an attractive force between water-repelling (hydrophobic) parts of molecules.
Water molecules often act like snap-on tools attached to a protein’s surface, thereby extending an enzyme’s reach and helping it bind or transport small molecules. And chains of water molecules threading through channels in enzymes act as “proton wires” that can conduct hydrogen ions, allowing cells to move hydrogen atoms to new locations or a new molecule, or to build up and discharge gradients in hydrogen-ion concentration that can be tapped to generate energy, just as water wheels tap the flow of water down a hillside. Small changes in the web of water molecules threaded amongst the double helix of DNA can affect how easily the molecule bends, and how proteins stick to it to turn the activity of genes on and off.
Emad Tajkhorshid
All this shows that water’s role in life is even more complex and comprehensive than Henderson could have appreciated. But how much of it is unique to water, and to what extent does life depend on such abilities? Some of water’s roles, such as in hydrophobic attraction, have analogues in other solvents: If dissolved molecules don’t have much affinity for their solvent, whatever that might be, they’ll tend to stick together. And the conduction of hydrogen ions in water wires, say, is very important for life on Earth, but it’s not obvious that extra-terrestrial biochemistry would find it indispensible.
Another way to pose this question is to ask: What if water were less like water and more like an ordinary liquid? Chemical physicists Ruth Lynden-Bell of Queen’s University Belfast, in Northern Ireland, and Pablo Debenedetti of Princeton University in New Jersey have explored models of “counterfactual water,” in which the feature that lies at the heart of what makes water unusual—its particular hydrogen-bonding arrangement—can be tuned continuously just as if turning a dial. How much tuning is permitted before water’s anomalous nature is lost?
Not all of water’s unique characteristics help life—some are outright hindrances.
One of the simplest theoretical models of water treats hydrogen bonding as purely electrostatic: an attraction between slightly positively charged hydrogen atoms and negatively charged “lone pairs” of electrons on the oxygen atoms of neighboring molecules, with these charges disported at the corners of tetrahedra. This attraction, dictating a particular geometric arrangement of molecules, operates on top of the more general attraction that all atoms and molecules feel for one another owing to the sloppiness of their clouds of electrons, called van der Waals or dispersion forces. In simple liquids such as liquid argon or carbon dioxide, it’s just the van der Waals forces that keep the molecules from flying apart into vapor.
Left, Philip Ball; Right, Matthias Heyden, Max Planck Institut für Kohlenforschung, Mulheim
Lynden-Bell and Debenedetti devised a computer model of water in which the relative strengths of the electrostatic hydrogen bonding (which promote tetrahedral ordering) and the van der Waals attractions (which are the same in all directions) could be varied at will.4 Informally, they called this hypothetical stuff “not-water.” What they found was that water-like anomalies are not really just a matter of degree. Rather, the sort of ordering that comes from hydrogen bonding, and the sort that comes from van der Waals attractions of simple spheres, thanks to the way they pack like cannonballs, are distinct and incompatible. In between these two extremes, you get the worst of both worlds: The molecules are less ordered than at either extreme. Water is, in other words, qualitatively different from a liquid that lacks hydrogen bonding, in which the molecules just bump up against each other. Water isn’t, however, the only molecule to make hydrogen bonds—ammonia and even hydrogen chloride can do it, too. The difference is that water molecules can form vast three-dimensional networks because of their tetrahedral pattern of sticking together, while other hydrogen-bonders can only manage chains. The three-dimensional hydrogen-bonded network is the reason why frozen water is less dense than liquid water, something not true for ammonia and hydrogen chloride. Score one for water being unique.
But what about geometry? If you altered the angle of the bent H 2 O molecule, so that its hydrogen bonds weren’t so nearly tetrahedral, or if you made the bonds longer, would water’s unique properties disappear? When they tried doing this with “not-water,” Lynden-Bell and Debenedetti found that they could still get anomalies such as a maximum liquid density before the freezing point, so long as the changes weren’t too big—for example, so that the water molecule wasn’t too sharply bent. “There is a fair degree of latitude in the [geometrical] parameters,” says Lynden-Bell. The precise degree of variation allowed before a specific property vanishes “depends on which water property one is looking at,” says Debenedetti.
Philip Ball
Water’s hydrogen-bonded structure is also often invoked to explain the hydrophobic attraction of solutes it carries. But after looking at “not-water” with differing hydrogen-bond strengths and bond angles, Lynden-Bell, Debenedetti, and their coworkers concluded that the main reason why hydrophobic particles are pretty insoluble in water (and so tend to clump together) is because water molecules are so small that it takes a lot of energy to “scoop out” a space for the particles, and not because of the hydrogen bonding itself.5 So pretty much any liquid with small molecules should show something similar.
On balance, then, water is unique in some ways but not others: special, but not that special. Plus, not all of its unique characteristics help life—some are outright hindrances. For one thing, it’s quite reactive. The lone pairs of electrons on the oxygen atoms are drawn to parts of molecules with a positive charge, where they may break up existing bonds and fragment or reconfigure the molecules in a process called hydrolysis. The carbon atoms in peptide bonds—the linkages that hold together amino acids in protein chains—are susceptible to this sort of attack, giving water a tendency to split proteins through hydrolysis. Water may do the same thing to chains of sugar molecules, like those in biological polysaccharide compounds such as cellulose and starch.
“This is not so much a problem today in living systems, which have enzymes that repair the damage done by water,” says chemist Steven Benner, a distinguished fellow at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution. But it would be important for the origin of life, he says, when proto-biological molecules had to form and persist in water without the help of enzymes. “If water was engineered to be the perfect biosolvent by God, she certainly did a bad job of engineering,” Benner says.
He sees no fundamental reason why solvents such as ammonia, formamide (CHONH 2 ), or liquid hydrocarbons like those on Saturn’s moon Titan shouldn’t also support different kinds of biochemistry.6 After all, a lot of organic chemistry in laboratories and in industry is carried out in non-aqueous solvents (that is, solvents other than water), often precisely because water is too reactive. Benner is particularly interested in the idea that Titan’s hydrocarbon oceans might host hydrophobic life. He and his coworkers recently carried out experiments to see if they could build a “genetic polymer”—one that might encode information in a sequence of molecular building blocks in the way DNA and RNA do—that could work in such a liquid.
They found that chain-like molecules called polyethers, in which carbon and oxygen atoms alternate along the backbone, dissolve pretty well in liquid propane (C 3 H 8 ) at temperatures of around negative 94 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 70 degrees Celsius).7 Benner argues that polyethers could serve as genetic databases in such a solvent.
NASA/ESA Cassini-Huygens mission
But Titan is much colder than that: Its hydrocarbon oceans, consisting mostly of methane (CH 4 ) and ethane (C 2 H 6 ), have a temperature of around negative 288 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 178 degrees Celsius). At such frigid extremes, the polyethers don’t dissolve significantly. Benner concludes that liquid methane on Titan is therefore “simply too cold to support the solubility of almost anything necessary to create the properties that we value in life.” But, he says, that’s not because hydrocarbons are bad solvents and water is a good one—it’s just that liquid water is warmer, and stuff dissolves better in warmer liquids. “A warmer Titan,” he says, “with the temperatures in a habitable zone around the sun at approximately the orbital distance of the planet Mars, would have hydrocarbon oceans that include propane, butane, and even pentane.” These solvents would remain liquid at temperatures where they can actually dissolve significant quantities of material.
Another promising alternative to water championed by Benner is formamide, which can be formed from either carbon monoxide and ammonia or hydrogen cyanide and water—all of them simple molecules that can be found in interstellar and extraterrestrial environments. “Formamide is very much like water in terms of its solubility power (possibly even greater) as well as its liquid range (much greater),” says Benner: at one atmosphere pressure, formamide melts at 37 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) and boils at 411 degrees Fahrenheit (210 degrees Celsius). And it doesn’t have the same tendency as water to bust polymers apart. Benner and coworkers have recently shown that, in the presence of a boron-containing mineral to act as a catalyst, a phosphate chemical group can be added to the molecule adenosine in formamide to make adenosine phosphate, one of the basic building blocks of RNA and DNA.8 In contrast, water tends to split apart adenosine phosphate, making it harder to build nucleic acids.
If it is true that solvents besides water can serve just as well for other life elsewhere in the universe, then the intimate pairing of water and life here on Earth may really be a reflection of the extreme opportunism that adaptation confers on life. Terrestrial organisms use to the full everything that this strange liquid has to offer. It seems ironic that we might be overestimating the importance of water in astrobiology while at the same time underestimating the significance and subtlety of the jobs it does in terrestrial biology.
Indeed, the very adaptability that we find on Earth should give us pause before we elevate water to the sine qua non of life. There are organisms living in cracks in the rock in the hot, pressurized depths of the Earth where oil forms, and within the ice of sub-surface Antarctic lakes. Microbes survive in the baked, dry soil of the Atacama Desert, and whole communities thrive around volcanic hydrothermal vents spewing scalding water in the deep sea. Organisms can survive in extremely salty water, they can tolerate high concentrations of toxic heavy metals and even exposure to the highly ionizing radiation of outer space. While no known organisms can sustain metabolism without at least some water, microbes can adapt to life in heavy water, while some isolated enzymes can work in more or less totally water-free conditions. Given all this, it seems tempting to believe that, once Darwinian evolution gets going, it will find its feet in almost any circumstance.
Lynden-Bell agrees that we shouldn’t underestimate the ability of natural selection to find ways of sustaining life in all kinds of environments. “I personally believe that evolution can exploit the environment that it finds and that it is possible to imagine alternative scenarios,” she says. Life can also change its environment to suit itself. Colin Goldblatt of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver points out that, while cold and moist worlds are the only ones that look habitable from our current perspective, exactly where the zone of habitability lies depends on what else is in the atmosphere: On Earth, carbon dioxide (maintained partly by life) keeps most of our planet above the freezing point.9 In other words, “habitability depends on inhabitance,” he says. To put it another way, we can’t easily judge if a water world could support life without knowing if it already does.
Now, multiply that adaptability by the number of planets that could host it. Judging by the current statistics, just about every star in our galaxy has at least one planet on average, and one in five sun-like stars are likely to have Earth-like planets in their habitable zone. That makes at least 11 billion of these worlds in the Milky Way alone—and there are at least 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe.
In this picture, can we really insist that water be the only solution?
Philip Ball is the author of Invisible: The Dangerous Allure of the Unseen and many books on science and art.
References
1. Lynden-Bell, R.M., Conway Morris, S., Barrow, J.D., Finney, J.L., & Harper, C. Water and Life: The Unique Properties of H 2 O CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida (2010).
2. Ball, P. Water as an active constituent in cell biology. Chemical Reviews 108, 74-108 (2007).
3. Grossman, M., et al. Correlated structural kinetics and retarded solvent dynamics at the metalloprotease active site. Nature Structural & Molecular Biology 18, 1102-1108 (2011).
4. Lynden-Bell, R.M. & Debenedetti, P.G. Computational investigation of order, structure, and dynamics in modified water models. Journal of Physical Chemistry B 109, 6527-6534 (2005).
5. Lynden-Bell, R.M., Giovambattista, N., Debenedetti, P.G., Head-Gordon, T., & Rossky, P.J. Hydrogen bond strength and network structure effects on hydration of non-polar molecules. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 13, 2748-2757 (2011).
6. Benner, S.A., Ricardo, A., & Carrigan, M.A. Is there a common chemical model for life in the universe? Current Opinion in Chemical Biology 8, 672-689 (2004).
7. McLendon, C., Opalko, F.J., Illangkoon, H.I., & Benner, S.A. Solubility of polyethers in hydrocarbons at low temperatures. A model for potential genetic backbones on warm titans. Astrobiology 15, 200-206 (2015).
8. Furukawa, Y., Kim, H.J., Hutter, D., & Benner, S.A. Abiotic regioselective phosphorylation of adenosine with borate in formamide. Astrobiology 15, 259-267 (2015).
9. Goldblatt, C. Habitability of waterworlds: runaway greenhouses, atmospheric expansion and multiple climate states of pure water atmospheres. Astrobiology 15, 362-370 (2015).Even Satan doesn’t want to be associated with Kathy Griffin.
After the attention-starved “comedian” participated in a photo shoot where she posed with the bloody severed head resembling that of President Trump, and the image was posted on Tuesday, the Church of Satan disavowed her.
Mike Cernovich tweeted, “CNN has yet to issue a statement about Satanic-ISIS death threats made by its employee Kathy Griffin.”
Please do not include us in this. — The Church Of Satan (@ChurchofSatan) May 30, 2017
The Church of Satan responded, “Please do not include us in this.”
One entity, however that is still including Griffin in its broadcasts is CNN.
The network released a statement calling Griffin’s stunt “disgusting and offensive” but has yet to take action against its New Year’s Eve co-host.
New: CNN says Kathy Griffin photo “disgusting and offensive.” Says it is “evaluating our New Year’s Eve coverage….” Statement:: pic.twitter.com/u5rtj86Ty2 — Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) May 31, 2017
“We are evaluating our New Year’s Eve coverage and have made no decisions at this point,” CNN’s Dylan Byers tweeted.
President Trump slammed Griffin, writing she “should be ashamed of herself,” adding that his 11-year-old son is “having a hard time with this.”
Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself. My children, especially my 11 year old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017
Meanwhile, late Tuesday night, Griffin — or someone resembling her — tweeted an apology video:
I am sorry. I went too far. I was wrong. pic.twitter.com/LBKvqf9xFB — Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) May 30, 2017
“I am sorry. I went too far. I was wrong,” she said, despite being caught on video mocking the impending firestorm during the photo shoot.The University of Hong Kong twice contacted the police in relation to an in incident at a chaotic HKU governing council meeting in January: actions that an HKU student group described as revenge against the then-student union president, Billy Fung jing-en. Fung was arrested this week for his involvement in the council meeting incident.
On January 26, students surrounded the meeting chaired by newly-appointed council chairman Arthur Li Kwok-cheung. Fung was accused of shouting “Do not let him go! Do not let Arthur Li go! Take him down! Take him down!” outside the meeting venue of the council. Those actions led to the charge of criminal intimidation or disorderly conduct in a public place alternately.
Fung also faces one count of criminal damage and one count of attempted forcible entry. He was arrested on Wednesday night and appeared in court on Friday
Security guards at the meeting venue in January called the police when the incident occurred. Citing the university’s executive vice-president Steven J. Cannon after a meeting, current student union president Althea Suen Hiu-nam said the secretariat of the school called the police again in February, upon the request of members of the council, and with the authorisation of the school’s senior management team.
Suen said according to Cannon, some of the members of the senior management team have given statements to the police, and submitted a report to the police requesting investigation of the incident.
She urged the school not give further information to the police. “The school has no obligation to provide CCTV footage or other evidence to the police,” she said.
Suen said it was not appropriate for the school to report the case to the police, that the university – as an educational institution – should not see student protests as criminal offences.
The senior management team includes president Peter Mathieson, seven vice-presidents, the registrar and the director of finance. Mathieson described the incident at the time as “mob rule”.
A statement from HKU said “A judicial process is under way and it would be inappropriate for the university to comment further.”
The Hong Kong University Students’ Union issued a statement on Friday supporting Fung.
“[T]he current university authorities have forgone their integrity and the aim of education to cling to the powerful, allowing universities to become a political tool and the higher education to fall because of their moral bankruptcy,” it said.
The union said it was “obviously a revenge” directed against Fung as only he was charged out of dozens of people who joined the protest.
“The university authorities may believe that we will submit out of fear after this incident, but we say eloquently that we shall never back down. Filled with rage and having certainly no fear, we shall stand with Billy until the truth defeats the power,” it added.
The University of Hong Kong Alumni Concern Group said Arthur Li should bear the “biggest responsibility” for causing the chaos as he did not explain the developments after the meeting to students, alumni, and members of the public.
“The students there were asking for conversation and explanation. We believe they did not have the intent to intimidate or damage the university’s facilities. The school could handle the damage caused by the incident using existing procedures of the university,” it said in a statement.
The Hong Kong Federation of Students and the student union of the Chinese University of Hong Kong also criticised the school for suppressing its students.
Fung denied all charges at the Eastern Magistrates’ Courts on Friday. Outside court, he thanked those who supported him, and said the most important issue was to help other students who may face a similar situation as him.
He also said the school’s Centre of Development and Resources for Students has asked him whether he needed assistance. He said he believed the court will have a fair judgment.
Fung was released on bail for HK$10,000, and a pre-trial review was scheduled on September 21.New Delhi: With oil cartel the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) cutting production for the first time since 2008 leading to a surge in oil prices, Union oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday said, higher rates will risk the country’s growth trajectory and pitched for striking a balance between interests of producers and consumers.
Benchmark Brent oil has rallied to $54.56 a barrel, the biggest weekly gain since 2009, after Opec approved its first supply cut in eight years.
“Last week the Opec countries pledged to reduce their production by 1.2 million barrels a day. Non-Opec countries also agreed to a production cut to the tune of 0.6 million barrel per day. The proposed cut caused a surge in oil prices to above $50 a barrel and speculation is rife that it might go up even further," oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan said at the Petrotech 2016 conference in New Delhi.
India has used the slump in oil prices since 2014-15 to not just cut petrol and diesel rates to cool inflation but also as an opportunity to shore up revenues by raising duties. The country’s basket of crude oil imports had averaged $105.52 per barrel in 2013-14 which dipped to $84.16 in the following year, and to $46.17 a barrel in 2015-16.
This fiscal, it has averaged $44.81 per barrel so far. “I want to submit before this august gathering that for the sustainability of the oil markets, we must strike a balance of interest between producers and consumers," he said.
Recalling his statement before the Opec forum in June last year, he said consumption of petroleum products is price sensitive as there is a genuine issue of affordability for a sizable population in India and other developing countries. “Hence, while deciding the pricing aspect of crude oil, it should be factored in that the security of supply must, in turn, be matched by security of demand."
In today’s world, disruption has become a part of life, he said. India, he said, is already the third largest energy consumer in the world behind the US and China. “At 4.3 million barrels per day, although we have less than 5% share in the world consumption, our annual consumption growth is far more significant. At 300,000 barrels per day growth, our contribution was about 30% of global growth in demand last year."
He added: “We understand that energy is the most important catalyst for achieving sustained growth. In the modern world, access to energy should be a fundamental right of each human being. This is particularly true for India with a rapidly growing economy and huge aspirational population."
The Modi government is committed to provide reliable and affordable energy, in a time bound manner, to a large proportion of India’s population which still does not have access to energy, Pradhan said. “I have no hesitation to confess that the fall in oil prices in last two years came as a timely relief for Indian economy and consumers. This has helped us to increase penetration of cleaner fuel replacing polluting biomass among the poorer segments of society," he said. PTIThere is a common misconception that documentaries are somehow easier than traditional narrative film making, that all it constitutes is finding something interesting and pointing your camera in that direction. But that is precisely because that is how they are intended to appear. A great documentary is like a great matte painting in a Hollywood feature; it looks completely real and thus its artifice is practically invisible, but it was actually created with extraordinary craft and is the result of a series of artistic choices.
There is a common misconception that documentaries are somehow easier than traditional narrative film making, that all it constitutes is finding something interesting and pointing your camera in that direction. But that is precisely because that is how they are intended to appear. A great documentary is like a great matte painting in a Hollywood feature; it looks completely real and thus its artifice is practically invisible, but it was actually created with extraordinary craft and is the result of a series of artistic choices. The most successful documentaries are the same way; they seemingly present reality when in fact they are wholly artistic constructions.
In the previous installment of this piece, which can be found here, I counted down the first thirteen of what I believe to be the twenty-five greatest non-fiction cinematic mattes. Those films gave us personal stories as well as looks at national history, and took us from the halls of Harlem to your own backyard. The next twelve will continue this eclectic theme and range from from the amusing to the soul-penetrating.
I mentioned in my previous introduction that I was going to try to eschew the established documentary canon somewhat and present my subjective take on cinema’s greatest documentaries. As I count down the remaining twelve, there are some realities that are inescapable; documentaries that have been canonized for a reason, namely, that they’re damn fine films. That being said, I am confident that the following twelve documentaries truly are the greatest ever made, and I would be honored if you would allow me to share them with you
12. Hands On a Hard Body (1997)
Directed by S.R. Binder
Hands On A Hard Body is like a Seven Samurai of misplaced hope; the old geezer, the seasoned veteran, the young buck, the girl, |
.0023 28 Yu Darvish 0.0165 29 Danny Duffy 0.0971 30 Hyun-Jin Ryu 0.1653 31 Jeff Samardzija 0.0053 32 Alfredo Simon 0.128 33 Chris Young -0.0108 34 Kyle Lohse 0.0178 35 Dallas Keuchel 0.1184 36 Henderson Alvarez -0.0213 37 Bartolo Colon 0.0071 38 James Shields 0.0153 39 Jered Weaver 0.0389 40 Ervin Santana 0.1597 41 Alex Cobb 0.2246 42 Tim Hudson 0.0146 43 Chris Tillman -0.0001 44 Alex Wood -0.0953 45 Matt Shoemaker -0.009 46 Wily Peralta 0.0013 47 John Lackey 0.0005 48 Collin McHugh 0.0125 49 Mike Leake 0.0239 50 Chris Archer 0.0611
According to that, my hypothesis could not have been more wrong. I guess I could have gone past the top 50 to see if the relationship strengthened at some point, but given that both the Twitter responses and my own practices considered top 30 to be about the cutoff for must-start pitchers, I didn’t think I needed to go further to prove that matchup may not be as decisive as I thought it was. That, and I doubt the relationship would have gotten any stronger.
Again, because it seems so intuitive that lesser pitchers will perform better against lesser opponents and vice-versa, I’m questioning my methodology. Is game score the right measure of production? I guess I could have used game-by-game point totals from a daily fantasy scoring system, but given that game score is just a points system that rewards pitchers similar to a daily scoring system, I doubt that would have changed the results all that much. Or maybe there is something else I’m completely overlooking.
But assuming I haven’t missed something here, matchup may not be as important as I/we think it is. Maybe it’s a better practice to just ask ourselves if the pitcher is any good. The definition of good is a movable target based on replacement level in your league, but that may be the only question you need to ask. In my big money league there is no innings or start cap. The 12 teams in the league carry about 10-11 starters on average. Fear of getting destroyed in the ratio categories is the only reason to leave a guy on the bench becuase the races for strikeouts and wins are so fierce. So in a league with with about 130 starting pitchers owned, why am I ever sitting Lackey, even if he’s facing the best offense in the league? He’s so far above replacement level that matchup should go right out the window.Scalia: Gore to blame for 2000 decision Stephen C. Webster
Published: Thursday June 26, 2008
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Print This Email This Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has claimed, in a recent interview with the UK newspaper Telegraph, that then Vice President Al Gore was to blame for George W. Bush being declared the victor of the 2000 presidential election. "Richard Nixon, when he lost to Kennedy thought that the election had been stolen in Chicago, which was very likely true with the system at the time," said Scalia. "But he did not even think about bringing a court challenge. That was his prerogative. So you know if you don't like it, don't blame it on me. "I didn't bring it into the courts. Mr Gore brought it into the courts," he continued. "So if you don't like the courts getting involved talk to Mr Gore." The first state court case in Florida was filed by Palm Beach County voters who felt they were disenfranchised by the infamous butterfly ballot design. It was the Bush Cheney campaign who first took the case to federal court, filing a federal lawsuit on Nov. 11, 2000. A complete timeline of the Florida fiasco is available here. Recently, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean claimed the 2000 election was stolen by 'five intellectually bankrupt judges.' Scalia, on the other hand, argued that if a critic wanted "to look for partisan decisions," the Florida supreme court's ruling on the 2000 elections would be a prime candidate. Scalia continued, claiming that 'of course' he regretted the Supreme Court becoming involved with the 2000 presidential election. "But I don't know how we could have avoided it," he said. "Could we have declined to accept the case on the basis that it wasn't important enough?... I think our decision in the case was absolutely right. But if you ask me 'Am I sorry it all happened?' Of course I am sorry it happened, there was no way that we were going to come out of it smelling like a rose." READ THE REST.Furious Kubrat Pulev determined to recapture his position and get the fight with Anthony Joshua, writes John Dennen
Furious Kubrat Pulev determined to recapture his position and get the fight with Anthony Joshua, writes John Dennen
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KUBRAT PULEV is determined to work his way back to a shot at unified heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua.
The Bulgarian was due to fight Joshua on October 28, until an injury forced him off the show to be replaced by Carlos Takam on 12 days notice.
Pulev was the mandatory challenger for the IBF belt, a role Takam also occupied. Now Pulev is focused on recapturing his position in the rankings and getting a fight with Joshua.
“Of course he is,” Pulev’s promoter Kalle Sauerland told Boxing News.
“Pulev didn’t want to pull out. I’ve had big row with him,” he revealed. “He’s furious that I pulled him out. I didn’t pull him out, he was injured. So he had to not fight. But he wanted to fight that much.”
It was brave but Pulev couldn’t go into a fight of that magnitude with only one arm. Eventually though he does deserve another world title fight.
“You talk levels in heavyweight boxing and I think for me there’s eight, nine, 10 guys are at the level and they’re all very close to each other. There’s Joshua, you saw Takam for example. He didn’t surprise me Takam, he didn’t surprise me at all. I was surprised people were surprised. He was always going to be a livewire. If you look at it, Pulev, [Alexander] Povetkin, Takam, I know people in the UK will say Whyte but for me there’s still a distance. But Dillian Whyte is also an interesting character. There’s always people talking about it. But I do think there’s a certain level which Pulev is definitely within. On anyone’s day any one of these can win,” Sauerland said.
“There’s a lot of interesting fights you can make in the heavyweight division and there’s no clear number one for me.”Introduced under proposal n3921, string_view gives us the ability to refer to an existing string in a non-owning way.
Rationale
std::string is the standard way of working with strings in C++, and offers a lot of convenient functionality for working with strings, such as comparison, searching for substrings, concatenating, slicing, etc.
There is a cost to working with strings though, and that is that they own the underlying buffer in which the string of characters is stored. In order to own this buffer, they often require dynamic memory. (Note if the string is small enough it won’t, due to the “small string optimization” or SSO. You can read more here if you are interested.) However, to all intents and purposes, and particularly in generic code, unless you are certain of the length of the input and the length of string your implementation can handle without a dynamic allocation, I would suggest it is good practice to assume the creation of a string will result in a dynamic allocation.
It is important to understand when dynamic memory allocations occur, and whether they are necessary or not. You should always strive not to be “wasteful” with dynamic allocations, and prefer stack allocations when possible. This holds true in particular for performance critical code, as dynamic memory allocations are orders of magnitude slower than stack allocations.
So if std::string is the standard way of working with strings in C++, then why does this matter?
The reason is that there are often times when we want to work with string-like data, and we don’t necessarily want to transform it into a standalone std::string.
For example, the arguments to a C++ application are passed to your main function as an array of c-style character arrays.
int main ( int argc, char * argv []) { // argv is an array of char* }
Perhaps we want to write a function which takes two strings and compares them
bool compare ( const std :: string & s1, const std :: string & s2 ) { // do some comparisons between s1 and s2 }
What happens if we want to check a string we currently have, str, against a number of string literals?
bool r1 = compare ( str, "this is the first test string" ); bool r2 = compare ( str, "this is the second test string" ); bool r3 = compare ( str, "this is the third test string" );
For each of the calls to compare above, a std::string will be created, a buffer sufficiently large to hold the data will be created in dynamic memory, and the string literal copied into it.
Here we can see that dynamic allocations are occurring when we call compare with a string-literal by overloading the global operator new
#include <iostream> void * operator new ( std :: size_t n ) { std :: cout << "[allocating " << n << " bytes]
" ; return malloc ( n ); } bool compare ( const std :: string & s1, const std :: string & s2 ) { if ( s1 == s2 ) return true ; std :: cout << '\"' << s1 << " \" does not match \" " << s2 << " \"
" ; return false ; } int main () { std :: string str = "this is my input string" ; compare ( str, "this is the first test string" ); compare ( str, "this is the second test string" ); compare ( str, "this is the third test string" ); return 0 ; }
Build and run:
$ g++ -std=c++11 -Wall -Wextra -Werror main.cpp $./a.out [allocating 24 bytes] [allocating 30 bytes] "this is my input string" does not match "this is the first test string" [allocating 31 bytes] "this is my input string" does not match "this is the second test string" [allocating 30 bytes] "this is my input string" does not match "this is the third test string"
All of these allocations, just to compare a string?
Of course we could create a second overload which takes C-style strings, but then we lose the benefit of having an O(1) size function.
bool compare ( const std :: string & s1, const char * s2 ) { size_t s2_len = strlen ( s2 ); // O(N) complexity }
Another downside to this is that we now have to manage multiple overloads which ostensibly do the same thing.
What happens if we have another string type, such as Qt’s QString. Do we create a third overload which compares against QStrings?
What happens if we want the first argument to be a C-style string or a QString, now we need multiple overloads for those too.
bool compare ( const std :: string & s1, const std :: string & s2 ) bool compare ( const std :: string & s1, const char * s2 ) bool compare ( const std :: string & s1, const QString & s2 ) bool compare ( const char * s1, const std :: string & s2 ) bool compare ( const char * s1, const char * s2 ) bool compare ( const char * s1, const QString & s2 ) bool compare ( const Qstring & s1, const std :: string & s2 ) bool compare ( const Qstring & s1, const char * s2 ) bool compare ( const Qstring & s1, const QString & s2 )
Clearly the number of overloads could quickly balloon if we decide to go down this path.
String views
Enter string_view, a way to wrap an existing string in a non-owning way.
The likely implementation will consist of just two data members, a pointer to the start of the string and a length.
They are cheap to construct and cheap to copy.
Example:
#include <iostream> #include <experimental/string_view> void * operator new ( std :: size_t n ) { std :: cout << "[allocating " << n << " bytes]
" ; return malloc ( n ); } bool compare ( std :: experimental :: string_view s1, std :: experimental :: string_view s2 ) { if ( s1 == s2 ) return true ; std :: cout << '\"' << s1 << " \" does not match \" " << s2 << " \"
" ; return false ; } int main () { std :: string str = "this is my input string" ; compare ( str, "this is the first test string" ); compare ( str, "this is the second test string" ); compare ( str, "this is the third test string" ); return 0 ; }
Build and run:
$ g++ -std=c++1z -Wall -Wextra -Werror main.cpp $./a.out [allocating 24 bytes] "this is my input string" does not match "this is the first test string" "this is my input string" does not match "this is the second test string" "this is my input string" does not match "this is the third test string"
You can see there is only a single allocation, when we create our str string. The creation of string_vew from the literals does not require a dynamic allocation.
Note: You can see I’m using string_view in the experimental namespace, as the version of gcc I’m using hasn’t yet moved string_view into it’s C++17 location (ie: out of experimental), which is where it will be in a C++17 compliant compiler.
Additional benefits
There are additional benefits to string_view, such as creating a string_view from a substring in an existing string. std::string::substr returns a new string, potentially involving a dynamic allocation. However, we can construct a string_view from the address of a position in our string, and that won’t involve a dynamic allocation.
Example:
#include <iostream> #include <experimental/string_view> void * operator new ( std :: size_t n ) { std :: cout << "[allocating " << n << " bytes]
" ; return malloc ( n ); } bool compare ( std :: experimental :: string_view s1, std :: experimental :: string_view s2 ) { if ( s1 == s2 ) return true ; std :: cout << '\"' << s1 << " \" does not match \" " << s2 << " \"
" ; return false ; } int main () { std :: string str = "this is my input string" ; std :: experimental :: string_view sv ( & str. at ( str. find_first_of ('m' ))); compare ( str, sv ); return 0 ; }
Build and run:Possibly inspired by singer Adele (possibly not), Samsung is bringing a new flip-phone model to the market
We all owe Adele an apology. After the internet mercilessly took the piss out of the flip-phone she used in her video for Hello (a decision the director said was thought through – “it’s so distracting to see an iPhone in a movie”), news has emerged that Samsung is releasing a flip model.
It's Meagan (@MeaganAldaine) Buy Adele An Upgrade For Her Flip Phone #RejectedKickstarterFund pic.twitter.com/4PkKF2sokz
In photographs that were (probably) greeted with much suspicion – because, flip-phone, 2015 – the SM-W2016 looks a little bit like a clamshell version of the Galaxy S6.
Photograph: TENAA
According to Sammobile, the new phone will include 64GB storage, 3GB RAM, 16 megapixel and 5 megapixel cameras and will run Android Lollipop.
Samsung did actually bring a flip-phone to the market back in July – but only in Korea. And it’s unclear whether Samsung is planning to bring the SM-W2016 to the European or US markets but let’s hope so, because I’m excited at the prospect of playing a businessman circa 2002.
Back in December 2014, I wrote about my love affair with clamshell models, which allow a (literally) snappy end to a conversation; an “onomatopoeic full-stop” as I put it then.
There was something a little sassy in a flip-phone, and it was perfectly sized for all pockets. Now, phones are so large it’s often difficult to sit down if they are being carried in jeans.
Adele and I aren’t the only fans. Anna Wintour and Rihanna have also been spotted with humble clamshells. Who wants to tell Drake that the only reason we stopped calling him on his cell phone was because he switched to a smartphone?
Adele’s famous flip-phone as seen in her music video for ‘Hello’
• Forget Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy, the humble flip phone is back
• Samsung Galaxy S6 review: the iPhone killerModern interrogation is a study in human nature. Most of us are more likely to talk to people who appear to be like us. Once we start talking, it's hard for us to stop. Once we start telling the truth, it's harder to start lying. When a police officer tells us our fingerprints were found on the inside doorknob of a home that was robbed two days ago, we get nervous, even if we wore gloves the whole time we were inside.
With a few exceptions, the police are allowed to lie to a suspect to get him to confess. The belief is that an innocent person would never confess to a crime she didn't commit, even if she were confronted with false physical evidence of her involvement. Unfortunately, that's not always the case (more on false confessions in the next section), but it's a big part of the reason why the police are allowed to employ deceptive tactics in interrogation.
The psychological manipulation begins before the interrogator even opens his mouth. The physical layout of an interrogation room is designed to maximize a suspect's discomfort and sense of powerlessness from the moment he steps inside. The classic interrogation manual "Criminal Interrogation and Confessions" recommends a small, soundproof room with only three chairs (two for detectives, one for the suspect) and a desk, with nothing on the walls. This creates a sense of exposure, unfamiliarity and isolation, heightening the suspect's "get me out of here" sensation throughout the interrogation.
The manual also suggests that the suspect should be seated in an uncomfortable chair, out of reach of any controls like light switches or thermostats, furthering his discomfort and setting up a feeling of dependence. A one-way mirror is an ideal addition to the room, because it increases the suspect's anxiety and allows other detectives to watch the process and help the interrogator figure out which techniques are working and which aren't.
Before the nine steps of the Reid interrogation begin, there's an initial interview to determine guilt or innocence. During this time, the interrogator attempts to develop a rapport with the suspect, using casual conversation to create a non-threatening atmosphere. People tend to like and trust people who are like them, so the detective may claim to share some of the suspect's interests or beliefs. If the suspect starts talking to the interrogator about harmless things, it becomes harder to stop talking (or start lying) later when the discussion turns to the crime.
During this initial conversation, the detective observes the suspect's reactions -- both verbal and non-verbal -- to establish a baseline reaction before the real stress begins. The detective will use this baseline later as a comparison point.
One method of creating a baseline involves asking questions that cause the suspect to access different parts of his brain. The detective asks non-threatening questions that require memory (simple recall) and questions that require thinking (creativity). When the suspect is remembering something, his eyes will often move to the right. This is just an outward manifestation of his brain activating the memory center. When he's thinking about something, his eyes might move upward or to the left, reflecting activation of the cognitive center. The detective makes a mental note of the suspect's eye activity.
Bad Move
In the United States, as many as 80 percent of suspects waive their rights to silence and counsel, allowing police to conduct a full-scale interrogation.
The next step is to turn the questioning to the task at hand. The detective will ask basic questions about the crime and compare the suspect's reactions to the baseline to determine if the suspect is being truthful or deceptive. If the interrogator asks the suspect where he was the night of the crime and he answers truthfully, he'll be remembering, so his eyes may move to the right; if he's making up an alibi, he's thinking, so his eyes might move to the left. If the interrogator determines that the suspect's reactions indicate deception, and all other evidence points to guilt, the interrogation of a guilty suspect begins.[Post by Venkat with a few comments from Eric]
Agence France Presse v. Morel, 10 Civ. 2730 (WHP) (S.D.N.Y.; Dec. 23, 2010)
The Southern District of New York issued an order denying AFP’s request to dismiss photographer Daniel Morel’s copyright claims, rejecting AFP’s argument that uploading pictures to Twitter/Twitpic granted third parties (including AFP) a broad license to exploit this content. The result is not surprising from a legal standpoint, but should allow photographers (and others who upload content into Twitter’s ecosystem) to breathe a sigh of relief.
The court recaps in detail the factual background underlying the dispute in its order. In a nutshell, Morel took what turned out to be iconic photographs in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. He uploaded the photos to his Twitpic account and linked to them via his Twitter account. Shortly after Morel uploaded his photographs, Lisandro Suero copied the photographs and posted them to Suero’s own Twitpic page. Suero did not attribute the photographs to Morel. The facts are somewhat murky, but it does not seem disputed that AFP downloaded the photographs from Suero’s account, marketed and distributed the photographs, and initially credited Suero with taking the photographs. Ultimately, Morel cried foul, and AFP filed a declaratory judgment lawsuit saying it did not infringe. [Some of the discussions between AFP and Suero took place on Twitter, and make for interesting reading. I wonder if the casual nature of Twitter and email discussions contributed to AFP’s foibles here.] [Also, the photos were broadly distributed and licensed downstream, so there are a slew of defendants. I’ve mostly omitted discussion of the various defendants, focusing on AFP.]
Copyright Claim : AFP’s primary argument was that (1) “[it] had an express license to use Morel’s images [by virtue of the Twitter or Twitpic terms]” or (2) that it was a third party beneficiary of the agreement between Morel and Twitter. The court rejects this argument:
[b]y their express language, Twitter’s terms grant a license to use content only to Twitter and its partners. Similarly, Twitpic’s terms grant a license to use photographs only to Twitpic.com or affiliated sites.... the provision that Twitter ‘encourage[s] and permit[s] broad re-use of Content’ does not clearly confer a right on others to re-use copyrighted postings
The court also rejects the argument that AFP was a third party beneficiary to the Twitter license agreement, since AFP was not a “partner or sublicensee” of Twitter – AFP acknowledged that it was only a “user.”
Contributory/Vicarious Infringement : With respect to the contributory infringement claim, the court held that Morel’s allegations were sufficient:
Morel’s allegations that AFP and Getty knew that the images where his, disregarded his rights, and licensed his images to third parties are sufficient to plead knowledge and inducement of infringement.
The court similarly rejects AFP’s and Getty’s request to to dismiss the vicarious infringement claim. (The court does grant the request by CBS and CNN to dismiss the vicarious infringement claim because Morel failed to plead any “direct financial interest” in the exploitation of images by the affiliates of CBS and CNN.)
DMCA Copyright Management Information Claims : Morel’s DMCA claims against AFP were premised on AFP’s miscrediting of the images. AFP did not contest that the credit lines constituted “copyright management information” (as defined in section 1202), and the court finds that AFP acted with the requisite knowledge and intent. Interestingly, with respect to AFP, the court notes that Morel alleged that:
an AFP photo editor viewed [Morel’s] photos before asking about identical photos on Suero’s Twitpic page, and that when Morel failed to respond to the editor’s email, AFP downloaded the pictures from Suero.
Morel brought a second 1202 claim based on AFP’s “removal or alteration” of CMI, or distributing copyrighted material “knowing that CMI has been removed or altered.” The crux of Morel’s argument seems to be that he had posted CMI on his Twitpic page (e.g., by including “by photomorel,” “daniel morel,” and “morel”) next to the photos when he uploaded them, and AFP violated section 1202 when it distributed photos downloaded from Suero’s Twitpic account (which did not contain this information). The court construes the term CMI broadly, rejecting AFP’s argument that CMI must be contained on the photograph itself. In the court’s view, the information attached to Morel’s Twitpic account constitutes CMI, and Morel’s allegations regarding AFP’s distribution of the photo which did not contain this CMI was sufficient to state a claim.
AFP argued that CMI is limited to a “component of an automated copyright protection or management system” (i.e., a technological measure that controls access and reproduction), but the court rejects this argument, and the line of cases which take this approach.
Lanham Act : The court rejects Morel’s Lanham act claim as being foreclosed by Dastar, a case in which the Supreme Court rejected Lanham Act claims with respect to communicative products (finding that these claims should be brought under copyright law and allowing Lanham act claims would impermissibly broaden the scope of copyright protection).
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As I mentioned in a previous post, AFP’s position was a stretch, and it’s nice to have some clarity that uploading content into the Twitter ecosystem does not grant third parties a license to use that content outside the ecosystem. (Nor does sharing and encouraging others to share result in a license to third parties.) Twitter and its partners have a broad license, but that’s different from a random third party coming along, and claiming rights to the content. Photographers can rest easy!
The court construes Morel’s 1202 arguments broadly, and as Professor Goldman notes below, this is equally interesting (if not more so) than the Twitter/Twitpic license issue. This looks like a boon to content providers – almost any sort of notation which indicates that the content is yours can be copyright management information (under the court’s definition), and disseminating the content without this information (or after having removed it) can cause someone to incur 1202 liability. It seems like the court’s reading of section 1202 (although it is supported by the language of the statute) allows a plaintiff to assert exactly the type of claim the Supreme Court negated in Dastar.
Earlier posts:
“Agence France-Presse Claims Twitter’s Terms of Use Authorize Its Use of Photographs Posted to TwitPic”
“Twitter Clarifies Usage Rules, but AFP Still Claims Unbridled Right to Use Content Posted to ‘Twitter/TwitPic’” (I blogged that AFP’s position was a stretch, but this post at duckrabbit contains a link to the oral argument, which will give you a flavor of how incredulous the court was at AFP’s argument that it had a license through the Twitter or Twitpic terms: “AFP, CNN, Getty, ABC, V Morel, why this case matters to all professional photographers or why Getty could be selling your photos without you even knowing …“)
Earlier coverage of the dispute:
* paidContent: “Lawsuit Tests Whether Twitter Pictures Are Free For The Taking”
* ReadWriteWeb: “Agence France-Presse: “All Your Twitpics Are Belong to Us”
* Techdirt: “AFP Still Not Giving Up On Its Bizarre Claim That Twitpic Images Are Freely Licensed To Anyone”
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Eric’s comments:
This case is a clusterf**k. AFP made numerous mistakes that resulted in infringing photos being injected into the news coverage of a major world crisis, which inadvertently tainted a variety of downstream media properties–all of whom, due to copyright’s strict liability standard, are likely to write checks to Morel. AFP and its unfortunate partners should end their likely-futile and sometimes-silly defense and settle up with Morel so that everyone can move on to more productive endeavors.
Even though the Twitter/Twitpic discussion will get the most attention, I think the court’s discussion about the 1202 liability is the opinion’s most noteworthy aspect. There has been an ongoing schism in the 1202 jurisprudence about whether or not it’s a 1202 violation to copy a copyrighted work without retaining the CMI located somewhere other than in the work itself. This case is a fine example of the problem: when people copied Morel’s photos, they didn’t go back to Twitpic to see what additional CMI might have been presented on the pages alongside the images. Some courts, recognizing the potential trap this creates, have read the 1202 statute narrowly, basically saying that metadata not in the file itself can’t trigger a 1202 violation. I’ve been skeptical about the statutory fidelity of those rulings, but I’ve applauded their efforts to keep 1202 from becoming a backdoor Dastar as Venkat calls it. Other cases, including this one, have rejected these narrow readings of 1202 and indicated that failing to capture and republish metadata outside the file itself could violate 1202. Should more courts jump on this bandwagon, expect 1202 to become the copyright plaintiff’s favorite new toy in 2011.Image copyright Getty Images
The growth in UK house prices is continuing to slow, according to the country's largest lender, the Halifax.
It said average prices rose by 3.9% in the year to the end of November, down from 4.5% in October.
And it warned that growth is likely to ease further in the longer term, as wages fail to keep pace with inflation.
Some commentators also said that the Halifax figures were out of kilter with other indicators, which suggest prices rises are even more modest.
Last week, rival lender Nationwide said prices had risen by just 2.5% over the past year, which is lower than the rate of general inflation.
According to the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), the cost of living rose by 3% in the year to October.
'Imbalance'
The average house or flat in the UK is now selling for £226,821, the Halifax said.
"The imbalance between supply and demand continues to support house prices, which doesn't look like changing in the near future," said Russell Galley, the managing director of Halifax Community Bank.
However, he added that house price growth was likely to slow in the long term.
"Further ahead, increasing affordability issues, as price increases continue to outstrip wage growth, are likely to curb housing demand and cause price growth to ease."
The Halifax said that the changes to Stamp Duty for first-time buyers announced in last month's Budget would help to stimulate demand in London and the South East.
For properties costing up to £500,000, first-time buyers will now pay no stamp duty on the first £300,000.
However, other data points to a continuing slowdown in the market.
In October, the number of home buyers being granted mortgages fell to its lowest for over a year, according to figures from the Bank of England.
"Housing market activity is currently muted and faltering," said Howard Archer, chief economic adviser to the EY Item Club.
Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the Halifax figures were at odds with other indicators, such as surveys from Nationwide and Rightmove.
"Halifax's suggestion that house prices are surging again conflicts with virtually every other indicator we track," he said.
Where can I afford to live?This frame grab from KSFY Television video shows polygamous sect leader Lyle Jeffs arriving at the Federal Courthouse Thursday, June 15, 2017 in Sioux Falls, S.D. Jeffs has been captured in South Dakota while apparently living out of his pickup truck after nearly a year on the run. Authorities had been hunting for Jeffs since he escaped home confinement in Utah on June 18, 2016, ahead of his trial in an alleged multimillion-dollar food stamp fraud scheme. (KSFY Television via AP)
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — Polygamous leader Lyle Jeffs’ one-year run from justice was ended by pliers, sharp-eyed pawn shop workers and an astute off-duty detective in a small town in South Dakota.
The events leading to Jeffs’ capture Wednesday in a lakeside area near the South Dakota-Nebraska state line where he was living out of his truck started a day earlier when a pawn shop owner called police about a man who had come to his shop twice acting nervous and fidgety.
After Jeffs sold two pairs of Leatherman pliers for $37 and provided his ID on Tuesday, a suspicious employee at River City Treasures and Pawn in Yankton looked up online the name he had been given and realized the man was wanted by the FBI, owner Kevin Haug said in an interview Thursday.
Haug said Jeffs re-arranged his name during the transaction, going by Jeffs Lyle Steed.
“That was his shot at fooling everybody,” Haug said.
Haug alerted police and his employee called the FBI — providing authorities with store video of Jeffs, pawn paperwork bearing his information and the vehicle Jeffs was driving: A silver Ford-F-150 pickup truck.
“Every once in a while, when someone’s weird, we look into them for no apparent reason other than we’re just bored sometimes,” Haug said.
The tip proved to be the break the FBI had been craving since Jeffs used olive oil to slip out of his ankle monitor and escape home confinement in Utah on June 18, 2016, ahead of his trial in an alleged multimillion-dollar food stamp fraud scheme.
Authorities ramped up their search for Jeffs based on the tip, and an off-duty Yankton police detective spotted Jeffs going into a bathroom at a marina-resort area next to picturesque Lewis and Clark Lake and then as Jeffs drove through the marina, Yankton County Chief Deputy Sheriff Michael Rothschadl said.
Jeffs complied with officers when he was arrested and acknowledged he was the fugitive they had been searching for, said Eric Barnhart, FBI special agent in charge for the Salt Lake City Division.
Authorities believe he had been in the area for about two weeks, running low on resources and struggling without the help of fellow sect members, Barnhart said. A falling out with his brother Warren Jeffs, who runs the sect while serving a life prison sentence in Texas for sexual assault of underage brides, led to the lack of support, the FBI has said.
Their group, known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is based in a small community on the Utah-Arizona border. Members of the sect believe polygamy brings exaltation in heaven. The group is an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism, which disavowed polygamy more than 100 years ago.
The group also has a small compound in far west South Dakota that was established more than a decade ago. Known to the faithful as “R23,” the compound sits along a gravel road, secluded by tall pine trees, a privacy fence and a guard tower.
Lyle Jeffs was some six hours from that compound when he was captured. Barnhart said they do not know yet if he spent time there during his year on the lam.
He said the FBI is working to determine if the unidentified tipster will get paid the $50,000 reward. Haug said if he gets a reward, he would take a vacation.
“That’s not why I did it, but if they’re going to offer it we kind of gave them the tip that he was here,” Haug said. “That would be nice.”
Jeffs will likely face at least one new felony charge connected to his time on the run, U.S. Attorney for Utah John Huber said.
In a federal court appearance Thursday in Sioux Falls, Jeffs waived a detention hearing until he returns to Utah in coming days to face the pending food stamp fraud charges, said Melodie Rydalch, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Utah.
Jeffs was the last of the defendants in the food stamp fraud case still behind bars when U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart last year in June reversed an earlier decision and granted his release. Prosecutors argued Jeffs was a flight risk.
“You have those times when you don’t want to say, ‘I told you so,’ but that’s kind of where we’re at,” Huber said Thursday. “We had very serious concerns.”
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McCombs reported from Salt Lake City.There is nothing better than camping or the great outdoors, IMHO that is. We try and get out there a couple of times a month but gone are the days of eating the same old thing. Now i challenge myself to create something different each time we go.
Here i have done a single pan spring roll, now i’m not sure how other people make them but this is how i went about it and they turned out bloody beautiful.
You will need.
600 grams of pork mince slaw mix (available from both Coles and Woolies) ginger garlic Chinese 5 spice mix spring roll papers sweet n sour sauce oil
Start by taking your pork mince and putting it in a mixing bowl add some ginger and garlic about a tea spoon or two of each. |
SDK for Unity and joining the discussion in the Unity Forum. We can’t wait to hear from you – and hear your results!President Donald Trump is moving fast to change the Syrian refugee program, and he’s not the only one. On Friday, Department of Homeland Security officials suspended a key part of the program, essentially putting refugee admissions from the war-torn country on indefinite hold.
According to Reuters, the DHS suspended trips to Syria to interview potential refugees, a key part of the refugee-admission process.
The decision came Thursday, one day before President Trump signed an executive order temporarily barring visas and refugees from seven nations, including Syria. Reuters reported that the hold was put in effect to develop a more stringent screening process for travelers from those nations.
“I’m establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America. Don’t want them here,” Trump said on Friday. “We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country and love deeply our people.”
In addition to Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen would be affected by Trump’s blanket travel ban, which could last up to four months.
CNN reported that the freeze in DHS trips to Syria was temporary.
“While U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has delayed a number of upcoming trips, those trips have not been officially canceled,” DHS spokeswoman Gillian M. Christensen said in a statement.
Liberals have complained about the new policies. The Hill reported that Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts liberal who has frequently criticized Trump and has been mentioned as a front-runner for the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination, went on a “tweetstorm” after the executive order.
“Let’s be clear: A Muslim ban by any other name is still a Muslim ban,” Warren said. “Donald Trump‘s order restricting immigrants from Muslim countries & freezing admission of refugees is a betrayal of American values.”
Well, Sen. Warren, let’s also be clear: The Obama administration had plenty of chances to fix a broken refugee system. It chose not to, mostly as a face-saving political move.
It’s also not Trump’s fault that so many nations with connections to terrorism just so happen to be majority-Muslim countries. I don’t think he planned it that way. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was radical Muslims who have been responsible for that. As soon as travel from these seven nations, including Syria, can be feasibly reopened, it should be. Until then, the blame lies squarely on the party that controlled the White House for eight years and refused to do anything about a very serious problem. Like us on Facebook – USA Liberty News Please like and share on Facebook and Twitter with your thoughts on the DHS’ move.
Do you think Donald Trump made the right move? Scroll down to comment below!
Source: conservativetribune.com
H/T The Right ScoopThis year’s Cooper River Bridge Run is this coming Saturday, April 1st. The bridge run is a huge 10k race that starts on the Mount Pleasant side of the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, aka the Cooper River Bridge and finishes with a final stretch going south on King Street. Thousands of people will flood into Charleston to participate, spectate, and enjoy the festivities centered around the Bridge Run. For locals it means even more traffic and tourists than your average Spring weekend, and it’s an extremely busy weekend for businesses all over the city.
Local music nonprofit This Is Noteworthy is the official music provider for the Bridge Run, and this year there are 21 bands scheduled to play during the 10k race. The bands will be spread across the race course at carefully planned intervals so that you’ll always be hearing live music while you run the race, and the moment you get far enough away that one band fades out, the next band will fade in. The bands will be positioned for the entirety of the race, so runners and spectators will be accompanied by a live soundtrack.
Among other things, This Is Noteworthy helps to foster connections between students and musicians through their education outreach program. The program gets a group of 15 to 20 students involved in a year-long hands on music industry experience, and one aspect of that experience for those students is helping to book the bands for the Cooper River Bridge Run.
This Is Noteworthy also teamed up with GigDawg, a music booking app created by College of Charleston graduate Adam Helms. GigDawg plans to release a beta version of their app at the Bridge Run that will allow runners and spectators to view the bands that are playing and their future gigs. GigDawg helped to organize a Battle of the Bands on the USS Yorktown where many bands came together to compete for a spot on the 10k course.
In addition to the Battle of the Bands, GigDawg also helped to facilitate the donations contest in which fans were able to make donations for their favorite band to be included on the Bridge Run lineup. Winners were selected based on who received the most donations, and who received the highest dollar value in donations. Most of the proceeds were donated to This Is Noteworthy’s programs like CHARM (Charleston Healthcare Alliance for Regional Musicians), and the rest was split between the bands.
Here’s a cool little video that explains CHARM, put out by This Is Noteworthy with the help of GigDawg, featuring Justin Osborne of SUSTO, John Kenney from The Royal American, and Becca Finley from This Is Noteworthy. Below the video you’ll find the the list of artists who will play at The Cooper River Bridge Run. Many of them are from Charleston, and some have been featured on Extra Chill in the past.
Have fun this weekend, and keep your eyes open for an announcement from GigDawg in the next few days!
What is the Charleston Healthcare Alliance for Regional Musicians?
40th Annual Cooper River Bridge Run Bands
Heather Hayes
Deep End*
Fifteenth Summer
Fiona Varner*
Grapefruit Moon
Squid Blood
Haley Mae Campbell*
John Sherrill*
Johnson Teal Taylor
Mirror Faze
Kelly Cheats
Nikol
Ryan McKenzie
SondorBlue*
Greye
Michael Daughtry Band
Synergy Violins
Youth Model*
Stefanie Potter*
All The Little Pieces
*Charleston bandsThe bomb exploded in the very center of American capitalism on a weekday afternoon, just steps away from the New York Stock Exchange and the famed statue of George Washington at Federal Hall. Thirty-eight people died and hundreds were injured, several losing limbs to the explosive power of an estimated 100 sticks of dynamite.
As in Boston this week, the bomber had rigged the device to not only kill but maim through the spread of shrapnel packed into the bomb.
The United States would not see a deadlier attack of terrorism until a spring day in Oklahoma City.
Despite its horrific toll, the Wall Street bombing of 1920 is largely forgotten today. New York City instantly cleaned up the scene and moved on. No one was ever charged with the crime, and no memorial was ever built. Only the pockmarked stone of the former Morgan Bank building remains as a grim if subtle reminder.
The bombing is worth remembering. It reminds us of an era when terrorists horrified the world but had yet – until that September day – to make a point of targeting ordinary Americans in public. And it shows how the US refused to take the wrong path in the wake of tragedy.
Beverly Gage, a history professor at Yale University, wrote the definitive book about the attack, 2009's "The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in Its First Age of Terror." I asked her to reflect on the similarities between the bombings in New York and Boston, the evolution of terrorism in the US, and the legacy of that distant but familiar day of horror.
Q: What struck you as you learned about this week's bombing in Boston?
A: We think of these kinds of mass bombings as being symptomatic of the terrible things about our own contemporary world, at least since Oklahoma City. But this kind of event has been going on as long as technology has existed to set off bombs in crowded places.
Q: Was this fact of history the reason you wrote the book?
A: I set out to write that book because I came across a mention of the 1920 bombing, which killed 38 people and injured hundreds more people, many of them quite seriously. I was shocked that I had never heard of this. What's going on that allowed this big event to be lost to history?
The other thing that surprised me was how many people at that time were saying "Ah ha! Of course. We all knew this would come."
I thought, "What? How did they assume that?"
I began to look not only into anti-Wall Street history but also the long history of anti-capitalist bombings that had been going on for 30 to 40 years, going back to the Haymarket bombing in 1866 [in Chicago], the most famous of them all, all the way up to the bombing of the Los Angeles Times in 1910, the bombing at a Preparedness Day parade in 1916 in San Francisco, and a series of coordinated bomb attacks in a number of different American cities, including the bombing of the US attorney general's home in Washington D.C.
Q: What made this bombing stand out as unusual?
A: A lot of the previous bombings had been much more targeted, very deliberate acts of assassination aimed at particular people. This one hit messengers, tourists, and several veterans of the first World War who had gotten jobs on Wall Street and were killed at home instead of on the fields of France.
This was one of the reasons people thought this really might be an accident. Even those few political revolutionaries who embraced terrorism most often were talking about deliberate acts of assassination or political violence. This level of mass violence was unusual and tragic.
Q: Had terrorism evolved from targeting specific types of people to the public at large?
A: Terrorism revolves around using targeted forms of theatrical violence to foster social instability. In modern form, it goes back to about the mid-19th century, when you began to get technologies like dynamite. You could plant a bomb and leave and wait for it to go off. As anarchists of the 19th century would have said, it allowed people to strike anonymously from afar.
But much of the discussion tended to be about targeting business and political leaders. One of the questions is: How did we get from that vision to where we are today?
Part of the story is that there's a certain kind of escalation built into terrorism itself to maintain the ability to shock and public attention.
Terrorism is fundamentally about capturing people's attention. One of the reasons 9/11 was so shocking is that we hadn't seen anything quite like it before.
Q: Who was behind the bombing?
A: The main suspects were either anarchists, who are the most likely culprits by the judgement of history, or communists.
The country had been through a whole series of crackdowns on political radicals already. The most famous was the Palmer Raids, a series of deportations that had been aimed at anarchists and communists. By the time the Wall Street bombing happened, there had been a pretty public backlash because those efforts had been poorly handled.
You got an elaborate effort to go beyond the Palmer Laws, to crack down, have elaborate arrests, and even outlaw criticizing capitalism. A lot of that doesn't come to much because they don't solve the bombing, and there's never a lot of certainty about what actually happened. Things end up remaining in this uneasy state, and people move on.
Q: Why isn't the bombing remembered today?
A: The generation of people who lived through this bombing all remembered it. The day after it happened, the first 17 pages of the New York Times were devoted to that event in particular.
But there was never a memorial, and the leaders of Wall Street were pretty serious about not wanting to bring it up or reference it. They had a pretty deliberate strategy of letting the event recede into the past.
There isn't really anybody, except the families of the victims, who had a lot of interested in maintaining the memory of the bombing. The radical left didn't want to remind anyone of this, as it was a hugely discrediting event. People on Wall Street didn't want to preserve that memory. And the police investigators who utterly failed to solve the Crime of the Century had very little interest in keeping this going.
Q: Is there something positive we can take from this story?
A: In many ways, it's a story about political restraint.
Even in the face of a really serious tragedy, great mourning and very heated discussion and suspicion, people for the most part avoided jumping to conclusions and engaging in the kind of most draconian reaction that was being suggested at that moment.
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However, had the police actually arrested a genuine suspect and had a big show trial, the story of the consequences would have been very different.
Randy Dotinga is a Monitor contributor.Greetings Citizens of Aria!
I want to start by thanking everyone who participated in our latest “Final Alpha” test. Over 2500 players logged in during the 2 ½ week period and played for a total of 33,000+ hours! We have spent the last few days collecting all the feedback and reading through every single bug report.
Seeing so many of you on our new map was an exciting experience and a window into how big the scope of this game has become. The game world itself is still a large focus for our team. We will be adding more character to the world, more landmarks, better developed points of interest and more immersive and living cities. Our work is far from done in this regard as we really push to bring the world to life.
I’m also excited to announce that two additional cities are being added to Celador. One in the Southern Rim and one in the (soon to open) Eastern Frontier. This will really open up the map in terms of player distribution and is a move away from the linearity of central starting locations.
Supreem and Miphon address the crowd during Final Alpha.
Of course, we will continue to iterate on all the core parts of the game like character progression, combat, and crafting. Your feedback in these areas is extremely valuable to us – as we begin to finalize implementations we will be making them available on our NDA protected experimental server for testing and balance. We will also be inviting users to take part in PvP focus tests to ensure that we reach the right balance for launch.
The team is excited to begin the shift towards bugs, polish and balance as we approach Beta. Almost every system in the game is going to get a polish pass between now and Beta. As many of you who have been following us know, we are not going to release Beta until we are where we want to be. Stay tuned for a more specific announcement about the release date.
We are looking forward to our Community Roundtable (add to calendar) this weekend where we can talk more about the progress we’ve made and where we are heading in the coming months. I’d like to wrap up by thanking you all again for supporting this project. I’m more excited now than I ever have been for the future of Legends of Aria!8btc hosts Q&A session on ETC monetary strategy
Classic Ether Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jan 28, 2017
Chinese cryptocurrency portal 8btc hosted a question and answer session on Wednesday on the subject of Ethereum Classic’s monetary strategy for the first quarter of 2017.
Participants included Roy Zou (Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Ethereum Classic Consortium), Igor Artamonov (core developer contributing under the Github handle Splix), Matthew Mazur (monetary strategist and author of ECIP-1017, contributing to Github as Snaproll) and Avtar Sehra (developer and event organizer of the London monetary policy event).
For the author of ECIP-1017, the goal of his proposed improvement protocol is to restrain inflation of the monetary supply in an effort to avoid attributes deemed unfair by the community. If, for instance, token issuance were to restrain supply too soon or too far out into the future, those results would limit incentives to invest in the platform, either in the near or far term.
In addition to finding a fair balance for rate of emission, instituting an overall cap would provide important data for investors to predict future value. “Having an upper bound, or a ‘cap,’ on a token, or any tradeable object, assists with price discovery,” he stated, “or finding the true value of something since its level of scarcity is known and/or can be measured.”
Considering the role of core developers, Splix outlined the steps that would be necessary to implement ECIP-1017. That timeline begins with asking the community for feedback on the improvement protocol, followed by development in February.
Artamonov went on to say that several months of testing to identify potential attack vectors would be needed to avoid compromising the security of the network. The goal would be to have a working implementation of the improvement protocol available by the summer for testing on private servers, so that the ECIP could be activated by the end of 2017.
The core developers are currently seeking Go and Rust coders to help facilitate the process of testing ECIP-1017.
Developer Avtar Sehra mentioned several details related to his decentralized crowdfunding initiative, Fundonomy. Roy Zou will be tasked with business development for the project, and looks to provide backing for Fundonomy by holding an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). Fundonomy intends to eschew the “move fast and break things” mantra for a “move efficently and remain effective” approach.
Splix contends that while these are still the early days of the platform, in a few years “there will be thousands of applications built on top of our technologies.” Regarding the network’s key difference from the Ethereum Foundation’s, he stated, “We believe that principles of immutable blockchain will give ETC more adoption than to centralized mutable blockchains.”
8btc — ETC monetary policy AMAIt’s been a long time coming, but the first Steam Machines are finally here: compact computers that give you the quality of PC gaming with the living room convenience of consoles. Too bad most of them cost an arm and a leg. Here’s how to build your own for less.
Building your own Steam Machine isn’t just cheaper; it’s more customizable and upgradeable, too. Any PC can technically work as a Steam Machine, but we’ve put together our very own parts list designed for the living room: high-quality PC gaming in a compact case, a little bigger than an Xbox or PlayStation.
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The Parts
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After lots of research and testing, here’s what we recommend for the ultimate DIY Steam Machine:
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Final cost: $993
Buy this build from PCPartPicker
You could build a comparable gaming PC for less money, but our goal here was to do something compact and living room-friendly, which ups the price a little bit. It’s still hundreds cheaper than comparable Steam Machines, though, like the Origin Omega (which would cost $1368 with similar hardware) or the Digital Storm Eclipse costs (which would cost $1363). If you want something cheaper and don’t mind a larger tower, you can just build a normal PC instead.
We went with Haswell on this build to keep the cost down, and because our original test build was put together before Skylake was released (and we didn’t want to recommend a machine we hadn’t built). If you must have the latest and greatest, you can upgrade this build to Skylake for about $41 more: we recommend the Intel i5-6400, the ASRock H170M-ITX/DL, and this set of Corsair DDR4 RAM. You won’t see a huge increase in gaming performance, but you’ll be on the latest and greatest platform for future upgrades.
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Alternatively, if you want to save money on our build, you can downgrade the i5 to a Haswell i3, but as games become more CPU-heavy and more optimized for multi-core processors, the i3 won’t keep up quite as well as the i5.
You can also save some money by downgrading the video card to the AMD R9 380. It’s $100 cheaper than the GTX 970 we recommend, but it will decrease performance significantly. You’ll still get a decent 1080p experience, but some games you’ll have to run on low or medium settings, or live with sub-60fps framerates. In addition, it’ll become obsolete faster than the GTX 970 will. It’s up to you if you want to make that tradeoff. (We didn’t.)
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How to Build This Steam Machine
This guide assumes you’re familiar with the basics of computer building, but if you aren’t, you can check out our complete guide to building a PC for more. That said, the compact case introduces some interesting quirks to the build process, so we’ll re-outline the basic steps here. Check out the video above to see the whole build step-by-step, too, and when in doubt, check the instruction manuals that come with your case and motherboard for more details.
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Here’s the basic step-by-step:
Start by opening the case. Unscrew the two screws on the back of the side panel and slide the side panel off. Unwrap the front panel cables and put them to the side for now.
Next, unscrew and remove the video card bracket. There are six screws here, so be sure to get them all. We’ll need this later, so set it aside as well. You should find a box of screws and other accessories under the bracket, which you’ll need for the rest of the build.
First, install the power supply. Unscrew the power supply bracket—there are four screws—and carefully pull it out. Slide the power supply into the bracket, fan side down, and screw it in. Plug in the case’s power cable, and if the power supply has a power switch, flip it to the on position. If you have a traditional hard drive, slide it into the bay on top of the power supply bracket and screw it in.
When you’re done, put the power supply bracket back in place and screw it in. A magnetic screwdriver is very helpful here, since you can’t really reach down to grab fallen screws.
Next, grab your motherboard and put it on top of the box it came in for a nice static-free workspace. Release the CPU lever and open the bracket. Drop in your CPU, making sure the gold arrow matches up with the arrow on the bracket, and pull down the lever to lock it into place.
Grab your RAM sticks and undo the latches on the motherboard’s RAM slots. Make sure the notches line up, and press your RAM into place. You should hear the latches on the side click closed.
Because this case is cramped, now is a good time to plug in a few cables. Grab the 24-pin and 4-pin cables that came with your power supply, and plug them into the motherboard. (Don’t plug them into the power supply just yet.)
Grab the I/O shield from your motherboard box and snap it into your case. Lower the motherboard into the case, making sure all its ports line up with the I/O shield, and screw it in.
Once the motherboard is secured, you can start plugging in the the front panel cables, including USB 3.0, front audio, and the power and reset buttons. Refer to your motherboard’s manual for more information on where each of these go.
When you’re done with that, it’s a good time to install the CPU cooler. Place it on top of your CPU and press the plastic pins down into the motherboard until they click into place. Plug the fan’s cable in to the CPU FAN header on your motherboard, which should be right next to the CPU.
Now, grab your motherboard’s 24-pin and 4-pin cables—the ones you plugged in earlier—and plug the other ends into the power supply. It’s a tight fit, but you should be able to do it with a bit of wiggling. You can also install the PSU end of your PCI power cable now (the one with the blue tip).
Now the fun part: installing the video card. This case uses a sideways GPU adapter to fit big, powerful video cards into a small case. Unscrew the PCI bracket from the mount, plug the little PCI express extender into your video card, and lower the GPU into the bracket. Make sure it’s firmly in place, then screw the GPU in to stabilize it. Plug in the PCI power cables, and lower the GPU bracket into its bay. The sideways adapter should press firmly into the PCI slot on the motherboard. Once everything’s in place, screw the bracket into the case. (Remember, there are six screws in total here—don’t forget any!)
Your cables will likely be all over the place at this point, so try to tuck them in the spaces around the power supply to get them out of the way of your components and fans.
If you’re using an SSD instead of a traditional hard drive, you can now install it in the two and a half inch drive bays on the graphics card bracket.
Plug the SATA power cables into your hard drive or SSD, then plug the other end into the power supply. Do the same with the SATA data cable—one side in your hard drive, and the other end into the SATA 3 ZERO port on your motherboard.
Your case should have come with a three-pin Y adapter for your fans. Plug that into the SYS FAN header on your motherboard, and plug the two case fans into that adapter. When you’re done, close up your case, screw in the side panel, and attach the magnetic fan filters to the outside of the case.
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That’s it! The case can lay horizontally in your entertainment center, like a DVD player, or stand vertically next to it like an Xbox. The case comes with little rubber feet you can install on the bottom to stabilize it, as well as some magnetic dust filters you should stick next to the fans. You can even install a vertical or sideways version of the RAVEN logo.
When you’re done, plug your Steam machine into your TV with the HDMI cable, plug it into the wall with your power supply’s included power cable, and press the power button. If you did everything right, it should start up and you should see the POST screen.
If it doesn’t turn on, you’ll need to open it back up and do some troubleshooting. You can find some troubleshooting tips at the end of our general computer building guide here.
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How to Set Up Windows, Steam, and Your Games
The hard part’s over. Setting up the software on this system is remarkably easy, but before you install Windows, you’ll want to make a few tweaks to the BIOS first:
Boot up the computer and press the DEL key to enter BIOS setup. First, head to OC Tweaker > Load XMP Setting > XMP 1.3 Profile 1. This ensures your RAM is running at the correct speed. Next, go to H/W Monitor > Chassis Fan 1 Setting and choose Performance or Full Speed. This ensures that the fan is running high enough to keep your computer cool. I found that even Full Speed was pretty quiet but your preferences may vary, so try it on both settings to see what works for your ears.
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When that’s done, you’re ready to install Windows:
On your normal PC (not your Steam machine), head to this page and download the 64-bit version of the Media Creation Tool. Launch it when it finishes downloading. Select the “Create installation media for another PC” option and click Next. Choose your language and edition of Windows. (If you used the copy we recommended, it’ll be the Home edition. Otherwise, check your box or the email you got when you bought Windows 10.) Choose what kind of media you want to create. We recommend using a USB flash drive. The Media Creation Tool will download and burn the installation files for you. When it’s done, eject your flash drive, plug it into your Steam Machine, and start it up. Boot from your flash drive by pressing F12 as the computer turns on. Then, choose your flash drive from the list that appears. You should be greeted with the Windows 10 installer. Follow the initial prompts and, when given the option, choose “Custom: Install Windows Only”. Select the hard drive you want to install Windows 10 on. Chances are, you only have one hard drive installed, so click on that one. Click the “Format” button. (If the Format button is grayed out, click “Delete”, then click “New”.) Press Next to install Windows on that drive. Allow the installation wizard to guide you through the rest of the process.
Your computer will reboot a few times, but when it finishes, you should be able to log into the Windows desktop. You’re almost there! Now you just need to install your motherboard drivers, graphics card drivers, and Steam. This is easy:
Head to ASRock’s web site and download the INF Driver and Rapid Storage Technology driver. Double-click both ZIP files and extract them to your desktop. Run the INF driver installer first, reboot if necessary, then run the Rapid Storage Technology driver. Next, go to NVIDIA’s web site and download the drivers for your graphics card (if you swapped out our recommended card for an AMD card, you’ll want to get the drivers from AMD, obviously). Double-click the installer to install those drivers. Lastly, download and install the Steam client from Steam’s web site. Once installed, launch Steam and log in. Head to Steam > Settings > Interface. Check the “Start Steam in Big Picture Mode” box.
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When you’re done, reboot your computer. If all went well, it should boot straight into Steam Big Picture mode, so you can disconnect your mouse and keyboard and start playing your games straight away. You can even use your controller with games that don’t support it, and stream games from your other computers.William Shatner notes that had the show aired just a few years later, the crew would have received payments for reruns.
The original crew of the starship Enterprise parlayed their work into a decade's worth of movie deals, convention adoration and other riches. But they have never received residual payments from their time on the 1960s show, according to their captain.
"The series Star Trek that I was in, was so early on, there were no residuals. So none of us ever have received residuals," actor William Shatner said in an interview with IGN's Scott Collura on the Transporter Room 3 podcast.
"That came into being about three years later," continued Shatner, referring to changes in the industry that saw TV actors begin to get paid when their shows were aired in reruns. At the time the show aired (1966-69), it was hard to imagine a TV series would stil have life 50 years later.
Star Trek was canceled in 1969, but it was revived as an animated series and a decade later was made into a movie with 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The film was quite costly and divided fans, leading studio Paramount and its cast to believe it would be the one and only Trek movie.
"Every movie we made subsequent, even Star Trek I, they burned the sets. There was no reason to store them, because there was never going to be another movie," Shatner said.
Shatner would appear as Captain Kirk alongside original series stars Leonard Nimoy (Spock), DeForest Kelley (Bones), Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), George Takei (Sulu), Walter Koenig (Chekov) and James Doohan (Scotty) in six films, and also appeared opposite Star Trek: The Next Generation's Patrick Stewart in the 1994 crossover movie Generations.
But the ultimate Kirk performance came in 1980's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which is returning to theaters in September via Fathom Events.
"I've worked gainfully all these years," said Shatner, making it clear he isn't upset about the lack of residuals. "I'm really grateful for it. It's affected my life incredibly."
Star Trek currently airs in reruns on BBC America and is available to stream on CBS.com and Netflix.LONDON (AP) – Britain’s beleaguered prime minister is appealing to opponents to help her govern, after she lost her parliamentary majority in last month’s election.
Theresa May called the snap June 8 election in a misjudged attempt to bolster her majority and strengthen her authority during exit talks between Britain and the European Union. Instead, she must resort to deal-making and compromises in order to pass legislation, and is struggling to persuade her Conservative party that she is not a lame duck.
May’s office says that in a speech Tuesday she will urge the opposition to help hone policy, saying the government’s ideas can be “clarified and improved” through debate and discussion.
Acknowledging that the election result “was not what I wanted,” May will urge opposition parties “to contribute, not just criticize.”With rampant allegations of corruption, fraud and bribery within the FIFA executive ranks, it's unsurprising that Canada Soccer is facing questions about how it won the bid for this year's FIFA Women's World Cup.
According to Canada Soccer president Victor Montagliani, the answer is simple: no one else wanted to host the tournament.
"With all due respect, we were pretty much the only country that wanted it," he told Rick Cluff on CBC Radio One's The Early Edition.
"When we bid for it, there was seven originally. Five dropped off right away and they chose to bid for other World Cups. There was only one other country with us which was Zimbabwe and they pulled out."
Embattled FIFA President Sepp Blatter could still attend the final match of the Women's World Cup in Vancouver, despite his resignation. (Ennio Leanza/Keystone/Associated Press)
With 14 arrests of high-ranking officials and the resignation of embattled president Sepp Blatter causing a media firestorm, the women's tournament is at risk of being overshadowed. But, Montagliani says he will welcome Blatter to Vancouver for the final match should he choose to come.
"We've been told that he is attending... it probably will be a media circus, but in the same token you have to respect the fact that he still has the office of the presidency," he said.
"He has every right to attend a FIFA event as the president."
Team Canada kicks off the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup on Saturday with the tournament-opening match against China. That game starts at 3 p.m. PT.
To hear the full interview with Victor Montagliani, listen to the audio labelled: Canada hosting World Cup because no one else wanted it says Canada Soccer president.If you're of the opinion that politicians are unqualified to create tech policy, then know that Ben Fried, Google's chief information officer, largely agrees with you.
"The current generation of lawmakers are probably not the best informed [about technological issues]," Fried told an audience at Columbia University today. And for that reason, according to Fried, they're likely not the best people to answer important policy questions about tech. Fried made his comments as a part of a panel discussion on "big data" that included executives from Bloomberg, Microsoft, and Facebook.
"I hope you're not going to try and get me in trouble." The panel was interesting but bereft of news until just before wrapping up, when an audience member cast a fat fish-hook of a question about improving privacy. When Fried's turn came to talk, he took the bait. He said privacy and other important issues differed depending on the country, and he hoped citizens around the world would become better informed about tech so they could create the best laws. That's when he ripped into politicians. Following the session, Fried was asked about his comment. He grimaced and told The Verge: "I hope you're not going to try and get me in trouble."
"Most of today's lawmakers, I think, did not grow up as literate in the technology capabilities and climate in the world as Millennials." He added this to his initial statement: "I think most of today's lawmakers, I think, did not grow up as literate in the technology capabilities and climate in the world as Millennials and people who are graduating now. The capabilities that technology offers being introduced into the world are very different from what [today's politicians] are used to or grew up with and that creates a gap. The people who are establishing the laws for our society are themselves not natives to the capabilities and conditions. That doesn't mean through education and learning and so on..." he trailed off here to make the point that he didn't intend to bring up politicians.
After the panel, I came away with the impression that Fried believes politicians are clueless about tech. After our interview, I came away thinking he believes they're clueless, but it's not their fault. Either way, a Google executive being critical of the tech chops of the country's political leaders shouldn't surprise anyone. Google has had numerous run-ins with Congress over privacy issues, potential antitrust violations, and online piracy. It's not a stretch to assume some at Google believe Capitol Hill just doesn't get it.The communist tyrant Joseph Stalin was known as an anti-Semite who planned wide-scale purges against the Jews in his latter days.
But that may not have prevented him from having an affair with a Jewish woman and of taking care of her daughter until her mother died. According to some evidence, Stalin may have even married the woman.
The affair was disclosed recently following the discovery of a letter by historian Nicolai Nada. The letter, placed on the desk of the general secretary of the communist party Georgi Malenkov in 1953, the day Stalin suffered a stroke, was kept in a classified party file for decades.
A few months ago, officials in charge of the file were persuaded to reveal the letter, which reads:
Dear Comrade Malenkov!
I am the daughter of Ana Rubinstein, the former wife of Comrade Stalin.
As he is in ill health, I ask you to let me see him. He knows me since I was a child
If it is not possible to see him, I ask you to grant me an audience on a very urgent matter.
It is unknown what the writer sought to tell Stalin, or what the “urgent matter” she wished to discuss with the general-secretary of the communist party was about. Instead, Nada focused his research on the identity of Ana Rubinstein, “the former wife of Comrade Stalin,” and uncovered the following information:
n It appears that Ana Rubinstein was born around 1890 in Ukraine. In 1910 she married a Jew named Zalman Kostiovsky, and on Sept. 28, 1911 they had a daughter named Regina. The marriage broke up and a year later Ana came to Saint Petersburg with her daughter but without her husband.
n Nada believes Stalin met Ana Rubinstein as early as 1912. He used to visit Saint Petersburg often, where Rubinstein was affiliated with the city’s Bolshevik underground. The affair apparently developed later, because in 1913 Stalin was apprehended by police and deported to Siberia, returning in the spring of |
it left the Baltics and much of Central Europe debt strapped and in negative equity by 2008. Neoliberals applaud their plunging wage levels and shrinking GDP as a success story, because these countries shifted the tax burden onto employment rather than property or finance. Governments bailed out banks at taxpayer expense.
It is axiomatic that the solution to any major social problem tends to create even larger problems – not always unintended! From the financial sector’s vantage point, the “solution” to the Eurozone crisis is to reverse the aims of the Progressive Era a century ago – what in 1936 John Maynard Keynes hopefully termed “euthanasia of the rentier”. The idea was to subordinate the banking system to serve the economy rather than the other way around. Instead, finance has become the new mode of warfare – less ostensibly bloody, but with the same objectives as the Viking invasions over a thousand years ago, and Europe’s subsequent colonial conquests: appropriation of land and natural resources, infrastructure and whatever other assets can provide a revenue stream. It was to capitalize and estimate such values, for instance, that William the Conqueror compiled the Domesday Book after 1066, a model of ECB and IMF-style calculations today.
This appropriation of the economic surplus to pay bankers is turning the traditional values of most Europeans upside down. Imposition of economic austerity, dismantling social spending, sell-offs of public assets, de-unionization of labor, falling wage levels, scaled-back pension plans and health care in countries subject to democratic rules requires convincing voters that there is no alternative. It is claimed that without a profitable banking sector (no matter how predatory) the economy will break down as bank losses on bad loans and gambles pull down the payments system. No regulatory agencies can help, no better tax policy, nothing except to turn over control to lobbyists to save banks from losing the financial claims they have built up.
What banks want is for the economic surplus to be paid out as interest, not used for rising living standards, public social spending or even for new capital investment. Research and development takes too long. Finance lives in the short run. This short-termism is self-defeating, yet it is presented as science. The alternative, voters are told, is the road to serfdom: interfering with the “free market” by financial regulation and even progressive taxation.
There is an alternative, of course. It is what European civilization from the 13th-century Schoolmen through the Enlightenment and the flowering of classical political economy sought to create: an economy free of unearned income, free of vested interests using special privileges for “rent extraction.” At the hands of the neoliberals, by contrast, a free market is one free for a tax-favored rentier class to extract interest, economic rent and monopoly prices.
Rentier interests present their behavior as efficient “wealth creation.” Business schools teach privatizers how to arrange bank loans and bond financing by pledging whatever they can charge for the public infrastructure services being sold by governments. The idea is to pay this revenue to banks and bondholders as interest, and then make a capital gain by raising access fees for roads and ports, water and sewer usage and other basic services. Governments are told that economies can be run more efficiently by dismantling public programs and selling off assets.
Never has the gap between pretended aim and actual effect been more hypocritical. Making interest payments (and even capital gains) tax-exempt deprives governments of revenue from the user fees they are relinquishing, increasing their budget deficits. And instead of promoting price stability (the ECB’s ostensible priority), privatization increases prices for infrastructure, housing and other costs of living and doing business by building in interest charges and other financial overhead – and much higher salaries for management. So it is merely a knee-jerk ideological claim that this policy is more efficient simply because privatizers do the borrowing rather than government.
There is no technological or economic need for Europe’s financial managers to impose depression on much of its population. But there is a great opportunity to gain for the banks that have gained control of ECB economic policy. Since the 1960s, balance-of-payments crises have provided opportunities for bankers and liquid investors to seize control of fiscal policy – to shift the tax burden onto labor and dismantle social spending in favor of subsidizing foreign investors and the financial sector. They gain from austerity policies that lower living standards and scale back social spending. A debt crisis enables the domestic financial elite and foreign bankers to indebt the rest of society, using their privilege of credit (or savings built up as a result of less progressive tax policies) as a lever to grab assets and reduce populations to a state of debt dependency.
The kind of warfare now engulfing Europe is thus more than just economic in scope. It threatens to become a historic dividing line between the past half-century’s epoch of hope and technological potential to a new era of polarization as a financial oligarchy replaces democratic governments and reduces populations to debt peonage.
For so bold an asset and power grab to succeed, it needs a crisis to suspend the normal political and democratic legislative processes that would oppose it. Political panic and anarchy create a vacuum into which grabbers can move quickly, using the rhetoric of financial deception and a junk economics to rationalize self-serving solutions by a false view of economic history – and in the case of today’s ECB, German history in particular.
* * *
Governments do not need to borrow from commercial bankers or other lenders. Ever since the Bank of England was founded in 1694, central banks have printed money to finance public spending. Bankers also create credit freely – when they make a loan and credit the customer’s account, in exchange for a promissory note bearing interest. Today, these banks can borrow reserves from the government’s central bank at a low annual interest rate (0.25% in the United States) and lend it out at a higher rate. So banks are glad to see the government’s central bank create credit to lend to them. But when it comes to governments creating money to finance their budget deficits for spending in the rest of the economy, banks would prefer to have this market and its interest return for themselves.
European commercial banks are especially adamant that the European Central Bank should not finance government budget deficits. But private credit creation is not necessarily less inflationary than governments monetizing their deficits (simply by printing the money needed). Most commercial bank loans are made against real estate, stocks and bonds – providing credit that is used to bid up housing prices, and prices for financial securities (as in loans for leveraged buyouts).
It is mainly government that spends credit on the “real” economy, to the extent that public budget deficits employ labor or are spent on goods and services. Governments avoid paying interest by having their central banks printing money on their own computer keyboards rather than borrowing from banks that do the same thing on their own keyboards. (Abraham Lincoln simply printed currency when he financed the U.S. Civil War with “greenbacks.”)
Banks would like to use their credit-creating privilege to obtain interest for lending to governments to finance public budget deficits. So they have a self-interest in limiting the government’s “public option” to monetize its budget deficits. To secure a monopoly on their credit-creating privilege, banks have mounted a vast character assassination on government spending, and indeed on government authority in general – which happens to be the only authority with sufficient power to control their power or provide an alternative public financial option, as Post Office savings banks do in Japan, Russia and other countries. This competition between banks and government explains the false accusations made that government credit creation is more inflationary than when commercial banks do it.
The reality is made clear by comparing the ways in which the United States, Britain and Europe handle their public financing. The U.S. Treasury is by far the world’s largest debtor, and its largest banks seem to be in negative equity, liable to their depositors and to other financial institutions for much larger sums that can be paid by their portfolio of loans, investments and assorted financial gambles. Yet as global financial turmoil escalates, institutional investors are putting their money into U.S. Treasury bonds – so much that these bonds now yield less than 1%. By contrast, a quarter of U.S. real estate is in negative equity, American states and cities are facing insolvency and must scale back spending. Large companies are going bankrupt, pension plans are falling deeper into arrears, yet the U.S. economy remains a magnet for global savings.
Britain’s economy also is staggering, yet its government is paying just 2% interest. But European governments are now paying over 7%. The reason for this disparity is that they lack a “public option” in money creation. Having a Federal Reserve Bank or Bank of England that can print the money to pay interest or roll over existing debts is what makes the United States and Britain different from Europe. Nobody expects these two nations to be forced to sell off their public lands and other assets to raise the money to pay (although they may do this as a policy choice). Given that the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve can create new money, it follows that as long as government debts are denominated in dollars, they can print enough IOUs on their computer keyboards so that the only risk that holders of Treasury bonds bear is the dollar’s exchange rate vis-à-vis other currencies.
By contrast, the Eurozone has a central bank, but Article 123 of the Lisbon treaty forbids the ECB from doing what central banks were created to do: create the money to finance government budget deficits or roll over their debt falling due. Future historians no doubt will find it remarkable that there actually is a rationale behind this policy – or at least the pretense of a cover story. It is so flimsy that any student of history can see how distorted it is. The claim is that if a central bank creates credit, this threatens price stability. Only government spending is deemed to be inflationary, not private credit!
The Clinton Administration balanced the U.S. Government budget in the late 1990s, yet the Bubble Economy was exploding. On the other hand, the Federal Reserve and Treasury flooded the economy with $13 trillion in credit to the banking system credit after September 2008, and $800 billion more last summer in the Federal Reserve’s Quantitative Easing program (QE2). Yet consumer and commodity prices are not rising. Not even real estate or stock market prices are being bid up. So the idea that more money will bid up prices (MV=PT) is not operating today.
Commercial banks create debt. That is their product. This debt leveraging was used for more than a decade to bid up prices – making housing and buying a retirement income more expensive for Americans – but today’s economy is suffering from debt deflation as personal income, business and tax revenue is diverted to pay debt service rather than to spend on goods or invest or hire labor.
Much more striking is the travesty of German history that is being repeated again and again, as if repetition somehow will stop people from remembering what actually happened in the 20th century. To hear ECB officials tell the story, it would be reckless for a central bank to lend to government, because of the danger of hyperinflation. Memories are conjured up of the Weimar inflation in Germany in the 1920s. But upon examination, this turns out to be what psychiatrists call an implanted memory – a condition in which a patient is convinced that they have suffered a trauma that seems real, but which did not exist in reality.
What happened back in 1921 was not a case of governments borrowing from central banks to finance domestic spending such as social programs, pensions or health care as today. Rather, Germany’s obligation to pay reparations led the Reichsbank to flood the foreign exchange markets with deutsche marks to obtain the currency to buy pounds sterling, French francs and other currency to pay the Allies – which used the money to pay their Inter-Ally arms debts to the United States. The nation’s hyperinflation stemmed from its obligation to pay reparations in foreign currency. No amount of domestic taxation could have raised the foreign exchange that was scheduled to be paid.
By the 1930s this was a well-understood phenomenon, explained by Keynes and others who analyzed the structural limits on the ability to pay foreign debt imposed without regard for the ability to pay out of current domestic-currency budgets. From Salomon Flink’s The Reichsbank and Economic Germany (1931) to studies of the Chilean and other Third World hyperinflations, economists have found a common causality at work, based on the balance of payments. First comes a fall in the exchange rate. This raises the price of imports, and hence the domestic price level. More money is then needed to transact purchases at the higher price level. The statistical sequence and line of causation leads from balance-of-payments deficits to currency depreciation raising import costs, and from these price increases to the money supply, not the other way around.
Today’s “free marketers” writing in the Chicago monetarist tradition (basically that of David Ricardo) leave the foreign and domestic debt dimensions out of account. It is as if “money” and “credit” are assets to be bartered against goods. But a bank account or other form of credit means debt on the opposite side of the balance sheet. One party’s debt is another party’s saving – and most savings today are lent out at interest, absorbing money from the non-financial sectors of the economy. The discussion is stripped down to a simplistic relationship between the money supply and price level – and indeed, only consumer prices, not asset prices. In their eagerness to oppose government spending – and indeed to dismantle government and replace it with financial planners – neoliberal monetarists neglect the debt burden being imposed today from Latvia and Iceland to Ireland and Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
If the euro breaks up, it is because of the obligation of governments to pay bankers in money that must be borrowed rather than created through their own central bank. Unlike the United States and Britain which can create central bank credit on their own computer keyboards to keep their economy from shrinking or becoming insolvent, the German constitution and the Lisbon Treaty prevent the central bank from doing this.
The effect is to oblige governments to borrow from commercial banks at interest. This gives bankers the ability to create a crisis – threatening to drive economies out of the Eurozone if they do not submit to “conditionalities” being imposed in what quickly is becoming a new class war of finance against labor.
Disabling Europe’s central bank to deprive governments of the power to create money
One of the three defining characteristics of a nation-state is the power to create money. A second characteristic is the power to levy taxes. Both of these powers are being transferred out of the hands of democratically elected representatives to the financial sector, as a result of tying the hands of government.
The third characteristic of a nation-state is the power to declare war. What is happening today is the equivalent of warfare – but against the power of government! It is above all a financial mode of warfare – and the aims of this financial appropriation are the same as those of military conquest: first, the land and subsoil riches on which to charge rents as tribute; second, public infrastructure to extract rent as access fees; and third, any other enterprises or assets in the public domain.
In this new financialized warfare, governments are being directed to act as enforcement agents on behalf of the financial conquerors against their own domestic populations. This is not new, to be sure. We have seen the IMF and World Bank impose austerity on Latin American dictatorships, African military chiefdoms and other client oligarchies from the 1960s through the 1980s. Ireland and Greece, Spain and Portugal are now to be subjected to similar asset stripping as public policy making is shifted into the hands of supra-governmental financial agencies acting on behalf of bankers – and thereby for the top 1% of the population.
When debts cannot be paid or rolled over, foreclosure time arrives. For governments, this means privatization selloffs to pay creditors. In addition to being a property grab, privatization aims at replacing public sector labor with a non-union work force having fewer pension rights, health care or voice in working conditions. The old class war is thus back in business – with a financial twist. By shrinking the economy, debt deflation helps break the power of labor to resist.
It also gives creditors control of fiscal policy. In the absence of a pan-European Parliament empowered to set tax rules, fiscal policy passes to the ECB. Acting on behalf of banks, the ECB seems to favor reversing the 20th century’s drive for progressive taxation. And as U.S. financial lobbyists have made clear, the creditor demand is for governments to re-classify public social obligations as “user fees,” to be financed by wage withholding turned over to banks to manage (or mismanage, as the case may be). Shifting the tax burden off real estate and finance onto labor and the “real” economy thus threatens to become a fiscal grab coming on top of the privatization grab.
This is self-destructive short-termism. The irony is that the PIIGS budget deficits stem largely from un-taxing property, and a further tax shift will worsen rather than help stabilize government budgets. But bankers are looking only at what they can take in the short run. They know that whatever revenue the tax collector relinquishes from real estate and business is “free” for buyers to pledge to the banks as interest. So Greece and other oligarchic economies are told to “pay their way” by slashing government social spending (but not military spending for the purchase of German and French arms) and shifting taxes onto labor and industry, and onto consumers in the form of higher user fees for public services not yet privatized.
In Britain, Prime Minister Cameron claims that scaling back government even more along Thatcherite-Blairite lines will leave more labor and resources available for private business to hire. Fiscal cutbacks will indeed throw labor out of work, or at least oblige it to find lower-paid jobs with fewer rights. But cutting back public spending will shrink the business sector as well, worsening the fiscal and debt problems by pushing economies deeper into recession.
If governments cut back their spending to reduce the size of their budget deficits – or if they raise taxes on the economy at large, to run a surplus – then these surpluses will suck money out of the economy, leaving less to be spent on goods and services. The result can only be unemployment, further debt defaults and bankruptcies. We may look to Iceland and Latvia as canaries in this financial coalmine. Their recent experience shows that debt deflation leads to emigration, shorter life spans, lower birth rates, marriages and family formation – but provides great opportunities for vulture funds to suck wealth upward to the top of the financial pyramid.
Today’s economic crisis is a matter of policy choice, not necessity. As President Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel quipped: “A crisis is too good an opportunity to let go to waste.” In such cases the most logical explanation is that some special interest must be benefiting. Depressions increase unemployment, helping to break the power of unionized as well as non-union labor. The United States is seeing a state and local budget squeeze (as bankruptcies begin to be announced), with the first cutbacks coming in the sphere of pension defaults. High finance is being paid – by not paying the working population for savings and promises made as part of labor contracts and employee retirement plans. Big fish are eating little fish.
This seems to be the financial sector’s idea of good economic planning. But it is worse than a zero-sum plan, in which one party’s gain is another’s loss. Economies as a whole will shrink – and change their shape, polarizing between creditors and debtors. Economic democracy will give way to financial oligarchy, reversing the trend of the past few centuries.
Is Europe really ready to take this step? Do its voters recognize that stripping the government of the public option of money creation will hand the privilege over to banks as a monopoly? How many observers have traced the almost inevitable result: shifting economic planning and credit allocation to the banks?
Even if governments provide a “public option,” creating their own money to finance their budget deficits and supplying the economy with productive credit to rebuild infrastructure, a serious problem remains: how to dispose of the existing debt overhead now acting as a deadweight on the economy. Bankers and the politicians they back are refusing to write down debts to reflect the ability to pay. Lawmakers have not prepared society with a legal procedure for debt write-downs – except for New York State’s Fraudulent Conveyance Law, calling for debts to be annulled if lenders made loans without first assuring themselves of the debtor’s ability to pay.
Bankers do not want to take responsibility for bad loans. This poses the financial problem of just what policy-makers should do when banks have been so irresponsible in allocating credit. But somebody has to take a loss. Should it be society at large, or the bankers?
It is not a problem that bankers are prepared to solve. They want to turn the problem over to governments – and define the problem as how governments can “make them whole.” What they call a “solution” to the bad-debt problem is for the government to give them good bonds for bad loans (“cash for trash”) – to be paid in full by taxpayers. Having engineered an enormous increase in wealth for themselves, bankers now want to take the money and run – leaving economies debt ridden. The revenue that debtors cannot pay will now be spread over the entire economy to pay – vastly increasing everyone’s cost of living and doing business.
Why should they be “made whole,” at the cost of shrinking the rest of the economy? The bankers’ answer is that debts are owed to labor’s pension funds, to consumers with bank deposits, and the whole system will come crashing down if governments miss a bond payment. When pressed, bankers admit that they have taken out risk insurance – collateralized debt obligations and other risk swaps. But the insurers are largely U.S. banks, and the U.S. Government is pressuring Europe not to default and thereby hurt the U.S. banking system. So the debt tangle has become politicized internationally.
So for bankers, the line of least resistance is to foster an illusion that there is no need for them to accept defaults on the unpayably high debts they have encouraged. Creditors always insist that the debt overhead can be maintained – if governments simply will reduce other expenditures, while raising taxes on individuals and non-financial business.
The reason why this won’t work is that trying to collect today’s magnitude of debt will injure the underlying “real” economy, making it even less able to pay its debts. What started as a financial problem (bad debts) will now be turned into a fiscal problem (bad taxes). Taxes are a cost of doing business just as paying debt service is a cost. Both costs must be reflected in product prices. When taxpayers are saddled with taxes and debts, they have less revenue free to spend on consumption. So markets shrink, putting further pressure on the profitability of domestic enterprises. The combination makes any country following such policy a high-cost producer and hence less competitive in global markets.
This kind of financial planning – and its parallel fiscal tax shift – leads toward de-industrialization. Creating ECB or IMF inter-government fiat money leaves the debts in place, while preserving wealth and economic control in the hands of the financial sector. Banks can receive debt payments on overly mortgaged properties only if debtors are relieved of some real estate taxes. Debt-strapped industrial companies can pay their debts only by scaling back pension obligations, health care and wages to their employees – or tax payments to the government. In practice, “honoring debts” turns out to mean debt deflation and general economic shrinkage.
This is the financiers’ business plan. But to leave tax policy and centralized planning in the hands of bankers turns out to be the opposite of what the past few centuries of free market economics have been all about. The classical objective was to minimize the debt overhead, to tax land and natural resource rents, and to keep monopoly prices in line with actual costs of production (“value”). Bankers have lent increasingly against the same revenues that free market economists believed should be the natural tax base.
So something has to give. Will it be the past few centuries of liberal free-market economic philosophy, relinquishing planning the economic surplus to bankers? Or will society re-assert classical economic philosophy and Progressive Era principles, and re-assert social shaping of financial markets to promote long-term growth with minimum costs of living and doing business?
At least in the most badly indebted countries, European voters are waking up to an oligarchic coup in which taxation and government budgetary planning and control is passing into the hands of executives nominated by the international bankers’ cartel. This result is the opposite of what the past few centuries of free market economics has been all about.
This was first published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on December 3, 2011, as “Der Krieg der Banken gegen das Volk.”
MICHAEL HUDSON is a former Wall Street economist. A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new ed., Pluto Press, 2002) He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, forthcoming from AK Press.
He can be reached via his website, mh@michael-hudson.comIt is January 2014 and at least 400 people are packed into a conference hall in Miami Beach. High-profile journalists stand against the walls. Powerful venture capitalists crouch in the aisles. Banking and finance gurus crane their necks from the back of the room. They’re waiting for one of the most anticipated presentations of the 2014 North American Bitcoin Conference. A massive surge in interest from the media has just pushed the price of a single Bitcoin to around $900, up nearly 800 per cent in three months. Bitcoin Miami is the largest ever conference of its kind. In this moment, the possibilities for Bitcoin seem limitless.
What appears to be a teenage boy mounts the stage. The crowd goes quiet. In fact, Vitalik Buterin – all acne-splotched face, spidery fingers and shining eyes – is just a few days shy of 20. He surveys the audience nervously for a moment, then kicks off his presentation by lauding the benefits of the Bitcoin payment network – its speed, security, economy and autonomy.
All of Bitcoin’s strengths, Buterin reminds his listeners, are underpinned by the ingenious distributed security protocol known as the blockchain, and by the network’s thousands of voluntary hosts, known as miners, who are paid in Bitcoin to maintain it.
‘In order to have a decentralised database, you need to have security,’ he says. ‘In order to have security, you need to – you need to have incentives.’
For Bitcoin, security creates value and, in turn, value creates security. But currency, Buterin continues, is far from the only use for blockchain-based distributed security. What if, he asks, a decentralised system of hosts could guarantee the trustworthiness of other kinds of financial instruments? Such as, say, insurance policies, or rental agreements, or futures contracts?
Buterin stumbles, stutters, repeats words and emits strange frog hiccups as he speaks. But his voice pulses with conviction. In his mixture of awkwardness and passion, he recalls a long line of tech wunderkinder – Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Sergey Brin.
Finance underpinned by a blockchain network, and linked to fully digital currencies, would be secure against both hacking and dishonesty. Banks, brokers and lawyers – whose main role in many such transactions is to keep everyone honest – could become afterthoughts.
The Bitcoin network is designed to specialise only in payments. It is difficult, and in many cases impossible, to program more complex transactions into it. But Buterin’s Toronto-based company, Ethereum, is building a new kind of blockchain system that would make these more complex transactions easy to design and execute.
‘Instead of specialising for each individual application,’ Buterin continues, ‘you come up with a programming language, and then that programming language is so powerful that you can build any application on top of it.’ Ethereum’s language is so flexible that it is, in the jargon, ‘Turing complete’. And so its distributed network will (in theory) be able to host and administer anything from asset-trading platforms and escrow services to the sale or rental of any resource connected to the internet, such as hosting, data or processing power. The terms of every sale, trade or agreement would be encoded into the system, their trustworthiness ensured by the swarm of hosts running it.
Transactions would be paid for using Ethereum’s own Bitcoin-like cryptocurrency, called Ether, which would also be used to pay the system’s hosts. And just as with Bitcoin, the ability of these constructs to securely cross national borders and attract a mutable swarm of hosts means that no one – not hackers, not competitors, and not governments – will be able to shut them down. Code will be the new financial law. We are talking about companies that run themselves, at the very limits of human oversight.
Out of time as his 30-minute talk draws to a close, Buterin rattles through a final slide which lists functions that could be built using his tools: reputation systems, crop insurance, gambling. The final point on the list reads: ‘Skynet?’ – the murderous rogue artificial intelligence of the Terminator films.
Vitalek Buterin of Ethereum Photo courtesy Ethereum
The audience laughs, then rises to applaud. When Buterin steps off the stage and out of the conference hall, he is instantly surrounded by a scrum of bodies. Reporters and investors pump him for more details. Recorders are thrust into his face.
Startling as it sounds, Ethereum merely represents the convergence of some long-running trends in business. In The Zero Marginal Cost Society (2014), the US social theorist Jeremy Rifkin analyses current patterns in computerised management. He describes how, through the ever tighter merging of communications, energy and logistics, distributed peer-to-peer networks are making it cheaper and easier to start new companies.
Rifkin’s favoured examples are outfits such as Airbnb, Uber and Kickstarter, which smooth the ‘crowdsourcing’ of everything from vacations to financing. The premise of these companies is that they cut out the middleman, letting people provide services directly to each other at prices close to the cost of production. In many cases – such as the repurposing of unused rooms – that cost could be nearly nothing. And as everything from refrigerators to cars start to be accessed and controlled through the internet, those efficiencies will mount up. Rifkin calls the resource-rich, low-profit economy that seems destined to emerge ‘the Collaborative Commons’.
And yet, on reflection, Rifkin’s examples turn out to be anything but collaborative at their heart. Companies such as Uber and Airbnb are fiercely profit-driven, taking large cuts from all the exchanges they facilitate. They are middlemen themselves, albeit somewhat more efficient and open than their predecessors. What’s more, the digital payment systems that underpin their services are also highly centralised and very expensive. Rifkin unintentionally highlights this when he claims that the ‘web-facilitated scaling of financing brings the marginal cost of lending to borrowers to near zero’, only to clarify that Kickstarter takes 5 per cent of all funds raised on its site, with another 3 to 5 per cent going to Amazon Payments. Those costs are not even close to zero. They represent (to borrow a phrase) a vampire squid attached to the face of the Collaborative Commons.
The root of the problem is that a true digital currency – one that travels the network fast enough to enable decentralised sharing – is very difficult to implement. An effective currency requires trust, both between the members of the community who use it and in the technology that implements it. The US dollar has remained the world’s reserve currency not only because of the robustness of the US economy, but also thanks to its various anti-counterfeiting measures and the relative caution with which the US reserve bank issues it. Meanwhile, the very open nature of the internet – its lack of deep identity controls and its vulnerability to manipulation – makes it a challenging environment in which to establish a standalone currency.
That’s why Bitcoin, which offers a clever solution to the digital cash problem, is such a significant achievement.
When everything from your alarm clock to your car is managed remotely through the global network, autonomous cloud robots will run free
Bitcoin is a single body of code, cleverly designed to generate its own distributed hosting network. The code is public, to ensure the trust that underpins its functionality as money. The system’s hosts receive transactions from anywhere on the internet and, by sharing them with their fellow miners, compile a collective record of all Bitcoin transactions. This is the blockchain. Tens of thousands of miners check their copies of the blockchain against one another every 10 minutes, agreeing collectively on the balances of every Bitcoin user. Why do they do it? Because the code itself pays them in Bitcoin currency. (They also collect transaction fees, though these are generally tiny: as little as a few cents for transactions of up to tens of thousands of dollars.)
Bitcoin, or a system like it, will be vital if Rifkin’s truly open and decentralised economy is ever to come about. But Bitcoin can’t do much more than record the transfer of value, and it seems clear that there’s a lot more that a blockchain-style system can offer. Hence the emergence of Ethereum, along with an entire class of systems that build more complex business functions into the same frictionless, decentralised framework. In the allegedly imminent world of the Internet of Things, where everything from your alarm clock to your car is managed remotely through the global network, these autonomous cloud robots will be able to run free. They will execute contracts, manage supply chains, even open new markets. And though they will do all these things according to a logic designed by human creators, they need not be under direct human supervision. Buterin calls such constructs Decentralised Autonomous Organisations. More commonly, they are known as Distributed Autonomous Corporations, or DACs.
It’s an unassuming name, isn’t it? And yet, perhaps alarm bells are already ringing.
Back at the Miami Beach Convention Center, around the corner from Buterin’s packed hall, a rather different presentation is underway. In a lounge area scattered with empty tables, a thin man in his mid-20s is talking about something called Bitshares. He’s dressed in a black buttondown shirt, a skinny black tie and black slacks. He is flanked on one side by banners touting his company, and on the other by a prize table, manned by young women handing out branded T-shirts and USB sticks to conference attendees.
This is Daniel Larimer, CEO of a Virginia-based company called Invictus Innovations. Invictus’s main product is BitShares (since adopted as the name of the entire company). It’s a stock and commodities trading platform that will circumvent the middlemen of the finance industry – and, Larimer wants everyone to know, let them ‘earn 5 per cent returns on anything’.
When he speaks, Larimer frequently pauses to lean in, peaking his fingers as if making sure that you’ve absorbed not only the meaning of what he’s saying but the deep importance his words have for you personally. If Buterin’s hesitant passion suggests a nervous nerd messiah, Larimer’s relentless commercialism is more reminiscent of late-night TV pitchmen such as Billy Mays. Nevertheless, both men were in Miami to sell DACs.
Well, there are some differences. Instead of providing a framework for other projects, as Ethereum does, BitShares is largely planning to build the DACs itself. Its distributed trading platform, BitsharesX, launched in August 2014. It also plans DACs for a decentralised music sales service, and Larimer has written a whitepaper on how a DAC could help content creators get paid without the aid of publishers. Users of BitShares DACs pay with the system’s native cryptocurrencies, which are also used to pay hosts.
That brings us to one of the current limitations of DACs – the infrastructure connecting them to the larger economy. Though retailers and service providers adopted Bitcoin en masse in 2014, financial servicers have been much more cautious. What this means is that there are still very few ways for users to convert Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies into traditional currencies or commodities.
Partly in order to work around this, the BitShares trading platform offers participants no ownership of the commodities they’re nominally taking positions on. Instead, Larimer describes it as a ‘predictive market’, in which participants set commodity prices by taking positions – or, put more directly, by placing bets. BitShares is, for now, a digital version of the 19th-century bucket shops where the working classes would go to bet on stock‑market moves. This form of speculation is illegal in most US states, including Washington, California and Mississippi. But that could change quickly. As digital cash becomes integrated with more and more services, DACs such as BitShares will almost certainly find ways to interface with real-world markets for gold, dollars and goods of all kinds. If those connections expand, the possibilities of DACs will expand with them.
Imagine, for instance, a bike-rental system administered by a DAC hosted across hundreds or thousands of different computers in its home city. The DAC would handle the day-to-day management of bikes and payments, following parameters laid down by a group of founders. Those hosting the management programme would be paid in the system’s own cryptocurrency – let’s call it BikeCoin. That currency could be used to rent bikes – in fact, it would be required to, and would derive its value on exchanges such as BitShares from the demand for local bike rentals.
Guided by its management protocols, our bike DAC would use its revenue to pay for repairs and other upkeep. It could use online information to find the right people for various maintenance tasks, and to evaluate their performance. A sufficiently advanced system could choose locations for new stations based on analysis of traffic information, and then make the arrangements to have them built.
One of the most intriguing parts of such a system is that it allows the crowdfunding of large-scale projects without the centralisation and fees of either stock exchanges or platforms such as Kickstarter. The DAC platforms themselves are models – in the year since Bitcoin Miami, Ethereum has raised about $14 million, and BitShares around $6 million, solely through the direct sale of the digital currency that will allow people to run programs or make exchanges on their networks.
Bitcoin’s transparency has in many cases made it easy for authorities to track and seize currency held and used by criminals
Our hypothetical bike-rental system could do the same. Once a core group of developers had outlined their mission and promoted the project in public, interested parties could buy BikeCoins in advance of the system’s deployment. Sufficient demand would fund the scripting of the DAC’s source code, and then the BikeCoins could be used to buy its services. And of course, BikeCoins could also be re-sold. Indeed, once the system is in place and successful, their value would increase substantially, a prospect that will incentivise early investors.
The same appreciation is widely anticipated in the case of Ethereum and BitShares themselves, and speculators have piled into their offerings – though both projects, clearly leery of financial regulators, have framed their sales as closer to crowdfunding than investment efforts.
Yet DACs are structured like investments in another crucial way |
and social media profiles that share those usernames) to phone numbers, and this would let you scan the database in a measly 4 hours, giving you lots to obtain a detailed database. In an entire month with your five-gigabit connections from the $50 you paid to a server provider, you could scan 1460000000 numbers on Snapchat. numbers = (((730 * 60) / 1.5)*10000)* servers) (there are 730 hours in a month, change servers to 5 to get our result btw)
We put in questions to Snapchat prior to publication, but the company did not respond.Being a socialist (which I’ve been since age 19) committed to the democratic transformation of society doesn’t mean rejecting all reforms that fall short of thorough societal reorganization. Serious and substantively progressive reforms are critical to left movement-building and to the meeting of human needs in the here and now. This is particularly true when the reforms have deep, far-reaching, positive implications for masses of people and the cause of democracy.
Look, for example, at the long-standing, progressive “reformist” call for universal, government-provided health insurance in the United States. Legislation put forward by Michigan Rep. John Conyers every year since 2003—HR 676: The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act—would expand the nation’s existing single-payer, government-funded system of health insurance for citizens 65 and up—also known as Medicare—to Americans of all ages. Conyers’ “Improved Medicare for All” bill would align the United States with rich peer states by covering the medical expense of all its citizens from birth. Health insurance would become a basic human right in the U.S., removed from the realms of profit making and commodity exchange, as it is in Canada, Japan and most of Western Europe.
Direct and Obvious Benefits
The direct benefits that would flow to everyday Americans from this single-payer system would be profound. Health care costs would fall dramatically with the big private insurance rackets/corporations and their giant marketing operations, parasitic premiums and exorbitant profits removed from the equation. Health care providers would be released from the burden of juggling the paperwork of numerous separate payers. A single, central and publicly accountable government payer would set reasonable, democratically mandated price ceilings.
Coverage no longer would be denied to those unable to pay out of their own savings. Quality care would be made equally affordable for all, regardless of class, race and other invidious social distinctions and inequities. People born and kept in the lower and working classes would enjoy access to the same quality care as those born into the capitalist and professional class elites. Millions of Americans would be released from financial anxiety over unforeseen illnesses or accidents.
In 1993, David Himmelstein explained these basic and remarkable social-democratic benefits to Hillary Clinton, then head of the White House’s health reform initiative. Himmelstein was head of Physicians for a National Health Program. He told the first lady and future Democratic Party presidential nominee how single-payer would provide comprehensive coverage to the nation’s 40 million uninsured while retaining free choice in doctor selection. It was certified by the Congressional Budget Office as “the most cost-effective plan on offer.” And, Himmelstein added, it was backed by the great majority of U.S. citizens. This is what Clinton, a leading corporate Democrat, said in response, before wearily dispatching Himmelstein: “Tell me something interesting, David.”
Sixteen years later, the newly elected, neoliberal Barack Obama doubled down on corporate Democrats’ cold-hearted dismissal of single-payer. Right after he entered the White House, Obama set up a health care reform task force chock full of big insurance company representatives. Not one of the more than 80 House members who had endorsed single-payer—not even the veteran Conyers—was invited to participate. The outcome was the so-called Affordable Care Act (later dubbed “Obamacare”), a complicated, corporatist and “market-friendly” bill based on a Republican plan drawn up by the right-wing Heritage Foundation. Because it left the price-gouging and profit-taking power of the big insurance and drug syndicates intact, the ACA condemned a vast swath of the nation to continuing inadequate and unaffordable coverage—while the right-wing noise machine railed against “socialized health care.”
This history is no small part of the secret of how and why vicious right-wing Republicans took over the White House in 2001 and 2017.
The Safety Net, Democracy and Workers’ Power
Other more indirect but significant benefits would accrue to the nation if it shifted away from its largely employment-based system of health insurance to “Medicare for All.” For instance, untold millions of Americans stay stuck in jobs they hate and/or for which they are ill-suited because they fear losing health insurance if they leave their current positions.
And there’s the significant and rarely noted democracy dividend that would ensue from single-payer. Millions of U.S. workers are frightened, for good reason, to say or do anything their bosses might disapprove of on or off the job. The national working-class majority’s dependence on the employer class for health insurance has chilling authoritarian implications. This is a country in which you put not just your job but also your health care coverage and often your family’s health coverage at risk by saying, writing or doing anything your workplace superiors find objectionable.
The kinds of transgressions that can jeopardize you and your loved ones’ medical coverage are endless. They include trying to form a union, participating in a work stoppage, putting up a Facebook post against racism, backing a political candidate your employer dislikes, attending an environmentalist protest or even just dressing in a way that irritates a boss or letting it be known that you have a better way to perform some work task. First Amendment rights of free speech and public assembly don’t mean all that much when exercising them can cost you your job, or your health care and that of your family.
It isn’t just about health care. There’s an intimate relationship between the strength of a nation’s social welfare state and working people’s capacity and readiness to fight for their own interests and the common good on and off the job. It’s not for nothing that you can’t receive food stamps while engaged in a labor strike in the U.S. The American business class used its influence to prohibit state food assistance to striking workers long ago. Capitalists know that working people’s marketplace and workplace bargaining power are enhanced by the existence of a strong government safety net, which reduces the hazard workers face when they challenge boss-class authority. Big business has pushed through the dismantlement and delegitimization of social welfare programs for decades, in no small part because capitalists-as-employers want, in political science professor Frances Fox Piven’s words, “to make long hours of low-wage work the only available option for many.”
Rolling back and pre-empting the social safety net carries a triple boon for the U.S. capitalist class. The first dividend-boosting attraction is that slashing social expenditures and programs save the rich tax payments to support the common good. The second lure is that reducing social spending reduces inflationary pressures, which helps protect the real value of interest payments from debtors (most of us) to wealthy creditors. The third draw is that we-the-working-class majority have less power to resist and challenge their profit-seeking authority within and beyond the workplace when there’s no strong welfare state backing us up. Along with the related collapse of unions and collective bargaining, the comparative weakness of the U.S. welfare state is a key factor behind the long stagnation of wages and the nation’s extreme economic inequality.
Curbing Overwork, a Great Scourge of Democracy
Speaking of long hours, there’s another and related collateral benefit that would flow to American workers and citizens from the introduction of Medicare for All: curing the scourge of overwork. According to the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation, American workers put in the longest hours per year among their counterparts in other wealthy nations. U.S. employees, for instance, put in 423 more hours than German workers. In many U.S. professional sectors, workweeks of 70 hours and more are not uncommon. Add in brutal commutes and extensive car travel related to the nation’s sprawled-out residential and shopping patterns, and it’s no surprise that hundreds of millions of U.S. citizens face a critical shortage of free time.
This is outrageous and problematic on numerous levels. It is an indication of the nation’s savage economic unfairness: More and more wealth and income has been getting distributed upward out of ordinary people’s households and into the hands of the wealthy few at a time when U.S. labor productivity continues to rise (albeit slowly) and workers spend more time on the job than their counterparts in Europe and Japan.
Beyond the fairness issue, overwork takes a terrible toll on working people’s physical, emotional and mental health. It’s a critical factor—along with the high cost and restricted availability of health care—behind the low life spans Americans face (26th of 35 Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation countries) compared with people in other wealthy nations.
At the same time, overwork and the loss of free time has a significant negative impact on the U.S. citizenry’s capacity for self-rule. Free time is, among other things, a major democracy issue. In my experience, social and political movements in the U.S. founder again and again because of (among other things) time-shortage and exhaustion: People lack the leisure time and vigor required for meaningful activism and public engagement. Without a reasonable abundance of time off the capitalist treadmill and out from employers’ watch, people cannot form and sustain grass-roots organizations for social justice, peace, environmental sustainability, economic fairness and democracy. (For what it’s worth, the 19th century pioneers of the U.S. labor movement talked and wrote about the demand for shorter hours—early American unions’ top issue by far—largely in terms of how overwork stole from citizen workers the time and energy essential for meaningful participation in the great experiment in popular governance that supposedly had been launched by the American Revolution.)
Ask any savvy progressive what measures, actions and other changes we need to create more free time for working people—essential for democracy and basic human, personal and social health. He or she will mention some good ones: a significant upgrade in the U.S. minimum wage (which would help more working-class households forgo second and third jobs); the relegalization of union organizing to bring back unions (“the people that brought you the weekend,” to quote a clever bumper sticker); collective bargaining over wages, hours, benefits and more; the enforcement of rules on overtime pay; mandatory work-sharing to balance out the workweek and provide jobs for the unemployed; and a retreat from mass consumerism, which leads many working people into a disastrous cycle of work, spending and debt.
Also useful in curbing overwork would be single-payer health insurance. Single-payer would give workers more courage and more time to organize and fight for shorter hours with no reduction in pay. With improved Medicare for All in place, lower-paid workers no longer would be compelled to take second and third jobs to pay for health insurance and to save up for possible future medical emergencies. At the same time, single-payer would remove a major structural incentive pushing employers to extract as much work as possible out of each of their full-time, benefit-receiving, salaried workers: the high costs of employee health care, equivalent to 40 percent of total compensation of salaried employees. Because costly health care benefits are paid per employee, not per hour worked, economist Juliet Schor noted in her classic study, “The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure,” employers are driven by employment-based health insurance to try to get as many hours as they can from as few employees as they can. This ironically pushes millions of employees into physical and mental illness.
‘What’s the Something Much Better?’
Beyond its more obvious direct benefits, then, the Medicare for All legislation long championed by Conyers would be a great boon for democracy, labor rights, workers power and citizen engagement in the U.S. on numerous levels. It is the embarrassingly obvious and elementary answer to a deeply insulting question asked by longtime senior Obama adviser and intimate Obama family confidante Valarie Jarret during the following dialogue with “PBS NewsHour” host Judy Woodruff in January:
Judy Woodruff: Just last night, the United States Senate took another step toward repeal of Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act. They say that’s what they’re going to do. They’re going to get rid of what’s there now and replace it with something much better. Valarie Jarrett: Well, what’s the something much better? That’s my question. That’s the question the president has been asking for eight years right now. So, if there is a something better, let’s hear it. What’s the secret?
“What’s the something much better?” Beneath her corporate-serving pretense of cluelessness, of course, Jarrett knew very well the real and progressive answer to that question, as did Obama: single-payer. Much better, that is, for the nation’s poor and working-class majority, not for the big insurance companies and their Wall Street sponsors, key backers of the Democratic Party.
‘Designed to Fail’
This essay might seem like an endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ recently released Medicare for All bill—SB 1804. It is not. I agree with single-payer activists Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese. In a recent analysis of SB 1804, they note that the proposed measure is plagued by core flaws that will “prevent it from fully transforming our health care system to a public service”:
● Investor-owned, for-profit provider facilities are permitted to continue to operate within the system, with no budgetary controls to restrain them.
● The bill excludes long-term care, keeping it in Medicaid, which forces people and their families to live in poverty to receive benefits.
● SB 1804 includes an absurdly long transition period that seems like a setup for failure. As Flowers and Zeese write: “Most universal systems are started at once—on a certain date everyone is in the system. This is how we did Medicare as a totally new system in 1965 before we had computers. The delayed implementation period over four years is such a complex transition that there are concerns it will proceed poorly, and support for a universal health care system will disappear before it is complete. With complexity comes greater costs. HR 676 would start all at once, which would not only allow the savings needed to cover everyone but would also put us all in the same boat so that we all have an interest to fix any problems that arise.”
Flowers and Zeese have created a chart comparing HR 676 and SB 1804 and a chart outlining the prolonged transition for SB 1804.
“Basically,” Flowers told me Saturday in an email interview, “Sanders’ bill allows for-profit providers to continue to operate without any budget restrictions. That, in itself, is a huge gift to Wall Street. And the four-year transition seems designed to fail.”
Flowers and Zeese rightly share the left blogger Jim Kavanaugh’s suspicion that “S 1804 may actually be a ‘Trojan Horse’ for the Democrats’ favored proposal, a public insurance they refer to as a ‘public option’ being added to the current mix.” Flowers and Zeese called the public option a “Profiteer’s Option” because, they explain, “it will serve as a relief valve for private insurers to jettison people who need care.”
“As a leader in the Democratic Party in the Senate,” Flowers noted in August, “Sanders is trying to walk the line between listening to the concerns of his constituency, which overwhelmingly favors single-payer health care, and protecting his fellow Democrats, whose campaigns are financed by the medical-industrial complex. Sanders needs to side with the movement, not those who profit from overly expensive U.S. health care.”
(Flowers is right to describe Sanders as a leading Democrat and not, contrary to the senator’s formal designation, an Independent. See my July 2015 essay, “Bernie Out of the Closet: Sanders’ Longstanding Deal with the Democrats.)
Guns Versus Butter
Another reason to not get too terribly excited about Sanders’ bill—which, of course, is dead on arrival in a Republican-controlled Congress (making it a low risk for 15 other Democratic senators to sign on with it)—is that Bernie “F-35” Sanders remains wedded to the giant U.S. military empire, which sucks up more than half the nation’s federal discretionary spending. As the leading radical writer, speaker and activist Glen Ford noted on Black Agenda Report in June:
The United States does not have a national health care system worthy of the name, because it is in the war business, not the health business or the social equality business. … In the U.S., progress is defined by global dominance of the U.S. State—chiefly in military terms—rather than domestic social development. … War is not a side issue in the United States; it is the central political issue, on which all the others turn. War mania is the enemy of all social progress—especially so, when it unites disparate social forces, in opposition to their own interests, in the service of an imperialist state that is the tool of a rapacious white capitalist elite.”
U.S. war spending steals vast resources that are required to build a real and lasting social-democratic safety net and people’s economy. We can’t have imperial guns and social-democratic (much less democratic-socialist) butter at the same time. We must choose between them. As Martin Luther King Jr. explained in his famous Riverside Church speech on April 4, 1967, America will “never invest the necessary funds or energies” to end poverty and domestic economic insecurity so long as its military machine “continue[s] to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube.”
Like the mid-1960s “democratic socialists” Michael Harrington, Max Shachtman, and Bayard Rustin (see this excellent study), “Bernie the Bomber” Sanders (as Burlington, Vt., peace activists dubbed him when he lined up forcefully behind Bill Clinton’s criminal air war on Serbia) is still stuck trying to straddle the fence between opposition to poverty and support for the American war machine. He is far from alone in being plagued by this dilemma. It is a common affliction among “progressive Democrats,” the left-most major party force in a militantly imperial nation where honest discussion of what its giant and destructive military system really does at home and abroad is taboo.Why do we have laws against drugs – or, more precisely, against some drugs and not others? This admittedly basic question was not actually addressed by the Commons home affairs select committee, whose report on drugs laws was published yesterday. As with every other inquiry into the subject in recent years, the committee’s findings were greeted with the open-minded approach for which the Home Office is renowned – and promptly thrown in the bin.
I can sympathise with the MPs who are unhappy with this peremptory dismissal because I sat on the RSA commission that spent two years looking at drugs laws and can testify to the stupefying unwillingness of anyone in government to contemplate the possibility that they may have got anything wrong. Our policy is working, the Government said again yesterday, so we need not bother with the opinions of the 200 or so witnesses who gave evidence to the select committee inquiry.
The same brick wall greeted the conclusions of the UK drugs commission, which reported recently, and the Police Foundation study several years ago, and, indeed, the home affairs select committee itself, when it last visited this topic in 2002. Then, it recommended that there should be an easing up on the penalties for cannabis – something Labour proposed, legislated for and then reversed. (David Cameron, incidentally, sat on that committee.)
Now the MPs are proposing a Royal Commission into drugs laws – a pointless exercise, since we can predict the outcome now. It will propose decriminalising cannabis, and recommend that drugs policy should be based on the harm caused by particular substances, an approach that seems eminently sensible to everyone except the Home Office. The Royal Commission will issue its findings and the government of the day will reject them before the ink is even dry.
Which takes me back to the question posed at the beginning of this article, which needs to be answered before we can reach any conclusions about the way forward for drugs laws. Most crimes exist because the activities harm other people, like murder, rape or theft. But when a law proscribes a substance that directly harms only the user, then its sole purpose must be to register society’s disapproval of its impact on them. Otherwise, how could it make any sense for one plant – tobacco – to be legal, while another – cannabis – is not? A free country should never regard self-harm as sufficient justification for prohibition. If it were, then the sale and possession of tobacco would be banned.
We are, therefore, in the realms of moral disapprobation. The law is a statement that we, as a society, think it is wrong to take personality-altering and hallucinogenic drugs and it serves as a signal to our children that they should not use them. But what should happen when most people no longer disapprove of a proscribed activity? We have seen this happen with the law against homosexuality, which was in practice illegal until the mid-Sixties and which is now, within the space of half a lifetime, about to be officially recognised through the institution of marriage.
While a good number of people object to this development, most people don’t, judging by the opinion polls. Indeed, not only does a majority no longer disapprove of homosexuality but anyone who criticises an individual’s sexual inclinations is denounced as a social Neanderthal – just witness the opprobrium heaped upon the Tory MP David Davies for saying that most parents don’t want their children to be gay.
By the same token, there is good reason to believe most people no longer disapprove of smoking cannabis. A survey of public opinion to guide the work of the RSA commission on drugs policy found that a substantial majority was happy to see the personal use of cannabis decriminalised, or penalties for possession lowered to the status of a parking fine. On the other hand, the same poll found that most people remained adamantly against any lessening of the restrictions on heroin or crack cocaine, thereby drawing a clear distinction between so-called hard and soft drugs.
So, if the rationale for a ban on cannabis is moral disapproval that either no longer exists or has diminished markedly, on what grounds should prohibition continue? In a characteristically trenchant book on the subject, The War We Never Fought, the journalist Peter Hitchens argues that because this country has collectively lost its moral self-control, it needs to be reinforced by statute.
He challenges the libertarian belief that in a free society the state should not be the enforcer of moral rectitude. “This would be true in a society of strong independent morality,” Hitchens writes. “But the most profound threat to freedom arises from the British people’s determination – led by a libertine and selfish middle class – to throw off self-restraint in their personal behaviour.”
I can see the force of this argument, but it is unevenly applied. Most people would disapprove of someone who gets roaring drunk, yet we do not seek to ban alcohol; and those who think it is right to proscribe cannabis in order to send a signal that taking drugs is bad for your health do not say the same about tobacco. Many people continue to disapprove of people smoking cannabis and to see it as proof of moral turpitude, but I suspect they are now in a minority. Whether you agree with legalisation or not, in the end a law underpinned by censure cannot survive if the behaviour itself no longer attracts public odium.The sprawling home where the late legendary basketball coach Pat Summitt lived and entertained is listed for sale at $1.225 million.
The house sits on a private cul de sac at 3720 River Trace Lane off Alcoa Highway in Blount County.
Sharon Bailey is the listed agent. An online Realty Executives Associates feature can be seen here.
The home features huge decks, a lakeside dock, pool and pool house, along with 260 feet of water frontage, according to the advertisement.
Bailey said Summitt bought an existing rancher on the site and added to it. She also built separate entertaining space and a "bunkhouse" that could sleep a dozen.
More: Coach Summitt dies
Players stayed there as well as son Tyler Summitt and his friends, Bailey said.
Summitt liked the location because she could get to the University of Tennessee quickly and easily on Alcoa Highway.
Not that that was ever a problem considering her lead-foot driving habits, Bailey told 10News.
The main house, which has a raised ceiling, exposed beams and skylights, includes a master suite along with a second bedroom on the main level. There's also an outdoor kitchen, and the grounds include "multiple entertaining areas."
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"It’s got this really neat guesthouse pavilion and kitchen and pool," Bailey told 10News, moments after showing it Tuesday.
More: Family, friends pay tribute to Summitt
Summitt, the longtime Lady Vols coach, not only lived at the house but liked to host events there. When her team was preparing for the annual spring NCAA tournament, she would invite players over as well as the media to watch the selection process.
Summit died June 28 at age 64 after battling early onset Alzheimer's for five years. At the time of her death she'd moved to a senior living center in Knoxville.
"The girls, when they were all here for the (July 14) memorial, wanted to go out and have one last tour," said Bailey, a friend of the family.
Summitt also held many charity events at the house, some with colleague and former athletic director Joan Cronan.
"She loved to cook and entertain," Bailey said. "There’s a lot of history there."There is no statute of limitations governing the case of Roman Polanski who was arrested by Swiss police on Saturday on a 31-year-old arrest warrant.
CBS News legal analyst Lisa Bloom said that is because the director, now 76, had already pleaded guilty in 1978 to having had unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl. "He already has been convicted."
Polanski, who is being held in Zurich, has hired an attorney to fight his extradition, and.
When asked on CBS' "The Early Show" about the likelihood Polanski will be extradited to the U.S., Bloom said, "I think he will be. Under our treaty with Switzerland, somebody facing these kinds of charges should be extradited.
Photos: Roman Polanski
"The real question is what has taken so long. He had a home in Switzerland. He's been there many, many times over the years. Apparently he has escaped extradition all of those previous times. Mostly, though, he's been living in France and our treaty with France prevented him from being extradited, so he was safe there, but clearly safe no longer."
Although the film director has continued working in Europe and has been hiding in plain sight in France, there have been previous attempts to apprehend him as he traveled, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney's office.
"They say that they did, especially in the last few years," Bloom told anchor Harry Smith. "I mean, it's hard to understand exactly what went on behind the scenes. But the district attorney here is saying that at least a half a dozen times in previous years they tried to get Roman Polanski and they just were unable to do so. I don't know if he was tipped off, [or] if he was just lucky. We don't know what happened."
Polanski fled the U.S. as he awaiting sentencing, convinced the judge would renege on his plea bargain deal. A judicial review this year did find there was misconduct on the part of the judge (who is now dead), but the charges could not be set aside as long as Polanski was a fugitive.
Fearing renewed attention, Polanski's victim, who accepted a cash settlement from him, has said she does not want the case reopened.
"The publicity was so terrible and so immediate that it just overshadowed everything that happened that night," Samantha Geimer told CNN.
But the victim's wishes won't count for much here, said Bloom.
"This is a crime against the people of the State of California, as all crimes [there] are," she said. "And so a civil settlement does not end it. This is a man who fled on the eve of sentencing because he was concerned he was going to get a harsher sentence than he expected under the plea bargain. He's been a fugitive for 30 years. He still faces sentencing here in California. It's irrelevant legally that he has a civil settlement with the complaining witness."
And what are the chances that, if brought back to California, he would do serious jail time?
Bloom noted the while there is the issue of judicial misconduct pending, "he cannot argue that while he's a fugitive. He has to be brought back - then that argument can be raised. If he prevails, he might get no jail time."Views 24771
I had urged you all to buy some Khadi and I am happy the sales have increased so much. This is realisation of Jan Shakti: PM @narendramodi — PMO India (@PMOIndia) September 20, 2015
Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned, not once but twice, during his monthly radio address ‘Mann ki Baat” recently how his appeal last year (2014) urging people to buy Khadi resulted in doubling of Khadi sales.
However, year-on-year official data regarding Khadi sales does not corroborate the PM’s claim.
Khadi sales during 2014-15 increased only by 5.91% compared to 2013-14 while sales had increased 5.82% during 2013-14 compared to 2012-13.
Year Khadi Sales (Rs crore) Percentage Increase Of Sales Over Previous Year 2012-13 1021.56 – 2013-14 1081.04 5.82 2014-15* 1144.9 5.91
Source: Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises; 2014-15 figures are provisional.
The production and sales figures for the past three years, state-wise, are as follows:
Sr. No States/ UTs 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15* Khadi prodn. (Rs crore) Khadi sales (Rs crore) Khadi prodn. (Rs crore) Khadi sales (Rs crore) Khadi prodn. (Rs crore) Khadi sales (Rs crore) 1 Jammu & Kashmir 13.83 12.6 14.71 13.3 15.8 14.09 2 Himachal Pradesh 4.94 10.57 5.26 11.17 5.65 11.83 3 Punjab 12.86 9.02 13.69 9.53 14.7 10.09 4 UT Chandigarh 0.01 2.06 0.02 2.17 0.02 2.3 5 Haryana 74.56 94.63 79.36 98.89 85.21 104.74 6 Delhi 2.74 28.36 2.91 29.96 3.12 31.73 7 Rajasthan 48.08 65.61 51.18 69.19 54.95 73.28 8 Uttarakhand 17.35 33.39 18.47 35.27 19.83 37.35 9 Uttar Pradesh 188.63 304.71 200.78 325.1 215.57 344.31 10 Chhattisgarh 17.3 11.33 18.42 11.97 19.78 12.68 11 Madhya Pradesh 10.27 14.84 10.93 15.68 11.73 16.6 12 Sikkim 0 0.11 0 0.12 0 0.13 13 Arunachal Pradesh 0.13 0.27 0.14 0.28 0.15 0.3 14 Nagaland 0.01 1.07 0.78 1.13 0.84 1.2 15 Manipur 0.79 0.86 0.79 0.91 0.84 0.96 16 Mizoram 0.02 0.07 0.02 0.08 0.02 0.08 17 Tripura 0.02 0.66 0.02 0.7 0.02 0.74 18 Meghalaya 0.05 0.1 0.09 0.1 0.1 0.11 19 Assam 10.55 9.36 11.06 9.88 11.87 10.46 20 Bihar 14.23 18.84 15.14 19.9 16.26 21.07 21 West Bengal 94.84 53.26 100.95 56.26 108.39 59.58 22 Jharkhand 8.9 32.57 9.47 34.4 10.17 36.43 23 Odisha 6.78 4.59 7.22 4.85 7.75 5.14 24 A. & N. Island 0 0 0 0 0 0 25 Gujarat * 38.7 56.13 41.19 59.26 44.22 62.76 26 Maharashtra** 5.26 14.45 5.6 15.26 5.45 16.13 27 Goa 0 0.24 0 0.25 0 0.26 28 Andhra Pradesh 29.09 15.8 30.77 16.69 33.03 17.67 29 Karnataka 46.01 36.4 48.68 38.44 52.26 40.71 30 Lakshadweep 0 0 0 0 33.81 83.17 31 Kerala 29.59 74.35 31.49 78.53 98.67 128.41 32 Tamil Nadu 86.34 114.79 91.9 121.24 0.04 0.58 33 Puducherry 0.04 0.52 0.04 0.55 33.03 17.67 Total 761.93 1021.57 811.08 1081.04 870.29 1144.9
Source: Lok Sabha; * including Daman & Diu; ** including Dadra & Nagar Haveli; 2014-15 figures are provisional.
An official release by the Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises earlier this year claimed a “60% jump in Khadi sales”.
A closer look reveals that the increased sales relates to the period 13th April to 28th April 2015 (compared to corresponding period of the previous year) for only one KVIC signature store – Khadi Gramodyog Bhawan at Connaught Place, New Delhi.
(Manoj K is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and the founder of the Centre for Governance and Development. He has a special interest in transparency and accountability in governance and has spearheaded several projects on these subjects. He can be contacted at manoj@cgdindia.org.)
References:
1. Press Information Bureau
http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=127036
http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=123631
http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=121353
2. Lok Sabha
http://164.100.47.132/LssNew/psearch/QResult16.aspx?qref=23591Talk about crashing a party. It seemed the AFC Championship Game was destined to be another installment of Peyton Manning versus Tom Brady, with the winner once again having a shot at hoisting the Lombardi trophy. Now, here come quarterback Andrew Luck and the upstart Indianapolis Colts. Judging by their performance Sunday, somebody forgot to send them the memo.
Editor's Picks Clayton: Packers face tough road at Seattle NFC Championship Game Q&A: How much will Aaron Rodgers' injury affect the Packers' chances against the Seahawks? John Clayton explores this and other key questions.
The New England Patriots gave us the best game of the AFC divisional round with their 35-31 victory over the Baltimore Ravens. The Colts delivered the biggest upset of the playoffs when they rolled into Denver and stunned the Broncos 24-13. What can we expect this weekend? The Patriots have been the best team in the AFC for the past three months, but the Colts could be this year's version of the 2012 Ravens, who also pulled an unlikely upset in Denver in the divisional round before winning at New England in the AFC title game.
Those are some of the things worth thinking about as we await Sunday's championship game in New England. Here are 10 others of note:
1. Which quarterback will play better Sunday? The Patriots seem to have taken the approach that they will ride Tom Brady's arm as far as it will take them. He looks very much up to the challenge. The Patriots called passes on 54 of their 66 total plays in their 35-31 divisional playoff win over the Ravens. That air assault led to some difficult moments in the first half -- Baltimore sacked Brady twice with a four-man rush before halftime -- but he hit his stride in the second half, when he completed 72.7 percent of his attempts for 151 yards and the game-winning touchdown pass to Brandon LaFell. Should we also mention Brady twice led his team back from a 14-point deficit, which made the Patriots the first squad to do that in the postseason? Last year, Brady looked like he was outmanned and frustrated during a loss in the AFC title game at Denver. This year, he's on his game and clearly confident in the weapons at his disposal.
Andrew Luck completed only 20 of 41 passes and threw four picks against the Pats last postseason. Jim Rogash/Getty Images
2. Is Andrew |
set intact, albeit colored blue. In contrast to the earlier design, the new version sports a far bolder look with a wonderful montage of the crew spread over the front framed by a nice shot of the Enterprise NX-01 leaving orbit of a planet. It’s a big improvement over the first artwork, so kudos to CBS for taking the time to redesign it. Click on the image below to view it in higher resolution.
Star Trek Enterprise Season Two will be released on Blu-ray on August 20 in the United States, August 19 in the UK and August 21 in Australia. It will feature the continuation of the behind-the-scenes documentary started in Season 1 and will also boast a brand new cast reunion which brings together the entire principal cast of Star Trek Enterprise, moderated by Brannon Braga. We’ll have pre-order links and a press release as soon as CBS releases the information! Stay tuned!WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A day after President-elect Donald Trump encouraged supporters to “Buy L.L. Bean,” a U.S. ethics watchdog on Friday warned federal employees they must not endorse products or companies.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump waves to supporters as he makes an appearance in the lobby at Trump Tower in New York, U.S., January 13, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Segar
The U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) said on its official Twitter account: “All executive branch employees must refrain from misuse of position, including endorsements.”
No mention of Trump was made in the tweet, and many rules for federal employees do not apply to the president. The ethics office has tweeted other reminders to employees this week, including one that federal gift restrictions remain in place during the upcoming inauguration.
The office’s endorsements message drew attention on Twitter, though, because it came after Trump posted support for the Maine catalog retailer known for its backpacks and rubber-bottomed boots.
Activists had called for a boycott following reports that a member of the family that owns L.L. Bean contributed to Trump’s campaign.
“Thank you to Linda Bean of L.L. Bean for your great support and courage,” the Republican president-elect tweeted. “People will support you even more now. Buy L.L. Bean.”
A spokesman for the ethics office declined to comment.
The office, created in 1978, wades through financial disclosures to help executive branch officials avoid conflicts of interest. It has drawn attention and some scrutiny for recent public statements about ethics issues facing Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20.
On Wednesday, the office’s director, Walter Shaub, criticized Trump’s new plan to resign from managing his global business empire but leave it in the hands of his sons.
Trump said he would place his assets in a trust, but he will retain ownership. Ethics experts wanted him to follow the lead of past presidents and establish a blind trust that would be run by someone else independent of his oversight.
“Stepping back from running his business is meaningless from a conflict-of-interest perspective. The presidency is a full-time job, and he would have had to step back anyway,” Shaub said in a speech at a Washington think tank. “Nothing short of divestiture will resolve these conflicts.”
Last year, the office sent a series of tweets about Trump’s businesses modeled after the brash Republican’s own style of communicating. “Brilliant! Divestiture is good for you, very good for America!” read one.
Some Republicans were not amused. Republican Representative Jason Chaffetz, who leads the U.S. House oversight panel, wrote to Shaub this week and told him to come for an interview.Geir Haarde, whose trial began this week, could face up to two years in jail if convicted over country's 2008 economic collapse
On a low hill overlooking Reykjavik's harbour the members of a small camera crew wrapped in many layers of winterwear are wrestling with the horizontal snow in an attempt to film a short comedy sketch. The set-up of the skit, one explains, involves "a bum, he lives in the park and he is trying to sell tickets at crazy high prices for the show".
The show in question is taking place in a nearby white building, and the joke turns on the fact that, three and a half years after what is known here simply as The Crash, Icelanders have learned the hard way that you can't, after all, value something worthless simply by naming your price, and then adding zeroes.
That's not to say that what is taking place inside the white building – Reykjavik's Culture House – is not, in its own way, a hot ticket.
In a smart wood-panelled former library on the first floor a special criminal court has been convened for the first time in the country's history. Its purpose is to try the former Icelandic prime minister Geir Haarde over the spectacular economic collapse in October 2008 which catastrophically bankrupted the small island nation.
Haarde, 60, is to date the only politician anywhere in the world to face criminal charges over the financial crisis. The charges, which he denies, include "serious neglect of his duties … in the face of major perils looming over Icelandic financial institutions and the state treasury, a danger he knew of, or should have known of".
If convicted he could face up to two years in prison.
If the world has been rocked by the financial collapse, its effect on Iceland was convulsive.
Once the poorest country in Europe, which before 1990 did not have its own stock market, Iceland in the years after the millennium set out to reinvent itself as a global financial hub, embarking on what has been described as "one of the purest experiments in financial deregulation ever conducted".
Successive politicians privatised Iceland's natural resources and dismantled its regulatory mechanisms, sparking an economic bonanza for its bankers and mixing for its citizens the now-familiar toxic cocktail of bountiful credit, flaccid financial oversight and an unspoken collective agreement not to ask too many questions but just keep on spending. In 2007 Iceland topped the UN Human Development Index as the most developed country in the world.
Its three main banks, controlled by a tiny elite cabal, had a paper value of more than 10 times the country's GDP.
"I had the belief that Iceland could become an international financial centre," Haarde, who became prime minister in 2006, told the court this week. "None of us realised at the time that there was something fishy within the banking system."
The collapse of the three banks, requiring the country to take an emergency IMF loan, was "the most terrible shock", says Silla Sigursgeirsdottir, assistant professor of public governance at the university of Iceland.
"Those first two weeks of October [2008], it was like the sky had fallen on our heads. Most people didn't know anything about this." Prefiguring what would happen elsewhere, the country was forced to enact harsh cuts to public services, and many families suddenly found themselves sharply poorer.
It has left a bitter taste, she says. "The sense of injustice is very strong here, because people feel they were deceived. They were kept in the dark and they were fooled.
"We were told the world had never seen entrepreneurs like this before. This was preached here by the people in positions of authority, like the president.
"When people suddenly realised, what the hell is going on here?, they were taken aback. How could I ever have gone along with this?"
She stresses, as does everyone I talk to, Iceland's tiny size – with 320,000 inhabitants it is only slightly larger than Hull. Betrayal feels much more personal when everyone knows everyone else.
Margre Tryggvadóttir, then a literary theorist and editor, was living abroad until 2008, and had scratched her head, she says, over how "Icelanders could go abroad and live like millionaires. There were a lot of moments when you read something or noticed something and thought, this really can't be how things work."
Iceland's entire political elite failed, she believes, in not holding the executive, or the bankers, to account. "I was just a regular person out there, taking care of my kids and working, but after the crash I just felt like my whole existence was based on a lie."
Angered and appalled, she stood for the Althing, Iceland's ancient parliament, and was elected as an MP in 2009 in the wave of protest that saw Haarde ousted in favour of current PM Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir.
It was the country's parliamentarians, as empowered by the country's constitution, who unearthed an obscure piece of legislation many thought to be obsolete and sought to prosecute four of the principal political players.
After a series of legal challenges and political concessions, charges could be made to stick only to Haarde.
Tryggvadóttir voted for the indictments, and was disappointed the other three did not stand. "Some people have said of course that it's ridiculous to blame one man for this, and that's a little bit true.
"The Crash was of course the result of a lot of things, not just the fault of the man who was PM for a while."
She still believes the case is worthwhile, however. "I think it's very important to get to the truth, even if just for regular Icelanders to feel that this was not OK.
"Nobody wants to say, 'I was responsible for this thing that went wrong, and I have to live with it.' Everybody says, 'It was someone else's fault.'
"I don't think we can live here and raise our children here unless we feel that there is some kind of justice."
While the anger with bankers is palpable, however, few legal observers believe there is much chance of Haarde being convicted; many people say they don't want to see the former PM go to prison – an acknowledgement of responsibility would be enough.
Shoppers and cafe customers braving the Reykjavik wind largely purse their lips or shrug when asked about the prosecution.
Sunna Mgoll is typical – she lost her job as a care worker in a home for the elderly as a result of public sector cuts, and says her mother, a hairdresser, lost IKR 80,000 (£400) from her income in the space of a month.
And yet, "when all this was on the news I stopped watching the news". Is she angry? She shrugs. "I live a good life even though I have less money."
Like many, she is less inclined to blame Haarde than Davíð Oddsson, PM for 13 years until 2004, who chaired the Icelandic central bank at the time of the collapse.
Oddsson is one of the three against whom charges collapsed. He now edits Iceland's main newspaper.
Eirikur Bergmann, director of the centre for European studies at the Bifrost University in Iceland, sees Haarde's trial as "vastly significant".
But he stresses it is only one of a number of processes that are "marking the resurrection not only of Iceland's economy but its society".
These include criminal indictments against a number of bankers, still pending, the debate over Iceland's possible entry into the EU, and the redrafting of the constitution, a process in which he is personally engaged and from which he has snatched a short break to meet in a lively Reykjavik cafe.
Iceland's economic fightback has certainly begun – its economy grew by 1.9% in the last quarter alone, while its credit rating was revised by Fitch last month from junk to an investment grade BBB+.
But Bergmann says the country must emerge from the ruins of its collapse "almost a renewed society, so it will become something different in a significant way from what it was before" – less elitist, more open, more democratic.
In this context, the Haarde trial "kind of feels like a circus, really".
"Nothing is anyone's fault. As of yet it doesn't yet really provide us with what it was meant for, that we'd get some sort of closure, an understanding of what happened.
"Not to punish, but to say once and for all, this is what happened, now we move on."Microsoft unveiled the Surface Pro 3 today, and now more than ever before, the company is pushing the message that this is a product capable of replacing your trusted and proven laptop. In his usual style, Surface chief Panos Panay boldly proclaimed that the Surface Pro 3 will remove the conflict of choosing between a tablet and laptop — that it's been designed without compromise with the best aspects of both.
"I am sure that this is the tablet that can replace the laptop," Panay said. Those are big words indeed. Aside from Apple's MacBook Air, which Panay mentioned repeatedly on stage, Microsoft is finally facing improved (and genuinely impressive) competition from Windows machine manufacturers like Lenovo too. The Surface Pro 3 has clearly been designed to be more productive than an iPad Air, but can it really unseat leading laptops like Apple's MacBook Air and Lenovo's Yoga 2 Pro?
Display
A far more sensible screen ratio By far the most immediate and noticeable change in this year's Surface Pro is the display. At 12 inches, it's now larger than previous models and also features a much higher 2160 x 1440 resolution. That puts it near 216ppi, which doesn't quite match the iPad Air's 264ppi pixel density, but again, you're working with a larger surface here — no pun intended. Microsoft has also finally done away with the unwieldy 16:9 screen ratio of other Surface tablets in favor of a taller 3:2 ratio, making the latest device easier to hold and a better fit for a lot of content.
But this is a perfect example of where Microsoft faces stiff competition from Windows hardware vendors. The Yoga 2 Pro features a stunning 3200 x 1800 display, so the Surface Pro 3 can't claim to be best in class out of the gate. It certainly has a more impressive resolution than the MacBook Air though, and it's a significant step up from Surface Pro 2. So while it may not be the best, those two points may be good enough for Panay and his team.
Processor
Microsoft says that cramming a proper Core processor, from an i3 up to an i7, into a design so thin called for 100 custom parts and precise engineering. That hard work should put Surface Pro 3 a level above last year's model and on par with the best Windows Ultrabooks out there, though you'll need to wait some time for the most powerful models. Core i7 configurations aren't slated to ship until August.
Body
Panay also spent plenty of time today talking about the intense collaboration between Microsoft and Intel that made the getting its processors inside of the Surface Pro 3 possible. He described the new tablet as "the thinnest Intel Core product ever made," and it's certainly thin. At just 0.36-inches thick (not including a keyboard cover), it's only subtly thicker than the 0.29-inch thick iPad Air. That's not necessarily a fair comparison though, as the Surface — wider and taller as it may be — has the hardware of a full laptop on the inside. Compared to top laptops, it's far thinner: nearly half the thickness of the MacBook Air (0.68-inches at its thickest) and the Yoga 2 Pro (0.61-inches at its thickest).
It's also a lot lighter — something Microsoft was happy to boast. The Surface Pro 3 weighs 1.76 pounds, which, once again, is heavy for a tablet but light if you really see this as a laptop replacement. Its laptop competitors, the Air and Yoga, weigh 2.96 pounds and 3.06 pounds, respectively, for their 13-inch models. If you do see it as a tablet though, Apple's iPad Air is still the winner on portability.
Differentiation
Sure, a kickstand and a stylus aren't new for the Surface. But this time, they're actually pretty different. While the iPad Air is distinctly a tablet and the Yoga 2 Pro and MacBook Air are distinctly laptops, Microsoft is hoping that features like the Surface Pro 3's kickstand and stylus can make a real argument for why it's the device that can properly bridge the gap. This time, its kickstand is able to stop and support the tablet firmly throughout its range of motion, making it easy to use as you might a laptop or a tablet. And the stylus — which Microsoft wants to be as natural as a real pen — is now able to produce some of the best on-screen writing we've seen.
That all makes us more than intrigued by what Microsoft has been able to do with the Surface Pro 3. In terms of specs and size, it really does appear to fall between a laptop and a tablet, taking some of the best from each but not obviously beating out either one. Whether that middle ground can become your computing method of choice will really come down to what you think of Microsoft's vision for everyday use. Flagship features like the Surface's kickstand and stylus are finally approaching a level of quality where those who aren't sold on Microsoft's vision should at least be willing to entertain them. The real question is: is it now compelling enough for people to buy in?
Jacob Kastrenakes contributed to this report.Commission for It is pretty clear that Season 4 of MLP: FiM has had a pretty impressive rooster of new characters, and so far they have yet to disappoint me. We have had The Mane-iac, Sea Breeze, Cheese Sandwich, Goldie Delicious, Trenderhoof, etc. But buy far, my absolute favorite this season (at the time this is uploaded) is Coco Pommel. I don't think I've seen such a good secondary character in this show in a while. Yeah, sure, she was pretty much an expy of Fluttershy, and she might have substituted some character traits for being heartbreaking adorable, but within the context of the episode she worked extremely well! She's the type of character I root for because, in the end, they do the right thing and my feelings towards her steer from being upset about their situation to being proud of them for doing something about it.So, as you can imagine, I was rather happy to work on this commissionShe deserves all the praise that she's got so far.Edit by James CorckThe company which shut its secure email over privacy concerns says corporate customers have admitted regular data breaches
Major companies are failing to disclose data security breaches, a secure communications company has claimed.
The co-founder of Silent Circle, which closed its secure email service over concerns that it could not guarantee users' privacy from government-mandated surveillance, claimed that corporate users have admitted data breaches that have not been disclosed to shareholders.
“We’re like digital priests,” said Mike Janke, chief executive of the service. “Everybody calls us, or comes to our office, and tells us just every dirty thing that’s going on.
"I sat and spoke with the chief information officer of a Fortune 500 company, and he’s telling me that they’re not reporting 80% of their data breaches. And I’m going, ‘there’s a law against that'.
“Customers of ours disclose that they’re being breached, weekly, and they don’t disclose it to shareholders.”
That revelation comes against the background of a major investigation by security website Krebs on Security which revealed that some of America’s biggest data broker firms may have been unwittingly compromised.
SSNDOB is a site trading stolen personal information and achieved notoriety after leaking the Social Security numbers for celebrities like Jay Z and Michelle Obama.
Krebs found that “the miscreants behind this ID theft service controlled at least five infected systems at different US-based consumer and business data aggregators,” including Dun & Bradstreet, Kroll Background America, and LexisNexis.
“We have identified an intrusion targeting our data, but to date have found no evidence that customer or consumer data were reached or retrieved,” Aurobindo Sundaram, vice president of information assurance and data protection at the parent company of LexisNexis, Reed Elsevier, told Krebs on Security.
“Because this matter is actively being investigated by law enforcement, I can’t provide further information at this time.”
Email is 'fundametally broken'
Janke explained the decision to close down Silent Circle's email service, part of a suite of encrypted communications tools across a number of platforms.
“Email is different. It’s fundamentally broken,” Janke said, comparing the protocol to services built from the ground up for security.
“The architecture was made 40 years ago. Imagine I’m sending you a letter in an envelope: this is encrypted email. They can’t open the letter to read what I wrote you – right, yet. But where it was from, my GPS location, what time, who I bcc’ed, the subject line.
“We were sitting on metadata, so that we knew it was only a matter of time before someone would come to us. Email was different – the rest of our products have no metadata, no IP logging, no way – but email was fundamentally broken.”
Silent Circle’s email application was hugely popular – “We became profitable like that,” Janke said, snapping his fingers – but when a similar service, Lavabit, closed its doors without warning, the company re-examined its business.
Lavabit had garnered unwelcome attention for providing services to Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who disclosed the level of internet surveillance being conducted by the National Security Agency in the US.
Silent Circle then decided to shut down the service to avoid becoming “complicit in crimes against the American people”.
“We have been developing an email app that’s based upon our peer-to-peer encryption,” Janke said, explaining his own decision to follow suit.
“We thought we’d have it done sooner, so this email [app] that we put out, the encrypted email, was a stop-gap. We thought we could put it out, and then replace it with the new. But we became a lot more popular than we thought around the world.
“We don’t know our customers, so the only way to communicate with them is to maybe put a blog post out, saying we’re going to shut email off in 12 hours. That’s like saying ‘all the world’s law enforcement, you got 12 hours to subpoena us.’ No. So, John, myself and [co-foubder] Phil [Zimmerman, inventor of the PGP security system], we made the decision to scorch earth. Gone.”
• Find out the best alternative secure services to use now that Lavabit and Secure Circle have closed downIt’s a wrap for Heroes of the Dorm, and what a show it was! Arizona State University’s Real Dream Team sealed the deal with extreme prejudice, capping off a flawless tournament record with a full-on sweep against UT Arlington’s Dark Blaze. It should go without saying that the runners-up are a force to be reckoned with in their own right, which serves only to underscore ASU’s exemplary performance. Congratulations to the Real Dream Team for the well-deserved victory! Next year’s teams have their work cut out for them. Don’t go on thinking that things are going to quiet down for Heroes esports, though; the Summer season is just beginning! Europe’s first Regional is going down next week, North America’s qualifiers are in full swing, and things are heating up in China and Korea, with Gold League and Super League getting underway in earnest. Lest you forget, there’s no such thing as Summer break in the Nexus.
Upcoming Events
Games to Watch
Team vs. Team VOD Description UT Arlington vs. Tennessee Link Your eyes are not deceiving you: UT Arlington picked Nydus Network on Zagara, and used it to devious effect when the stakes were at their highest. Definitely one of the nuttiest matches of the weekend. mYinsanity vs. The Sandwich Monkey Link When mYinsanity field Kerrigan, Greymane, and Diablo on Infernal Shrines, you kinda know what it is they’re going for: unbridled roaming aggression with a side of shrine-clearing utility. Was it enough for TSaM’s specialist-heavy team? ASU vs. UT Arlington Link Spoiler alert: ASU swept the entire tournament, and this includes the Grand Finals. But if anyone put up a fight at any point, it was UTA’s Dark Blaze in their do-or-die match on Infernal Shrines.
Arizona State University: Your Dorm Champions!
It looks like smart money prevailed: Arizona State University’s Real Dream Team took home the big prize at this weekend’s Heroes of the Dorm Grand Final, and did so resoundingly, with a 3-0 sweep against their de facto tournament rivals, UT Arlington’s Dark Blaze. It was a victory that felt almost preordained for last year’s Heroes of the Dorm runners-up, who didn’t drop a single game throughout the entire tournament. They were clearly hungry for the win, and they played their hearts out. Let’s hear it for them on their well deserved victory!
If you can’t get enough of the ASU’s stellar play, you won’t have to look further than the Summer Qualifiers to see some of its stars in action. Michael ‘MichaelUdall’ Udall, and Stefan ‘akaface’ Anderson have both been picked up by Gale Force eSports, and we certainly like their chances at qualifying for the Summer Regional at DreamHack Austin next month.
The second Heroes of the Dorm tournament is now officially in the record books, and the Real Dream Team’s performance will be a tough act to follow. Huge congrats once again to the winners, and good game to every team that fought their heart out in the Nexus! We can’t wait to see what the competitive field looks like next year.
Click here for all Heroes of the Dorm 2016 VODs.
Summer Season Has Officially Started
The Summer season for Heroes of the Storm is officially on! This past weekend, the final four teams to compete in the first Europe Summer Regional in Leicester, UK emerged. Europe Spring Regional runners-up mYinsanity muscled their way into one of the last remaining spots, alongside Natus Vincere, Silenced Monkeys, and The Sandwich Monkey (and no, it wouldn’t be a Heroes EU tournament without at least two teams with a simian reference in their names). The stage is set for the first EU Regional event for the Summer, and it’s going down next week, starting Friday, April 22. Here is the full list of qualifying teams.
For info on the group stage match-ups, check out ESL’s rundown.
Catch VODs of the first round of EU Qualifiers on Khaldor’s YouTube channel.
Tempo Storm and Team Naventic Are Headed to Austin!
On the NA front, the first round of qualifiers for Summer Regional at DreamHack Austin commenced this Tuesday. After two days of pitched battle, Tempo Storm and Team Naventic have earned the first two spots at the main event. Both teams are sporting retooled rosters going into the Summer season, and from the looks of it, they’re meshing well. Tempo Storm ended up prevailing over NA frontrunners Cloud9, and Team Naventic brought it home after a protracted battle with COGnitive Gaming.
Congrats to Tempo Storm and Team Naventic! It was quite a ride, but they earned their tickets to Austin. No doubt COGnitive and Cloud9 will be hungry for redemption at this weekend’s round of qualifiers.
For VODs of the NA Qualifier matches, check out Jhow and InVerum’s channels on Twitch.
Though the Spring Global Championship seems like it was only yesterday, the first two Regional events are coming up sooner than you think! Check dates and times below.
Europe Summer Regional 1
Dates: April 22–24
April 22–24 Location : ESL UK Studio One (Leicester, UK)
: ESL UK Studio One (Leicester, UK) Partner : ESL
: ESL Prize Pool: $100,000 USD
North America Summer Regional 1
Dates : May 6–7
: May 6–7 Location : DreamHack Austin (Austin, TX)
: DreamHack Austin (Austin, TX) Partner : DreamHack
: DreamHack Prize Pool: $100,000 USD
For more info on the Heroes of the Storm Summer Global Championship, including a full schedule of events across all regions, check out our primer.By Gregory Stangrit
WBA/IBO/WBC interim-middleweight champion Gennady "GGG" Golovkin (33-0, 30KOs) has erupted over some recently published statements from WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (27-0, 14KOs), who returns to the ring on Saturday night against Paul Smith at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California. The fight will headline Roc Nation Sports' first televised event on BET.
In an exclusive interview with BoxingScene.com, Ward called Golovkin and his team into question for "making excuses" to avoid a potential fight between the two of then. He says guys like Golovkin have made "eight or nine" excuses to avoid the fight.
"If the fans and the writers buy that, then they are going to continue to say that," Ward told BoxingScene.com.
"The reality is this, and I’m not trying to coming off as a tough guy because I’m not a tough guy. I just come to fight and do my best and fight the best. The reality is, when Carl Froch fought Mikkel Kessler the second time, I commentated that fight. I was in his country. I told him, I told his promoter to pick up the phone and let’s make it happen. When you’re in somebody's backyard and they say those kind of things and they don’t respond and come up with excuses – you got your answer."
"Guys like Froch, or even Golovkin, these guys have had at least eight or nine different excuses – from ‘we’ll fight everybody but him, we’ve got to build it up, he’s scared, he's just talking.’ It's just ridiculous and I don’t even follow it anymore and you won’t hear me call their names anymore, because I've got too much respect for what I've accomplished in this sport and I've got too much respect for my legacy as a whole to chase anybody at this point in time."
"If the fans are comfortable and okay with [Golovkin] fighting the level of competition that he's fighting - and I’m not taking anything away from those guys because they deserve credit for getting in there and doing their best – but the level that he’s fought and what they're claiming him to be – if the fans and the writers are comfortable with that then that’s just what it is and he's going to continue to fight that level of competition."
"He’s going to cross his fingers that Canelo or Cotto take a fight with him. He’s literally begging these guys, who are smaller guys, to step in the ring and fight with him - but you can't have this reputation that you want to claim without fighting the best," Ward said.
"You can't come to my weight class and side-step me. Just because a trainer or a promoter says something, it doesn’t make it true. These guys literally get paid to say what they say. And their whole plan is for the trainer to talk tough, and the promoter to talk tough, while Golovkin sits on the sidelines and just smiles and waves. They tell him to smile and keep waving while they talk tough. I'm not going to get involved with that, because I'm real simple when it comes to the sport of boxing – 'let's get it on.' If you mention my name and you mention my weight class, then lets do it."
"All of the different narratives that they come up with, all of the different excuses and even lies they come up with – I am not going to get caught up in that and you are not going to hear me calling this guy’s name no more. I presented myself and that’s the best that I can do. I’m not chasing anybody in this sport. I'm the champion of my division and my job is to be ready when my name is called."
Golovkin has come back firing, with both barrels. The 'Good Boy' took a few moments to become the 'Bad Boy' as he came back swinging in response to Ward's comments.
"Hey Ward, wake up. Why are you talking trash about others? Speak for yourself. If you are trying to make a name for yourself by mentioning my name and building your fight by talking about me, then be a man and tell the truth," Golovkin told BoxingScene.com/Allboxing.ru.
"At our meeting with HBO they asked both of us whether or not we are ready to fight. You remember our answers........I said 'yes' and you said 'no.' Something about your shoulder or promoter. I am not interested in your reasons, I only heard your 'no.' But you remember HBO made it clear back then that this fight needs a lot of time to build up. Then why are you talking sh*t about excuses?"
"When you make such provocative statements, don't even think that it will make [promoter Tom] Loeffler [of K2 Promotions] buy into it. You have not been interesting to anybody for a long time already, and surely he won't build your name for you."
"So go and build your brand on your own. Although everyone already knows what you are, and that's why they don't go to watch your fights. You shouldn't worry about who I fought or who I'm going to fight. Worry about yourself. You and the rest were lucky with the Super Six tournament where you got opponents by contract. And look who are you fighting now? - boxers ranked fourth or fifth in England. Although you do know very well that for all of the people in the United States there is still an open question - who is the best between you or [Andre] Dirrell. If you aren't able to call in the morning, then don't attempt to crow."
"When I say that I am ready to fight any middleweight and that I am ready to move up to 168 for a big fight, then I'll put my money where my mouth is. And I have nothing left to discuss with you. As a true man you are dead to me."
Gregory Stangrit covers boxing for Allboxing.ruWatch the press conference
Remarks by U.S. Attorney Brian Stretch
SAN FRANCISCO – A grand jury in the Northern District of California has indicted four defendants, including two officers of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), for computer hacking, economic espionage and other criminal offenses in connection with a conspiracy, beginning in January 2014, to access Yahoo’s network and the contents of webmail accounts. The defendants are Dmitry Aleksandrovich Dokuchaev, 33, a Russian national and resident; Igor Anatolyevich Sushchin, 43, a Russian national and resident; Alexsey Alexseyevich Belan, aka “Magg,” 29, a Russian national and resident; and Karim Baratov, aka “Kay,” “Karim Taloverov” and “Karim Akehmet Tokbergenov,” 22, a Canadian and Kazakh national and a resident of Canada.
The defendants used unauthorized access to Yahoo’s systems to steal information from about at least 500 million Yahoo accounts and then used some of that stolen information to obtain unauthorized access to the contents of accounts at Yahoo, Google and other webmail providers, including accounts of Russian journalists, U.S. and Russian government officials and private-sector employees of financial, transportation and other companies. One of the defendants also exploited his access to Yahoo’s network for his personal financial gain, by searching Yahoo user communications for credit card and gift card account numbers, redirecting a subset of Yahoo search engine web traffic so he could make commissions and enabling the theft of the contacts of at least 30 million Yahoo accounts to facilitate a spam campaign.
The charges were announced by U.S. Attorney Brian J. Stretch, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Director James Comey of the FBI, Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord of the National Security Division, and Executive Assistant Director Paul Abbate of the FBI’s Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch.
“Silicon Valley’s computer infrastructure provides the means by which people around the world communicate with each other in their business and personal lives. The privacy and security of those communications must be governed by the rule of law, not by the whim of criminal hackers and those who employ them. People rightly expect that their communications through Silicon Valley internet providers will remain private, unless lawful authority provides otherwise. We will not tolerate unauthorized and illegal intrusions into the Silicon Valley computer infrastructure upon which both private citizens and the global economy rely,” said U.S. Attorney Stretch. “Working closely with Yahoo and Google, Department of Justice lawyers and the FBI were able to identify and expose the hackers responsible for the conduct described today, without unduly intruding into the privacy of the accounts that were stolen. We commend Yahoo and Google for providing exemplary cooperation while zealously protecting their users’ privacy.”
“Cyber crime poses a significant threat to our nation’s security and prosperity, and this is one of the largest data breaches in history,” said Attorney General Sessions. “But thanks to the tireless efforts of U.S. prosecutors and investigators, as well as our Canadian partners, today we have identified four individuals, including two Russian FSB officers, responsible for unauthorized access to millions of users’ accounts. The United States will vigorously investigate and prosecute the people behind such attacks to the fullest extent of the law.”
“Today we continue to pierce the veil of anonymity surrounding cyber crimes,” said Director Comey. “We are shrinking the world to ensure that cyber criminals think twice before targeting U.S. persons and interests.”
“The criminal conduct at issue, carried out and otherwise facilitated by officers from an FSB unit that serves as the FBI’s point of contact in Moscow on cybercrime matters, is beyond the pale,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General McCord. “Once again, the Department and the FBI have demonstrated that hackers around the world can and will be exposed and held accountable. State actors may be using common criminals to access the data they want, but the indictment shows that our companies do not have to stand alone against this threat. We commend Yahoo and Google for their sustained and invaluable cooperation in the investigation aimed at obtaining justice for, and protecting the privacy of their users.”
“This is a highly complicated investigation of a very complex threat. It underscores the value of early, proactive engagement and cooperation between the private sector and the government,” said Executive Assistant Director Abbate. “The FBI will continue to work relentlessly with our private sector and international partners to identify those who conduct cyber-attacks against our citizens and our nation, expose them and hold them accountable under the law, no matter where they attempt to hide.”
Summary of Allegations
According to the allegations of the Indictment:
The FSB officer defendants, Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin, protected, directed, facilitated and paid criminal hackers to collect information through computer intrusions in the U.S. and elsewhere. In the present case, they worked with co-defendants Alexsey Belan and Karim Baratov to |
2014
UPDATE: Perhaps now this wonderful Nevada couple can marry:
Watch: Nevada Senator Who Came Out On TV Last Year Pops The Question On TV
Image via Flickr
Hat tip: Timothy Kincaid/BTB
See a mistake? Email corrections to: [email protected]As the G20 leaders gathered amid protestors in London last week to battle the economic meltdown, the World of Golf unveiled its latest promotion called “Take a Swing at Brown”.
The company has erected two giant images of Brown and Darling on four of its driving ranges – Croydon, Chislehurst, Sidcup and New Malden, the latter of which is the largest and most popular in Europe.
Brown and Darling both have targets painted on their foreheads and are positioned in full view of the hydraulically powered driving ranges for thousands of players to hit them with a Tiger Woods-like shot.
The driving ranges are open seven days a week from 8am to 10.30pm and stadium lighting means that anyone wishing to indulge in a little late night 'golf rage' may do so.
With over 13 million golf balls being hit at World of Golf driving ranges every year, Brown and Darling look set to lose their heads very soon.It is a rare event in American politics when a major political party dies.
Such an occurrence has not happened in more than 160 years, when the Whig Party split due to a division between its pro-slavery and anti-slavery wings. The Republican Party formed in 1854 and quickly supplanted the Whigs, who had elected two presidents in the 1840s but had all but gone out of business by 1856.
In most nations with democratic systems, political parties don’t survive nearly as long as America’s Republicans and Democrats. And lately, the Democratic Party has been showing its age. The party founded by Andrew Jackson in 1828 is in such a decrepit condition that it might be nearing its final collapse.
Team Blue’s feeble condition goes beyond the festering wound left from the 2016 nominating contest that once again reared its ugly head last week. The ongoing civil war between the “Hillary wing” and the “Bernie wing” may be the death rattle for a party that has been slowly, painfully dying for the last 50 years.
The party’s descent began in 1968 when Republicans won their first of five presidential victories over the next six elections, enabling them to wrest control of the nation’s courts away from liberals, who had dominated American jurisprudence for a generation. The Democrats’ only victory over the next 24 years was in 1976 when Jimmy Carter barely squeaked out a win over unpopular incumbent Gerald Ford.
Even as Democrats broke their presidential hex in the 1990s, they lost their grip on Congress and the state governments, which they had dominated since FDR was in office. Starting with their midterm wipeout in 1994, Democrats have steadily fallen to their lowest point since the Great Depression. With the exceptions of the presidential victories of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and a brief resurgence into the congressional majority at the tail end of George W. Bush’s presidency, the party has consistently gotten mauled at the polls for a generation at both the federal and the state levels.
For nearly a quarter of a century, Democrats have taken electoral drubbing after electoral drubbing despite the fact that the Republican Party is less favorably viewed than the Democrats on almost every imaginable issue. Democrats currently control only 15 out of 50 governorships, 31 out of 99 state legislative chambers, and none of the levers of power in Washington, D.C. When the public prefers your party on almost every issue but you’re still getting crushed across the country, it speaks volumes about the party’s health and vitality. How can such an inept organization survive?
The Democratic Party’s death blow may be the ongoing feud between Bernie Sanders supporters and “regular Democrats,” which has kept the party divided for nearly two years. Only Republicans’ ineptitude has provided relief for Democrats.
The battle between these two wings has no end in sight, and allegations by former DNC Chair Donna Brazile of improprieties in the 2016 nominating process tore those wounds wide open again—as the party was attempting to win important elections in Virginia and New Jersey.
At a time when the astounding unpopularity of both the Republican president and Republican-controlled Congress should give Democrats ample opportunities for electoral successes, the gang that can’t shoot straight is shooting itself squarely in the foot. Beyond the ongoing intramural squabble, it is clear the party simply doesn’t know how to win elections. The Democrats’ rare electoral victories over the past couple of decades have been personal triumphs by charismatic candidates—such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama—who built their own electoral organizations rather than relying on the sclerotic, brain-dead party establishment that has otherwise failed consistently at the ballot box for the last five decades.
And the party’s leadership and consultant classes, neither of which has demonstrated any aptitude for winning elections, cling stubbornly to their perches, crushing the party’s chances of developing younger, more innovative leaders. Democrats’ seed corn is wasting away in the root cellar while the party’s tired, washed-up leaders hang on to power like Politburo potentates.
But let’s not pin all the blame on the party establishment. The Democrats’ rank and file members largely don’t know what they’re doing, either. Too many liberals are still utilizing 1960s-era tactics, such as rallies and marches, that no longer move the political needle. And many progressives fail to understand the supreme importance of voting, particularly in non-presidential elections. This has enabled Republicans to build their bench while local and state-level Democratic parties have floundered. For example, in the nation’s key swing region, the Midwest, Republicans have full control of every state but two (Illinois and Minnesota), and partial control in both of those; heading into 2018 they hold the Illinois governorship and both chambers of the Minnesota legislature. It is a chicken-and-egg problem. Democrats’ failures to win at the local level prevent them from developing the political talent that would be needed to gain those victories.
So now, Democrats are paralyzed, clueless and possibly on the verge of fumbling a historic opportunity to get back on top presented by an unpopular president and an even more unpopular Congress. With full control of only six out of 50 state governments, the party is arguably in as dire of a condition as the Whigs were when they went out of business in the 1850s. The Whigs held nine of 30 governorships four years before they collapsed, which at 30 percent of the total was exactly on par with the Democrats’ 30 percent share of governorships today.
It’s possible that Donald Trump and congressional Republicans—who flounder at governing as badly as Democrats do at campaigning—may do for Democrats what they are incapable of doing for themselves. The GOP, battling its own problems, could keep the Democrats on life support for the next few years. But right now, Democrats are pulling the plug on themselves, and even the ineptitude of their opponents might not save Team Blue from a sorry fate.
Cliston Brown is a communications executive and political analyst in the San Francisco Bay Area who previously served as director of communications to a longtime Democratic Representative in Washington, D.C. Follow him on Twitter (@ClistonBrown) and visit his website at ClistonBrown.com.MASGD Statement on Pinkwashing Session at Creating Change 2016
The Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity (MASGD) rejects the Task Force’s latest attempt to address current tensions at Creating Change 2016 with regard to Zionism and the military occupation of Palestine by Israel. The past two weeks have included a series of attempts to manipulate, undermine, divide, and co-opt our communities, absent any intersectional analysis of the broader oppressive dynamics at play. MASGD stands with all LGBTQ activists who reject oppressive forces at Creating Change, whether they be ICE or Zionism.
We specifically reject the impromptu session “Radical Dialogue: Palestine, Israel, and LGBTQ People” as a way to address our concerns. This session is illegitimate and flawed on several counts. First, by framing it as a “dialogue,” the session gives the incorrect impression that this is a conversation between equals, when the reality is that there can be no true dialogue between military occupiers and the occupied. Second, the framework of the session pits the issue of the occupation of Palestine as a conflict between two faith traditions, which both obscures the true political and structural underpinnings of the conflict, as well as serves to amplify both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Reducing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a “Jewish-Muslim” conflict contributes to equating the Jewish faith with Zionism, and the Muslim faith with “terrorism.” Third, this supposed-dialogue fails to include any Palestinian voices, and instead assumes that all Palestinians are Muslim, and that all Muslims speak for one another. Fourth, we are deeply troubled by the attempt to divide our communities by deliberately excluding MASGD from the conversation, as well as excluding many other important voices in the LGBTQ Muslim community.
Finally, this “dialogue” is a naked attempt to co-opt our criticisms of the structural violence of Zionism, by making this issue one of emotions and “hurt feelings” rather than one of the politics of oppression, occupation, and racism. Such attempts at window-dressing can never address structures of power, and therefore cannot serve as a fix for the decisions made by the Task Force at Creating Change 2016 that support systems of oppression. The Task Force pays a lot of lip service to being concerned about social justice, and to understanding the ways in which oppressions intersect with one another; however, their actions this year have demonstrated a clear hypocrisy and betrayal of what queer liberation truly means. We demand that the Task Force cancel this session, that it engage in meaningful introspection about transparency, accountability, and privilege, and that it recognize and reject Zionism by signing on to the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction campaign. By siding with the forces of oppression and occupation, the Task Force is clearly on the wrong side of history.
The MASGD Steering Committee
January 22, 2016
Chicago, IL
#CancelPinkwashing
The Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity works to support, empower and connect LGBTQ Muslims. We seek to challenge root causes of oppression, including misogyny and xenophobia. We aim to increase the acceptance of gender and sexual diversity within Muslim communities, and to promote a progressive understanding of Islam that is centered on inclusion, justice, and equality.
www.muslimalliance.org This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Facebook: TheMASGDTwitter: @TheMASGD#MASGD #LGBTMuslimsHeywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; December 1, 1935) is an American director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades. He began his career as a comedy writer in the 1950s, writing jokes and scripts for television and publishing several books of short humor pieces. In the early 1960s, Allen began performing as a stand-up comedian, emphasizing monologues rather than traditional jokes. As a comedian, he developed the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish, which he maintains is quite different from his real-life personality.[1] In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Allen fourth on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians,[2][3] while a UK survey ranked Allen as the third-greatest comedian.[4]
By the mid-1960s, Allen was writing and directing films, first specializing in slapstick comedies before moving into dramatic material influenced by European art cinema during the 1970s, and alternating between comedies and dramas to the present. He is often identified as part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmakers of the mid-1960s to late 1970s.[5] Allen often stars in his films, typically in the persona he developed as a standup. Some of the best-known of his over 50 films are Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). In 2007 he said Stardust Memories (1980), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), and Match Point (2005) were his best films.[6] Critic Roger Ebert described Allen as "a treasure of the cinema".[7]
Allen has received many accolades and honors throughout his career. He has won four Academy Awards: three for Best Original Screenplay and one for Best Director. He also garnered nine British Academy Film Awards. His screenplay for Annie Hall was named the funniest screenplay by the Writers Guild of America in its list of the "101 Funniest Screenplays".[8] In 2011, PBS televised the film biography Woody Allen: A Documentary on the American Masters TV series.[9]
Early life [ edit ]
Allen as a high school senior, 1953
Allen was born Allan Stewart Konigsberg[10] in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, New York. He and his sister, Letty (b. 1943), were raised in Midwood, Brooklyn.[11] He is the son of Nettie (née Cherry; November 8, 1906 – January 27, 2002), a bookkeeper at her family's delicatessen, and Martin Konigsberg (December 25, 1900 – January 8, 2001),[12] a jewelry engraver and waiter.[13] His family was Jewish, and his grandparents immigrated to the US from Russia and Austria and spoke Yiddish, Hebrew, and German.[14][15] Both of Allen's parents were born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.[16]
His childhood was not particularly happy; his parents did not get along, and he had a rocky relationship with his stern, temperamental mother.[17] Allen spoke German quite a bit in his early years.[18] He would later joke that when he was young he was often sent to inter-faith summer camps. While attending Hebrew school for eight years, he went to Public School 99 (now the Isaac Asimov School for Science and Literature)[19] and to Midwood High School, where he graduated in 1953. Unlike his comic persona, he was more interested in baseball than school and his strong arms ensured he was first to be picked for a team.[20][21] He impressed students with his extraordinary talent with cards and magic tricks.[22]
For pay, he wrote jokes (or "gags") for agent David O. Alber, who sold them to newspaper columnists. At the age of 17, he legally changed his name to Heywood Allen[23] and later began to call himself Woody Allen. According to Allen, his first published joke read: "Woody Allen says he ate at a restaurant that had O.P.S. prices—over people's salaries."[24] He was earning more than both his parents combined.[20] After high school, he attended New York University, studying communication and film in 1953, before dropping out after failing the course "Motion Picture Production". He studied film at City College of New York in 1954 but left before the end of the first semester.[25] He taught himself rather than in the classroom.[21] He taught at The New School and studied with writing teacher Lajos Egri.[21]p.74
Career [ edit ]
Comedy writer [ edit ]
Allen began writing short jokes when he was 15,[26] and the following year began sending them to various Broadway writers to see if they'd be interested in buying any. He also began going by the name "Woody Allen".[27]:539 One of those writers was Abe Burrows, coauthor of Guys and Dolls, who wrote, "Wow! His stuff was dazzling." Burrows then wrote Allen letters of introduction to Sid Caesar, Phil Silvers, and Peter Lind Hayes, who immediately sent Allen a check for just the jokes Burrows included as samples.[27]:541
As a result of the jokes Allen mailed to various writers, he was invited, then age 19, to join the NBC Writer's Development Program in 1955, followed by a job on The NBC Comedy Hour in Los Angeles. He was later hired as a full-time writer for humorist Herb Shriner, initially earning $25 a week.[24] He began writing scripts for The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show, specials for Sid Caesar post-Caesar's Hour (1954–1957), and other television shows.[21]p.111 By the time he was working for Caesar, he was earning $1,500 a week; with Caesar, he worked alongside Danny Simon, whom Allen credits for helping form his writing style.[24][28] In 1962 alone he estimated that he wrote twenty thousand jokes for various comics.[27]:533 Allen also wrote for the Candid Camera television show, and appeared in some episodes.[29]
He wrote jokes for the Buddy Hackett sitcom Stanley and for The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom, and in 1958 he co-wrote a few Sid Caesar specials with Larry Gelbart.[27]:542 After writing for many of television's leading comedians and comedy shows, Allen was gaining the reputation for being a "genius", says composer Mary Rodgers. When given an assignment for a show he would leave and come back the next day with "reams of paper", according to producer Max Liebman.[27]:542 Similarly, after writing for Bob Hope, Hope called him "half a genius".[27]:542
His daily writing routine could go as long as fifteen hours, and he could focus and write anywhere necessary. Dick Cavett was amazed at Allen's capacity to write: "He can go to a typewriter after breakfast and sit there until the sun sets and his head is pounding, interrupting work only for coffee and a brief walk, and then spend the whole evening working."[27]:551 When Allen wrote for other comedians, they would use eight out of ten of his jokes. When he began performing as a stand-up, he was much more selective, typically using only one out of ten jokes. He estimated that to prepare for a 30-minute show, he spent six months of intensive writing.[27]:551 He enjoyed writing, however, despite the work: "Nothing makes me happier than to tear open a ream of paper. And I can't wait to fill it! I love to do it."[27]:551
Allen started writing short stories and cartoon captions for magazines such as The New Yorker; he was inspired by the tradition of New Yorker humorists S. J. Perelman, George S. Kaufman, Robert Benchley, and Max Shulman, whose material he modernized.[30][31][32][33][34] His collections of short pieces includes Getting Even, Without Feathers, Side Effects, and Mere Anarchy. His early comic fiction was influenced by the zany, pun-ridden humor of S.J. Perelman. In 2010, Allen released audio versions of his books in which he read 73 selections. He was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.[35]
Stand-up comedian [ edit ]
Allen in the 1960s
From 1960 to 1969, Allen performed as a stand-up comedian to supplement his comedy writing. His contemporaries during those years included Lenny Bruce, Shelley Berman, the team of Mike Nichols and Elaine May, and Mort Sahl, his personal favorite. Comedy historian Gerald Nachman notes that Allen, while not the first to do stand-up, would eventually have greater impact than all the others in the 1960s, and would redefine the meaning of stand-up comedy: "He helped turn it into biting, brutally honest satirical commentary on the cultural and psychological tenor of the times."[27]:525
After Allen was taken under the wing of his new manager, Jack Rollins, who had recently discovered Nichols and May, Rollins suggested he perform his written jokes as a stand-up. Allen was resistant at first, but after seeing Mort Sahl on stage, he felt safer to give it a try: "I'd never had the nerve to talk about it before. Then Mort Sahl came along with a whole new style of humor, opening up vistas for people like me."[27]:545 Allen made his professional stage debut at the Blue Angel nightclub in Manhattan in October 1960, where comedian Shelley Berman introduced him as a young television writer who would perform his own material.[27]:545
His early stand-up shows with his different style of humor were not always well received or understood by his audiences. Unlike other comedians, Allen spoke to his audiences in a gentle and conversational style, often appearing to be searching for words, although his style was well rehearsed. He acted "normal", dressed casually, and made no attempt to project a stage "personality". And he did not improvise: "I put very little premium on improvisation," he told Studs Terkel.[27]:532 His jokes were created from life experiences, and typically presented with a dead serious demeanor which made them funnier: "I don't think my family liked me. They put a live teddy bear in my crib."[27]:533
The subjects of his jokes were rarely topical, political or socially relevant. Unlike Bruce and Sahl, he did not discuss current events such as civil rights, women's rights, the Cold War, or Vietnam. And although he was described as a "classic nebbish", he did not tell Jewish jokes. Comedy screenwriter Larry Gelbart compared Allen's style to Elaine May: "He just styled himself completely after her," he said.[27]:546 Like Nichols and May, he often made fun of intellectuals.
Television talk show host Dick Cavett, who was among the minority who quickly appreciated Allen's unique style, recalls seeing the audience at the Blue Angel mostly ignore Allen's monologue: "I recognized immediately that there was no young comedian in the country in the same class with him for sheer brilliance of jokes, and I resented the fact that the audience was too dumb to realize what they were getting."[27]:550 It was his subdued stage presence, while initially unappreciated, that eventually became one of Allen's strongest traits, explains Nachman: "The utter absence of showbiz veneer and shtick was the best shtick any comedian had ever devised. This uneasy onstage naturalness became a trademark."[27]:530 When he was finally noticed by the media, writers like New York Times' Arthur Gelb would describe Allen's nebbish quality as being "Chaplinesque" and "refreshing".
Allen developed an anxious, nervous, and intellectual persona for his stand-up act, a successful move that secured regular gigs for him in nightclubs and on television. Allen brought innovation to the comedy monologue genre and his stand-up comedy would be considered influential.[36] Allen first appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on November 1, 1963, and over nine years his guest appearances included seventeen in the host's chair. He subsequently released three LP albums of live nightclub recordings: the self-titled Woody Allen (1964), Volume 2 (1965), and The Third Woody Allen Album (1968) recorded at a fund-raiser for Senator Eugene McCarthy's presidential run.[37]
In 1965, Allen had his own TV special in Great Britain called The Woody Allen Show. In 1967 he hosted an episode of The Kraft Music Hall where he would intersperse humor with interviews of famous people, including conservative writer William F. Buckley.[38] In 1969 he hosted his first American special for CBS television which included a humorous spot with The Rev. Billy Graham.[39][40] He also performed stand-up comedy on other series including The Andy Williams Show and The Perry Como Show where he would interact with other guests and occasionally sing.[41] In 1971 Allen hosted one of his final Tonight Shows, which included as guests Bob Hope and James Coco.[42]
For its March 21, 1969, issue, Life put Allen on its cover.[43]
Playwright [ edit ]
Play It Again, Sam (1969). Allen with the Broadway cast of(1969).
In 1966, Allen wrote the play Don't Drink the Water. The play starred Lou Jacobi, Kay Medford, Anita Gillette and Allen's future movie co-star Tony Roberts.[44] A film adaptation of the play, directed by Howard Morris, was released in 1969, starring Jackie Gleason. Because he was not particularly happy with the 1969 film version of his play, in 1994, Allen directed and starred in a second version for television, with Michael J. Fox and Mayim Bialik.[45]
The next play Allen wrote for Broadway was Play It Again, Sam, in which he also starred. The play opened on February 12, 1969, and ran for 453 performances. It featured Diane Keaton and Roberts.[46] The play was significant to Keaton's budding career, and she has stated she was in "awe" of Allen even before auditioning for her role, which was the first time she met him.[47] During an interview in 2013, Keaton stated that she "fell in love with him right away," adding, "I wanted to be his girlfriend so I did something about it."[48] After co-starring alongside Allen in the subsequent film version of Play It Again, Sam, she would later co-star in Sleeper, Love and Death, Interiors, Manhattan and Annie Hall. "He showed me the ropes and I followed his lead. He is the most disciplined person I know. He works very hard," Keaton has stated.[48]
In 1981, his play The Floating Light Bulb premiered on Broadway and ran for 65 performances.[49] While receiving mixed reviews, it gave an autobiographical insight into Allen's childhood, specifically his fascination with magic tricks. He has written several one-act plays, including Riverside Drive and Old Saybrook exploring well-known Allen themes.[50][51]
On October 20, 2011, Allen's one-act play Honeymoon Motel opened as part of a larger piece entitled Relatively Speaking on Broadway, with two other one-act plays, one by Ethan Coen and one by Elaine May.[52]
Early films [ edit ]
His first movie was the Charles K. Feldman production What's New Pussycat? in 1965, for which he wrote the screenplay. He was disappointed with the final product, which inspired him to direct every film that he would later write.[9] Allen's first directorial effort was What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966, co-written with Mickey Rose), in which an existing Japanese spy movie—Kokusai himitsu keisatsu: Kagi no kagi (1965), "International Secret Police: Key of Keys"—was redubbed in English by Allen and friends with fresh new, comic dialogue. In 1967, Allen played Jimmy Bond in the 007 spoof Casino Royale.
Allen directed, starred in, and co-wrote (with Mickey Rose) Take the Money and Run in 1969, which received positive reviews. He later signed a deal with United Artists to produce several films. Those films eventually became Bananas (1971, co-written with Rose), Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (1972), Sleeper (1973), and Love and Death (1975).[9] Sleeper was the first of four screenplays co-written by Allen and Marshall Brickman.[53][54]
In 1972, Allen wrote and starred in the film version of Play It Again, Sam, directed by Herbert Ross and co-starring Diane Keaton. In 1976, he starred as cashier Howard Prince, in The Front, directed by Martin Ritt. The Front was a humorous and poignant account of Hollywood blacklisting during the 1950s; Ritt, screenwriter Walter Bernstein, and three of Allen's cast-mates, Samuel "Zero" Mostel, Herschel Bernardi, and Lloyd Gough, had themselves been blacklisted.
I don't like meeting heroes. There's nobody I want to meet and nobody I want to work with—I'd rather work with Diane Keaton than anyone—she's absolutely great, a natural. [26]
Then came two of Allen's most popular films: Annie Hall and Manhattan. Annie Hall (1977) won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress in a Leading Role for Diane Keaton, Best Original Screenplay and Best Director for Woody Allen. Annie Hall set the standard for modern romantic comedy and ignited a fashion trend with the clothes worn by Diane Keaton in the film. In an interview with journalist Katie Couric, Keaton does not deny that Allen wrote the part for her and about her.[55] The film is ranked at No. 35 on the American Film Institute's "100 Best Movies" and at No. 4 on the AFI list of "100 Best Comedies."
Manhattan (1979), is a black-and-white film often viewed as an homage to New York City. As in many Allen films, the main protagonists are upper-middle class writers and academics. The love–hate opinion of cerebral persons found in Manhattan is characteristic of many of Allen's movies, including Crimes and Misdemeanors and Annie Hall. Manhattan focuses on the complicated relationship between middle-aged Isaac Davis (Allen) with 17-year-old Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), and co-stars Diane Keaton.
Keaton, who made eight movies with Allen during her career, tries to explain why his films are unique:
He just has a mind like nobody else. He's bold. He's got a lot of strength, a lot of courage in terms of his work. And that is what it takes to do something really unique. Along with a genius imagination.[55]
1980s [ edit ]
Allen's 1980s films, even the comedies, have somber and philosophical undertones, with their influences being the works of European directors, specifically Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini. Stardust Memories was based on 8½, which it parodies, and Wild Strawberries. A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy was adapted from Smiles of a Summer Night. In Hannah and Her Sisters, part of the film's structure and background is borrowed from Fanny and Alexander. Amarcord inspired Radio Days. September resembles Autumn Sonata. Allen uses many elements from Wild Strawberries. In Crimes and Misdemeanors, Allen references a scene from Wild Strawberries.[56]
Stardust Memories (1980) features Sandy Bates, a successful filmmaker played by Allen, who expresses resentment and scorn for his fans. Overcome by the recent death of a friend from illness, the character states, "I don't want to make funny movies any more" and a running gag has various people (including visiting space aliens) telling Bates that they appreciate his films, "especially the early, funny ones."[57] Allen believes this to be one of his best films.[58]
Mia's a good actress who can play many different roles. She has a very good range, and can play serious to comic roles. She's also very photogenic, very beautiful on screen. She's just a good realistic actress... and no matter how strange and daring it is, she does it well. —Woody Allen (1993)[59]
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982) was the first movie Allen made starring Mia Farrow, who stepped into Diane Keaton's role when Keaton was shooting Reds.[60] He next produced a vividly idiosyncratic tragi-comical parody of documentary, Zelig, in which he starred as a Leonard Zelig, man who has the ability to transform his appearance to that of the people who surround him.[61]
Allen has combined tragic and comic elements in such films as Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), in which he tells two stories that connect at the end. He also made three films about show business: Broadway Danny Rose, in which he plays a New York show business agent, The Purple Rose of Cairo, a movie that shows the importance of the cinema during the Depression through the character of the naive Cecilia, and Radio Days, a film about his childhood in Brooklyn and the importance of the radio. The film co-starred Farrow in a part Allen wrote specifically for her.[59] The Purple Rose of Cairo was named by Time as one of the 100 best films of all time.[62] Allen called it one of his three best films with Stardust Memories and Match Point.[63] By "best" he means they came closest to his vision. In 1989, Allen and directors Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese made New York Stories, an anthology film about New Yorkers. Allen's short, Oedipus Wrecks, is about a neurotic lawyer and his critical mother. Film critic Vincent Canby of The New York Times praised Allen's segment of the anthology.[64]
1990s [ edit ]
His 1991 film Shadows and Fog is a black-and-white homage to the German expressionists and features the music of Kurt Weill.[65] Allen then made his critically acclaimed comedy-drama Husbands and Wives (1992), which received two Oscar nominations: Best Supporting Actress for Judy Davis and Best Original Screenplay for Allen. His film Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) combined suspense with dark comedy and marked the return of Diane Keaton, Alan Alda and Anjelica Huston.
He returned to lighter movies like Bullets over Broadway (1994), which earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, followed by a musical, Everyone Says I Love You (1996). The singing and dancing scenes in Everyone Says I Love You are similar to musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The comedy Mighty Aphrodite (1995), in which Greek drama plays a large role, won an Academy Award for Mira Sorvino. Allen's 1999 jazz-based comedy-drama Sweet and Lowdown was nominated for two Academy Awards for Sean Penn (Best Actor) and Samantha Morton (Best Supporting Actress). In contrast to these lighter movies, Allen veered into darker satire toward the end of the decade with Deconstructing Harry (1997) and Celebrity (1998).
During this decade, Allen also starred in the television film The Sunshine Boys (1995), based on the Neil Simon play of the same name.[66]
Allen made one sitcom "appearance" via telephone on the show Just Shoot Me! in a 1997 episode, "My Dinner with Woody", which paid tribute to several of his films. Allen provided the voice of Z in DreamWorks' first animated film, Antz (1998), which featured many actors he had worked with; Allen's character was similar to his earlier neurotic roles.[67]
2000s [ edit ]
Small Time Crooks (2000) was Allen's first film with the DreamWorks studio and represented a change in direction: Allen began giving more interviews and made an attempt to return to his slapstick roots. The film is similar to the 1942 film Larceny, Inc. (from a play by S.J. Perelman).[68] Allen never commented on whether this was deliberate or if his film was in any way inspired by it. Small Time Crooks was a relative financial success, grossing over $17 million domestically but Allen's next four films foundered at the box office, including Allen's most costly film, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (with a budget of $26 million). Hollywood Ending, Anything Else, and Melinda and Melinda were given "rotten" ratings from film-review website Rotten Tomatoes and each earned less than $4 million domestically.[69] Some critics claimed that Allen's early 2000s films were subpar and expressed concern that Allen's best years were behind him.[70] Others were less harsh; reviewing the little-liked Melinda and Melinda, Roger Ebert wrote, "I cannot escape the suspicion that if Woody had never made a previous film, if each new one was Woody's Sundance debut, it would get a better reception. His reputation is not a dead shark but an albatross, which with admirable economy Allen has arranged for the critics to carry around their own necks."[71]
Allen in 2006
Match Point (2005) was one of Allen's most successful films of the decade, garnering positive reviews.[72] Set in London, it starred Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Scarlett Johansson. It is markedly darker than Allen's first four films with DreamWorks SKG. In Match Point, Allen shifted focus from the intellectual upper class of New York to the moneyed upper class of London. The film earned more than $23 million domestically (more than any of his films in nearly 20 years) and over $62 million in international box office sales.[73] Match Point earned Allen his first Academy Award nomination since 1998, for Best Writing – Original Screenplay, with directing and writing nominations at the Golden Globes, his first Globe nominations since 1987. In a 2006 interview with Premiere Magazine, Allen stated this was the best film he has ever made.[74]
Allen reached an agreement to film Vicky Cristina Barcelona in Avilés, Barcelona, and Oviedo, Spain, where shooting started on July 9, 2007. The movie featured Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Hall and Penélope Cruz.[75][76] Vicky Cristina Barcelona won Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globe awards. Penélope Cruz received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
"In the United States things have changed a lot, and it's hard to make good small films now," Allen said in a 2004 interview. "The avaricious studios couldn't care less about good films—if they get a good film they're twice as happy but money-making films are their goal. They only want these $100 million pictures that make $500 million."[77]
In April 2008, he began filming Whatever Works,[78] a film focused more toward older audiences, starring Larry David, Patricia Clarkson,[79] and Evan Rachel Wood.[80] Released in 2009 and described as a dark comedy, it follows the story of a botched suicide attempt turned messy love triangle. Whatever Works was written by Allen in the 1970s, and the character played by David was written for Zero Mostel, who died the year Annie Hall came out.
Allen was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001.[81]
2010s [ edit ]
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, filmed in London, stars Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Anupam Kher, Freida Pinto and Naomi Watts. Filming started in July 2009. It was released theatrically in the US on September 23, 2010, following a Cannes debut in May 2010, and a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 201 |
terms with all four of the Beatles; in December 1968 he had played with Lennon at The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus as part of the one-off group the Dirty Mac.[36]
Cream briefly reunited in 1993 to perform at the ceremony inducting them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; a full reunion took place in May 2005, with Clapton, Bruce, and Baker playing four sold-out concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall,[37] and three shows at New York's Madison Square Garden that October.[38] Recordings from the London shows, Royal Albert Hall London May 2-3-5-6, 2005, were released on CD, LP, and DVD in September/December 2005.[39]
Blind Faith, Delaney and Bonnie and Friends
Blind Faith in 1969, with Clapton standing far right
Clapton's next group, Blind Faith, formed in 1969, was composed of Cream drummer Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood of Traffic, and Ric Grech of Family, and yielded one LP and one arena-circuit tour. The supergroup debuted before 100,000 fans in London's Hyde Park on 7 June 1969.[40] They performed several dates in Scandinavia and began a sold-out American tour in July before their only album was released. The LP Blind Faith consisted of just six songs, one of them the hit "Can't Find My Way Home". The album's jacket image of a topless pubescent girl was deemed controversial in the US and was replaced by a photograph of the band. Blind Faith dissolved after less than seven months.[41]
Clapton subsequently toured as a sideman for an act that had opened for Blind Faith, Delaney and Bonnie and Friends. He also played two dates as a member of the Plastic Ono Band that autumn, including a recorded performance at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival in September 1969 released as the album Live Peace in Toronto 1969.[42] On 30 September 1969, Clapton played lead guitar on Lennon's second solo single, "Cold Turkey".[43] On 15 December 1969 Clapton performed with Lennon, George Harrison, and others as the Plastic Ono Band at a fundraiser for UNICEF in London.[42]
Delaney Bramlett encouraged Clapton in his singing and writing. Using the Bramletts' backing group and an all-star cast of session players (including Leon Russell and Stephen Stills), Clapton recorded his first solo album during two brief tour hiatuses, titled Eric Clapton. Delaney Bramlett co-wrote six of the songs with Clapton, also producing the LP,[44] and Bonnie Bramlett co-wrote "Let It Rain".[45] The album yielded the unexpected US No. 18 hit, J. J. Cale's "After Midnight". Clapton also worked with much of Delaney and Bonnie's band to record George Harrison's All Things Must Pass in spring 1970.
During this busy season, Clapton also recorded with other artists including Dr. John, Leon Russell, Plastic Ono Band, Billy Preston, Ringo Starr and Dave Mason. With Chicago blues artist Howlin' Wolf, he recorded The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions, that also included long-time Wolf guitarist Hubert Sumlin and members of the Rolling Stones, Winwood, Starr, and others.[46] Despite the superstar line up, critic Cub Koda noted: "Even Eric Clapton, who usually welcomes any chance to play with one of his idols, has criticized this album repeatedly in interviews, which speaks volumes in and of itself."[46] Other noted recordings from this period include Clapton's guitar work on "Go Back Home" from Stephen Stills' self-titled first solo album.[47]
"Layla" and solo career
Derek and the Dominos
With the intention of counteracting the "star" cult faction that had begun to form around him, Clapton assembled a new band composed of Delaney and Bonnie's former rhythm section, Bobby Whitlock as keyboardist and vocalist, Carl Radle as the bassist, and drummer Jim Gordon, with Clapton playing guitar. It was his intention to show that he need not fill a starring role, and functioned well as a member of an ensemble.[48] During this period, Clapton was increasingly influenced by The Band and their album Music from Big Pink, saying, "What I appreciated about the Band was that they were more concerned with songs and singing. They would have three- and four-part harmonies, and the guitar was put back into perspective as being accompaniment. That suited me well, because I had gotten so tired of the virtuosity—or pseudo-virtuosity—thing of long, boring guitar solos just because they were expected. The Band brought things back into perspective. The priority was the song."[49]
Clapton (right) with Derek and the Dominos
The band was originally called "Eric Clapton and Friends". The name "Derek and the Dominos" was a fluke that occurred when the band's provisional name of "Del and the Dynamos" was misread as Derek and the Dominos.[50] Clapton's biography states that Tony Ashton of Ashton, Gardner and Dyke told Clapton to call the band "Del and the Dominos", since "Del" was his nickname for Eric Clapton. Del and Eric were combined and the final name became "Derek and the Dominos".[51]
Clapton's close friendship with George Harrison brought him into contact with Harrison's wife, Pattie Boyd, with whom he became deeply infatuated. When she spurned his advances, Clapton's unrequited affections prompted most of the material for the Dominos' album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970). Heavily blues-influenced, the album features the twin lead guitars of Clapton and Duane Allman, with Allman's slide guitar as a key ingredient of the sound. Working at Criteria Studios in Miami with Atlantic Records producer Tom Dowd, who had worked with Clapton on Cream's Disraeli Gears, the band recorded a double album.
The album contained the hit love song "Layla", inspired by the classical poet of Persian literature, Nizami Ganjavi's The Story of Layla and Majnun, a copy of which Ian Dallas had given to Clapton. The book moved Clapton profoundly, as it was the tale of a young man who fell hopelessly in love with a beautiful, unavailable woman and who went crazy because he could not marry her.[52][53] The two parts of "Layla" were recorded in separate sessions: the opening guitar section was recorded first, and for the second section, laid down a few weeks later, drummer Jim Gordon played the piano part for the melody, which he claimed to have written (though Bobby Whitlock stated that Rita Coolidge wrote it).[51]
The Layla LP was actually recorded by a five-piece version of the group, thanks to the unforeseen inclusion of guitarist Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers Band. A few days into the Layla sessions, Dowd—who was also producing the Allmans—invited Clapton to an Allman Brothers outdoor concert in Miami. The two guitarists met first on stage, then played all night in the studio, and became friends. Duane first added his slide guitar to "Tell the Truth" and "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out". In four days, the five-piece Dominos recorded "Key to the Highway", "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" (a blues standard popularised by Freddie King and others), and "Why Does Love Got to be So Sad". In September, Duane briefly left the sessions for gigs with his own band, and the four-piece Dominos recorded "I Looked Away", "Bell Bottom Blues", and "Keep on Growing". Duane returned to record "I am Yours", "Anyday", and "It's Too Late". On 9 September, they recorded Hendrix's "Little Wing" and the title track. The following day, the final track, "It's Too Late", was recorded.[54]
Eric Clapton in Barcelona, 1974
Tragedy dogged the group throughout its brief career. During the sessions, Clapton was devastated by news of the death of Jimi Hendrix; eight days previously the band had cut a cover of "Little Wing" as a tribute to Hendrix. On 17 September 1970, one day before Hendrix's death, Clapton had purchased a left-handed Fender Stratocaster that he had planned to give to Hendrix as a birthday gift. Adding to Clapton's woes, the Layla album received only lukewarm reviews upon release. The shaken group undertook a US tour without Allman, who had returned to the Allman Brothers Band. Despite Clapton's later admission that the tour took place amidst a veritable blizzard of drugs and alcohol, it resulted in the live double album In Concert.[55]
A second record was in the works when a clashing of egos took place and Clapton walked, thus disbanding the group. Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident on 29 October 1971. Clapton wrote later in his autobiography that he and Allman were inseparable during the sessions in Florida; he talked about Allman as the "musical brother I'd never had but wished I did".[56] Although Radle would remain Clapton's bass player until the summer of 1979 (Radle died in May 1980 from the effects of alcohol and narcotics), it was 2003 before Clapton and Whitlock appeared together again (Clapton guested on Whitlock's appearance on the Later with Jools Holland show). Another tragic footnote to the Dominos story was the fate of drummer Jim Gordon, who was an undiagnosed schizophrenic and years later murdered his mother during a psychotic episode. Gordon was confined to 16-years-to-life imprisonment, later being moved to a mental institution, where he remains today.[19]
Personal problems and early solo success
Clapton's career successes in the 1970s were in stark contrast with the struggles he coped with in his personal life, which was troubled by romantic longings and drug and alcohol addiction.[57] He became infatuated with Pattie Boyd, who at the time was married to close friend George Harrison, and withdrew from recording and touring to isolation in his Surrey residence as the band broke up. There he nursed a heroin addiction, which resulted in a lengthy career hiatus interrupted only by the Concert for Bangladesh in August 1971 (where he passed out on stage, was revived, and managed to finish his performance).[19] In January 1973, the Who's Pete Townshend organised a comeback concert for Clapton at London's Rainbow Theatre, aptly titled the "Rainbow Concert", to help Clapton kick his addiction. Clapton returned the favour by playing "The Preacher" in Ken Russell's film version of the Who's Tommy in 1975; his appearance in the film (performing "Eyesight to the Blind") is notable as he is clearly wearing a fake beard in some shots, the result of deciding to shave off his real beard after the initial takes in an attempt to force the director to remove his earlier scene from the movie and leave the set.[51]
In 1974, Clapton started living with Pattie Boyd (they would not marry until 1979) and was no longer using heroin (although he gradually began to drink heavily). He assembled a low-key touring band that included Radle, Miami guitarist George Terry, keyboardist Dick Sims (who died in 2011[58]), drummer Jamie Oldaker, and vocalists Yvonne Elliman and Marcy Levy (also known as Marcella Detroit). With this band Clapton recorded 461 Ocean Boulevard (1974), an album with an emphasis on more compact songs and fewer guitar solos; the cover version of "I Shot the Sheriff" was Clapton's first number one hit and was important in bringing reggae and the music of Bob Marley to a wider audience. The 1975 album There's One in Every Crowd continued this trend. The album's original title, The World's Greatest Guitar Player (There's One in Every Crowd), was changed before pressing, as it was felt its ironic intention would be misunderstood. The band toured the world and subsequently released the 1975 live LP, E. C. Was Here.[59] Clapton continued to release albums and toured regularly. Highlights of the period include No Reason to Cry (a collaboration with Bob Dylan and The Band); Slowhand, which contained "Wonderful Tonight" and a second J. J. Cale cover, "Cocaine". In 1976 he performed as one of a string of notable guests at the farewell performance of The Band, filmed in a Martin Scorsese documentary called The Last Waltz.[60]
Continued success
In 1981 Clapton was invited by producer Martin Lewis to appear at the Amnesty International benefit The Secret Policeman's Other Ball in London. Clapton accepted the invitation and teamed up with Jeff Beck to perform a series of duets—reportedly their first ever billed stage collaboration. Three of the performances were released on the album of the show, and one of the songs appeared in the film. The performances at London's Drury Lane theatre heralded a return to form and prominence for Clapton in the new decade. Many factors had influenced Clapton's comeback, including his "deepening commitment to Christianity", to which he had converted prior to his heroin addiction.[61][62][63]
After calling his manager and admitting he was an alcoholic, Clapton flew to Minneapolis–Saint Paul in January 1982 and checked in at Hazelden Treatment Center, located in Center City, Minnesota. On the flight over, Clapton indulged in a large number of drinks, for fear he would never be able to drink again. Clapton wrote in his autobiography:[64]
In the lowest moments of my life, the only reason I didn't commit suicide was that I knew I wouldn't be able to drink any more if I was dead. It was the only thing I thought was worth living for, and the idea that people were about to try and remove me from alcohol was so terrible that I drank and drank and drank, and they had to practically carry me into the clinic.
After being discharged, it was recommended by doctors of Hazelden that Clapton not partake in any activities that would act as triggers for his alcoholism or stress. A few months after his discharge, Clapton began working on his next album, against doctors' orders. Working with Tom Dowd, he produced what he thought as his "most forced" album to date, Money and Cigarettes. Clapton chose the name of the album "because that's all I saw myself having left" after his first rehabilitation from alcoholism.[65]
In 1984 he performed on former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters' solo album, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, and joined the supporting tour. Since then Waters and Clapton have had a close relationship. In 2005 they performed together for the Tsunami Relief Fund. In 2006 they performed at the Highclere Castle, in aid of the Countryside Alliance, playing two set pieces of "Wish You Were Here" and "Comfortably Numb". Clapton, now a seasoned charity performer, played at the Live Aid concert on 13 July 1985.[66] When offered a slot close to peak viewing hours, he was apparently flattered. As Clapton recovered from his addictions, his album output continued in the 1980s, including two produced with Phil Collins, 1985's Behind the Sun, which produced the hits "Forever Man" and "She's Waiting", and 1986's August.[67]
August was suffused with Collins's trademark drum and horn sound, and became Clapton's biggest seller in the UK to date, matching his highest chart position, number 3. The album's first track, the hit "It's in the Way That You Use It", appeared in the Tom Cruise – Paul Newman movie The Color of Money. The horn-peppered "Run" echoed Collins' "Sussudio" and other work, while "Tearing Us Apart" (with Tina Turner) and "Miss You" continued Clapton's more angry sound. This rebound kicked off Clapton's two-year period of touring with Collins and their August collaborators, bassist Nathan East and keyboard player/songwriter Greg Phillinganes. While on tour for August, two concert videos were recorded of the four-man band, Eric Clapton Live from Montreux and Eric Clapton and Friends. Clapton later remade "After Midnight" as a single and a promotional track for the Michelob beer brand, which had also used earlier songs by Collins and Steve Winwood. Clapton won a British Academy Television Award for his collaboration with Michael Kamen on the score for the 1985 BBC Television thriller serial Edge of Darkness. In 1989, Clapton released Journeyman, an album that covered a wide range of styles, including blues, jazz, soul and pop. Collaborators included George Harrison, Phil Collins, Daryl Hall, Chaka Khan, Mick Jones, David Sanborn and Robert Cray. At the 1987 Brit Awards in London, Clapton was awarded the prize for Outstanding Contribution to Music.[9]
Clapton would also get together with the Bee Gees for charity. The supergroup called itself The Bunburys, and recorded a charity album with the proceeds going to the Bunbury Cricket Club in Cheshire, which plays exhibition cricket matches to raise money for nonprofit organisations in England. The Bunburys recorded three songs for The Bunbury Tails: "We're the Bunburys", "Bunbury Afternoon", and "Fight (No Matter How Long)". The last song also appeared on The 1988 Summer Olympics Album, and went to No. 8 on the rock music chart.[68] Clapton also played at the cricket club's 25th anniversary celebrations in 2011, which was held at London's Grosvenor House Hotel.[69]
Tragedy, healing and resurgence
The 1990s brought a series of 32 concerts to the Royal Albert Hall, such as the 24 Nights series of concerts that took place around January through February 1990, and February to March 1991. On 27 August 1990, fellow blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, who was touring with Clapton, and three members of their road crew were killed in a helicopter crash between concerts. Then, on 20 March 1991, Clapton's four-year-old son, Conor, died after falling from the 53rd-floor window of his mother's friend's New York City apartment at 117 East 57th Street. Conor's funeral took place on 28 March at St Mary Magdalene's Church in Clapton's home village in Ripley, Surrey.[70]
I almost subconsciously used music for myself as a healing agent, and lo and behold, it worked... I have got a great deal of happiness and a great deal of healing from music. —Clapton on the healing process in writing "Tears in Heaven".[71]
Clapton's grief was expressed in the song "Tears in Heaven", which was co-written by Will Jennings.[72][73] At the 35th Annual Grammy Awards, Clapton received six Grammys for the single "Tears in Heaven" and his Unplugged album,[74] for which Clapton performed live in front of a small audience on 16 January 1992 at Bray Film Studios in Windsor, Berkshire, England. The album reached number one on the Billboard 200, and is certified Diamond by the RIAA for selling over 10 million copies in the US.[75] It reached number two in the UK Albums Chart and is certified four times platinum in the UK.[76] On 9 September 1992, Clapton performed "Tears in Heaven" at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, and won the award for Best Male Video.[77][78]
In 1992 Clapton received the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.[79] In October 1992 Clapton was among the dozens of artists performing at Bob Dylan's 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration. Recorded at Madison Square Garden in New York City, the live two-disk CD/DVD captured a show full of celebrities performing classic Dylan songs, with Clapton playing the lead on a nearly 7-minute version of Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" as part of the finale.[80] While Clapton played acoustic guitar on Unplugged, his 1994 album From the Cradle contained new versions of old blues standards, highlighted by his electric guitar playing.[81] In 1995, Clapton for the first and only time appeared on a UK No. 1 single, collaborating with Chrissie Hynde, Cher and Neneh Cherry on a solo to a cover of "Love Can Build a Bridge" released in aid of the British charity telethon Comic Relief.[82]
Clapton's 1996 recording of the Wayne Kirkpatrick/Gordon Kennedy/Tommy Sims tune "Change the World" (on the soundtrack of the film Phenomenon) won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1997, the same year he recorded Retail Therapy (an album of electronic music with Simon Climie under the pseudonym TDF). On 15 September 1997, Clapton appeared at the Music for Montserrat concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London, performing "Layla" and "Same Old Blues" before finishing with "Hey Jude" alongside fellow English artists Paul McCartney, Elton John, Phil Collins, Mark Knopfler and Sting.[83] That autumn, Clapton released the album Pilgrim, the first record containing new material for almost a decade.[63]
In 1996 Clapton had a relationship with singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow. They remain friends, and Clapton appeared as a guest on Crow's Central Park Concert. The duo performed a Cream hit single, "White Room". Later, Clapton and Crow performed an alternate version of "Tulsa Time" with other guitar legends at the Crossroads Guitar Festival in June 2007 as well as Robert Johnson's blues classic "Crossroads" at London's Hyde Park in August 2008 with John Mayer and Robert Randolph.
In 1998 Clapton, then 53, met 22-year-old administrative assistant Melia McEnery in Columbus, Ohio, at a party given for him after a performance. He quietly dated her for a year, and went public with the relationship in 1999. They married on 1 January 2001 at St Mary Magdalene church in Clapton's birthplace, Ripley. They have three daughters, Julie Rose (13 June 2001), Ella May (14 January 2003), and Sophie Belle (1 February 2005).
At the 41st Annual Grammy Awards on 24 February 1999, Clapton received his third Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, for his song "My Father's Eyes".[84] In October 1999, the compilation album, Clapton Chronicles: The Best of Eric Clapton, was released, which contained a new song, "Blue Eyes Blue", that also appears in soundtrack for the film, Runaway Bride.[85][86] Clapton finished the twentieth century with collaborations with Carlos Santana and B.B. King.
Collaboration albums
Clapton performing for Tsunami Relief Cardiff at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales on 22 January 2005
Following the release of the 2001 record Reptile, in June 2002, Clapton performed "Layla" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" at the Party at the Palace concert in the grounds of Buckingham Palace.[87] On 29 November 2002, the Concert for George was held at the Royal Albert Hall, a tribute to George Harrison, who had died a year earlier of lung cancer.[88] Clapton was a performer and the musical director. The concert included Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Ravi Shankar, Gary Brooker, Billy Preston, Joe Brown and Dhani Harrison.[88] In 2004, Clapton released two albums of covers of songs by bluesman Robert Johnson, Me and Mr. Johnson and Sessions for Robert J. Guitarist Doyle Bramhall II worked on the album with Clapton (after opening Clapton's 2001 tour with his band Smokestack) and would join him on his 2004 tour. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Clapton No. 53 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".[89]
Clapton performing at the Ahoy Arena of Rotterdam on 1 June 2006
On 22 January 2005, Clapton performed in the Tsunami Relief Concert held at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, in aid of the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. In May 2005 Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker reunited as Cream for a series of concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Concert recordings were released on CD and DVD. Later, Cream performed in New York at Madison Square Garden. Back Home, Clapton's first album of new original material in nearly five years, was released on Reprise Records on 30 August.
A collaboration with guitarist J. J. Cale, titled The Road to Escondido, was released on 7 November 2006, featuring Derek Trucks and Billy Preston (Preston had also been a part of Clapton's 2004 touring band). The 14-track CD was produced and recorded by the duo in August 2005 in California. He invited Trucks to join his band for his 2006–2007 world tour. Bramhall remained in the band as well, giving Clapton three elite guitarists in his band and thus allowing him to revisit many Derek and the Dominos songs that he hadn't played in decades. Trucks became the third member of the Allman Brothers Band to tour supporting Clapton, the second being pianist/keyboardist Chuck Leavell, who appeared on the MTV Unplugged album and the 24 Nights performances at the Royal Albert Hall, London in 1990 and 1991, as well as Clapton's 1992 US tour.[90]
On 20 May 2006, Clapton performed with Queen drummer Roger Taylor and former Pink Floyd bassist/songwriter Roger Waters at Highclere Castle, Hampshire, in support of the Countryside Alliance, which promotes issues relating to the British countryside.[91] On 13 August 2006, Clapton made a guest appearance at the Bob Dylan concert in Columbus, Ohio, playing guitar on three songs in Jimmie Vaughan's opening act.[92] The chemistry between Trucks and Clapton convinced him to invite the Derek Trucks Band to open for Clapton's set at his 2007 Crossroads Guitar Festival. Trucks remained on set afterward and performed with Clapton's band throughout his performances. The rights to Clapton's official memoirs, written by Christopher Simon Sykes and published in 2007, were sold at the 2005 Frankfurt Book Fair for US$4 million.[93]
On 26 February 2008, it was reported that North Korean officials had invited Clapton to play a concert in the communist state.[94] Clapton's management received the invitation and passed it on to the singer, who agreed in principle and suggested it take place sometime in 2009.[95] Kristen Foster, a spokesperson, said, "Eric Clapton receives numerous offers to play in countries around the world", and "[t]here is no agreement whatsoever for him to play in North Korea".[96]
In 2007 Clapton learned more about his father, a Canadian soldier who left the UK after the war. Although Clapton's grandparents eventually told him the truth about his parentage, he only knew that his father's name was Edward Fryer. This was a source of disquiet for Clapton, as witnessed by his 1998 song "My Father's Eyes". A Montreal journalist named Michael Woloschuk researched Canadian Armed Forces service records and tracked down members of Fryer's family, and finally pieced together the story. He learned that Clapton's father was Edward Walter Fryer, born 21 March 1920, in Montreal and died 15 May 1985 in Newmarket, Ontario. Fryer was a musician (piano and saxophone) and a lifelong drifter who was married several times, had several children, and apparently never knew that he was the father of Eric Clapton.[97] Clapton thanked Woloschuk in an encounter at Macdonald Cartier Airport, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.[98]
In February 2008 Clapton performed with his long-time friend Steve Winwood at Madison Square Garden and guested on his recorded single, "Dirty City", on Winwood's album Nine Lives. The two former Blind Faith bandmates met again for a series of 14 concerts throughout the United States in June 2009. Clapton's 2008 Summer Tour began on 3 May at the Ford Amphitheatre, Tampa, Florida, and then moved to Canada, Ireland, England, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Poland, Germany, and Monaco. On 28 June 2008, he headlined Saturday night for Hard Rock Calling 2008 in London's Hyde Park (previously Hyde Park Calling) with support from Sheryl Crow and John Mayer.[99][100] In September 2008 Clapton performed at a private charity fundraiser for The Countryside Alliance at Floridita in Soho, London, that included such guests as the London Mayor Boris Johnson.
In March 2009, the Allman Brothers Band (amongst many notable guests) celebrated their 40th year, dedicating their string of concerts to the late Duane Allman on their annual run at the Beacon Theatre. Eric Clapton was one of the performers, with drummer Butch Trucks remarking that the performance was not the typical Allman Brothers experience, given the number and musical styles of the guests who were invited to perform. Songs like "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" were punctuated with others, including "The Weight", with Levon Helm; Johnny Winter sitting in on Hendrix's "Red House"; and "Layla". On 4 May 2009 Clapton appeared at the Royal Albert Hall, playing "Further on Up the Road" with Joe Bonamassa.
Clapton was scheduled to perform at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th anniversary concert in Madison Square Garden on 30 October 2009, but cancelled due to gallstone surgery.[101] Van Morrison (who also cancelled)[102] said in an interview that he and Clapton were to do a "couple of songs", but that they would do something else together at "some other stage of the game".[103]
Clapton, Old Sock and I Still Do
Clapton performing in Munich, Germany on 5 June 2010
Clapton performed a two-night show with Jeff Beck at the O 2 Arena in London on 13–14 February 2010.[104] The two former Yardbirds extended their 2010 tour with stops at Madison Square Garden,[105] the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, and the Bell Centre in Montreal.[106] Clapton performed a series of concerts in 11 cities throughout the United States from 25 February to 13 March 2010, including Roger Daltrey as opening act. His third European tour with Steve Winwood began on 18 May and ended 13 June, including Tom Norris as opening act. He then began a short North American tour lasting from 26 June to 3 July, starting with his third Crossroads Guitar Festival on 26 June at Toyota Park in Bridgeview, Illinois. Clapton released a new studio album, Clapton, on 27 September 2010 in the United Kingdom and 28 September 2010 in the United States. On 17 November 2010, Clapton performed as guest on the Prince's Trust rock gala held at the Royal Albert Hall, supported by the house band for the evening, which included Jools Holland, Midge Ure and Mark King.[107]
On 24 June 2011, Clapton was in concert with Pino Daniele in Cava de' Tirreni stadium before performing a series of concerts in South America from 6 to 16 October 2011. He spent November and December 2011 touring Japan with Steve Winwood, playing 13 shows in various cities throughout the country. On 24 February 2012 Clapton, Keith Richards, Gary Clark Jr., Derek Trucks, Doyle Bramhall II, Kim Wilson and other artists performed together in the Howlin' For Hubert Tribute concert held at the Apollo Theater of New York honouring blues guitarist Hubert Sumlin who died at age 80 on 4 December 2011. On 29 November 2012, Clapton joined The Rolling Stones at London's O2 Arena during the band's second of five arena dates celebrating their 50th anniversary.[108] On 12 December, Clapton performed The Concert for Sandy Relief at Madison Square Garden, broadcast live via television, radio, cinemas and the Internet across six continents.[109]
In January 2013, Surfdog Records announced a signed deal with Clapton for the release of his forthcoming album Old Sock on 12 March. On 8 April 2013, Eric and Hard Rock International launched the limited-edition Eric Clapton Artist Spotlight merchandise programme benefiting Crossroads Centre Antigua.[110] Clapton toured the US and Europe from 14 March to 19 June 2013 to celebrate 50 years as a professional musician.[111] On 28 February 2013, Clapton announced his intention to stop touring in 2015 due to hassles with travel.[112][113]
Clapton in Prague, June 2013, during his 50th Celebration World Tour
On 15 October 2013, Clapton's popular Unplugged album and concert DVD were re-released, titled Unplugged: Expanded & Remastered. The album includes the original 14 tracks, remastered, as well as 6 additional tracks, including 2 versions of "My Father's Eyes". The DVD includes a restored version of the concert, as well as over 60 minutes of unseen footage from the rehearsal. On 13 and 14 November 2013, Clapton headlined the final two evenings of the "Baloise Sessions", an annual indoor music festival in Basel, Switzerland. On 20 November 2013, Warner Bros released Crossroads Guitar Festival 2013 in CD/DVD/Blu-ray. On 30 April 2014, Clapton announced the release of The Breeze: An Appreciation of JJ Cale as an homage to J. J. Cale who died on 26 July 2013. This tribute album is named after the 1972 single "Call Me the Breeze" and comprises 16 Cale songs performed by Clapton, Mark Knopfler, John Mayer, Willie Nelson, Tom Petty and others.[114]
A Celebration of 50 Years of Music tour Clapton at the Royal Albert Hall in 2017 during histour
On 21 June 2014, Clapton abruptly walked off stage during a concert at the Glasgow Hydro. Although he did return to perform one final song, thousands of fans were upset by the lack of explanation from Clapton or the venue and booed after the concert ended around 40 minutes before advertised to finish. Both Clapton and the venue apologised the next day, blaming 'technical difficulties' for making sound conditions 'unbearable' for Clapton on stage.[115][116][117] A week later he confirmed his retirement plans attributing his decision to the road being "unbearable" in addition to "odd ailments" that may force him to put down his guitar permanently.[118] In a 2016 interview with Classic Rock magazine, Clapton revealed that he had been diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy in 2013, a condition involving damage to peripheral nerves that typically causes stabbing, burning, or tingling pain in the arms and legs.[119]
Clapton performed two shows at Madison Square Garden in New York on 1 and 3 May 2015 followed by a 7-night residency at London's Royal Albert Hall from 14 to 23 May 2015 to celebrate his 70th birthday on 30 March.[20] The shows also mark 50 years since Clapton first played at the Royal Albert Hall – his debut was on 7 December 1964 when he performed as part of The Yardbirds for the BBC's Top Beat Show.[20] The concert film, Slowhand at 70 – Live at the Royal Albert Hall, was released by Eagle Rock Entertainment on 13 November 2015 on DVD, CD, Blu-Ray and LP.[120] The 2-night concerts in the US marked the 46th anniversary since Clapton, with Cream, opened the "new" Madison Square Garden on 2 November 1968. Clapton has performed more times at Madison Square Garden than any other US venue, a total of 45 times.[121] On 20 May 2016, Clapton released his twenty-third studio album I Still Do. On 30 September 2016 the live-album Live in San Diego was released.[122] In August 2018, Clapton announced that he had recorded his twenty-fourth studio album, Happy Xmas, which consists of blues-tinged interpretations of Christmas songs, with the album released on 12 October.[123]
Influences
Clapton cites Muddy Waters, Freddie King, B.B. King, Albert King, Buddy Guy, and Hubert Sumlin as guitar playing influences. Clapton has said that blues musician Robert Johnson is his single most important influence. In 2004 Clapton released CDs and DVDs entitled Sessions for Robert Johnson, comprising covers of Robert Johnson songs using electric and acoustic guitars.[124]
Clapton co-authored with others the book Discovering Robert Johnson, in which Clapton said Johnson was:
...the most important blues musician who ever lived. |
account for 84 per cent of the forest's trees.
While Kielder may seem appropriate for commercial categorisation, it will require painstaking management, as it is home to 70 per cent of the UK's endangered red squirrels, driven to extinction in most of southern England, and shelters recovering populations of otters, ospreys and goshawks.The Associated Press
EDMONTON -- Some American cattle producers want the U.S. government to block the possible sale of a troubled Alberta company's beef operations.
The Ranchers-Cattlemen's Action Legal Fund is concerned about JBS USA's option to purchase the XL Foods Inc. plant in Brooks, Alta., two U.S. slaughtering plants and other properties.
Bill Bullard, CEO of R-CALF, has written a letter to the U.S. Justice Department saying if the deal goes through it would make JBS USA a dominant player in the beef industry.
"It is a significant acquisition and it would catapult JBS perhaps into being the largest beef packer in the United States if the acquisition were to go through," Bullard said Tuesday from Billings, Mont.
"We will do everything within our power and means to block this merger."
In the letter, Bullard asks the department to investigate how the deal would affect U.S. cattle producers and consumers and to block it if it would lead to further consolidation of the beef market.
On Oct. 17, JBS USA signed a deal to manage the XL Foods plant in Brooks, Alta., that was involved in a massive beef recall and E. coli scare.
As part of the agreement, JBS USA has the option to purchase the Brooks plant as well as beef packing plants in Nampa, Idaho, and Omaha, Neb., and other properties for US$50 million and another US$50 million in shares.
Cameron Bruett, a JBS USA spokesman, said the company is aware of R-CALF's letter.
"We are aware of their efforts and we will work with the regulatory authorities here in the U.S. and in Canada to make sure the proposed option to purchase -- should we pursue it -- passes legal muster," he said from Greeley, Colo.
On Oct. 20, 2008, the U.S. Justice Department and 13 states launched a lawsuit to prevent JBS USA's parent company, JBS S.A., from purchasing National Beef Packing Company, LLC.
The lawsuit filed in Federal Court said the merger would likely reduce competition and that U.S. cattle producers, ranchers and feedlots would likely receive lower prices for their cattle. The lawsuit also said the deal would mean U.S. consumers would likely pay higher prices for beef.
Four months later, JBS S.A. announced it was terminating the deal with National Beef Packing Company. The U.S. Justice Department lawsuit was then dropped.
Bullard said R-CALF was a driving force in persuading the federal and state governments to launch that lawsuit.
He warns the Montana-based organization will lobby just as hard against the possible JBS USA - XL Foods deal.
"In 2008, we encouraged the Department of Justice to block the proposed merger between JBS and the nation's fourth-largest beef packing plant, which is National Beef Packing Company," he said.
"Under U.S. law, JBS is required to notify the Department of Justice if it intends to merge or acquire any additional market share. We are trying to urge our Department of Justice to take all steps necessary to prevent this acquisition from going through."
R-CALF has long been a burr under the saddle of Canada's beef industry.
Recently the organization has been a keen supporter of U.S. country-of-origin labelling laws on meat products. Canada opposes those rules.
R-CALF has also been a vocal proponent of restricting Canadian cattle imports into the U.S. since mad cow disease was discovered in an Alberta cow in 2003.
The XL Foods plant in Brooks resumed slaughtering cattle Monday under increased supervision from Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials.
Bruett said the plant was running smoothly and JBS USA hoped to recall more of its 2,200-member workforce later in the week.
"Things are going good," he said. "We've got the employees back to the business of processing beef and getting some safe food out there for consumers to enjoy."
Bruett said no date has been set on when this newly slaughtered beef will be released from the plant for sale to retailers and consumers.Why the PATH Hub isn’t a new Grand Central By Benjamin Kabak By· Published in 2013
With great restraint, I haven’t written too much about the $4 billion World Trade Center PATH Hub over the past five weeks, but the Port Authority decided to take some reporters for a tour earlier this week. The resulting coverage has been particularly impressive for, on the one hand, its sweeping proclamations of success for a project two years away from opening and, on the other, for its sheer skepticism that this thing was worth building. Stuck in the middle was an entirely inapt comparison to Grand Central by none other than The New York Times.
The story in The Times takes the Port Authority party line hook, line and sinker, at least for its first half. Carrying the headline “A Transit Hub in the Making May Prove to Be the Grandest,” David Dunlap’s piece foresees the PATH Hub as Grand Central South. With a lede that calls Grand Central an “enduring landmark” and “a portal to the city that has never lost its power to inspire awe,” Dunlap wonders if the PATH Hub can do the same:
If the World Trade Center Transportation Hub is ever to emerge from under the shadow of its $3.94 billion price tag (double Grand Central’s, adjusted for inflation), it will have to do more than move PATH commuters efficiently. It will have to lift hearts. Perhaps it can. A visit to the monumental station on Wednesday left the impression that its main transit hall may be the most hopeful element at the trade center complex when it opens in 2015. Now full of light and air, it will one day be full of people, movement and life, as well. It could become a destination in its own right, even for those who are not among the 200,000 or so commuters traveling daily to and from New Jersey. The transportation hub and retail concourses will be “the only facilities on site that are completely accessible to the public,” said a report by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is building the hub. By contrast, visitors to the office towers, the National September 11 Memorial Museum and the 1 World Trade Center observatory will be subject to tight scrutiny. In the end, that may be the most astonishing feature of the hub; that a structure of such colossal proportions should be devoted to unobstructed public use. The main transit hall is 365 feet long — a block and a half — making it 90 feet longer than the main concourse of Grand Central Terminal. It is 115 feet wide, or just 5 feet narrower than the Grand Central concourse. It takes a half minute to walk from one side to the other.
Now to be fair to Dunlap, he spends the second half of the article talking about the project’s ever-increasing cost which has essentially doubled since plans were first unveiled. He also accepts PATH’s estimate that 200,000 people will traipse through the hub daily without much of a second-guess. Currently, PATH’s total daily ridership is only around 260,000, and not all of those riders pass through the World Trade Center stop. A new hub — without added track or tunnel capacity — won’t deliver too many more riders.
So is the PATH Hub positioned to be a new Grand Central? Not by a long shot. The current iteration of Grand Central was built by a private entity to uniform rail operations in New York, electrify the tracks and restore Park Avenue to the people of the city as opposed to its trains. It contains 123 tracks — 46 with platforms — and will soon see a marked increase when East Side Access, at a cost of just twice the PATH Hub, will bring in another eight tracks of LIRR service. The PATH Hub, as an underground mall, may rival Grand Central in its grandeur, but as a train station, it falls far short.
Even still, some of those who saw the station in progress this week walked away far more skeptically than The Times did. Steve Cuozzo of The Post was one of those columnists casting stones on the half-completed transit hub. The structure is an architectural marvel, he says, but “is this pet project of the PA’s New Jersey side worth it?”
The Hub’s so big, complicated and densely packed with everything all around, it made three skyscrapers and the Memorial much harder and costlier to build. And how many will use it? More than 250,000 daily, PA construction chief Steve Plate said yesterday. Skeptics say as few as 50,000, mostly Jersey commuters. The project adds no new track, only endless underground corridors for walking from here to there. Isn’t that what city streets are for?
In an age with limited dollars available for transit and a glaring need to add capacity, have we spent wisely? Can’t we build great public spaces that inspire civic pride without flushing cash down the drain? At the former Ground Zero site, apparently not.Mr Clegg said politicians were entitled to a private life
The rapid-fire question and answer format on 5 Live meant the 40-year-old did not have the chance to elaborate.
He later said he had "enormous respect for people who have religious faith", that his wife is Catholic and that his children are being brought up Catholic.
Last month, former PM Tony Blair said he had not talked much about his faith for fear of being labelled a "nutter".
Reshuffle
The radio interview with Mr Clegg, MP for Sheffield Hallam, came ahead of a reshuffle of the Lib Dem frontbench team expected over the next few days.
Asked whether he had ever taken illegal drugs, he replied: "I'm going to cast a veil over that. It's the one thing I agree with David Cameron on. I think politicians are entitled to a private life before they go into politics."
If politics is going to solve the problems of people's everyday lives, we need to listen to people
Nick Clegg
Lib Dem leader
And asked if he believed in God, he said: "No."
In later comments to the BBC News website, Mr Clegg added: "I have enormous respect for people who have religious faith, I'm married to a Catholic and am committed to bringing my children up as Catholics.
"However, I myself am not an active believer, but the last thing I would do when talking or thinking about religion is approach it with a closed heart or a closed mind."
Mr Clegg was joined on his first day in the job by musician Brian Eno, whom he has brought in as an adviser on how to "reach out beyond Westminster to people who don't get a say in politics".
Mr Clegg said: "I will fight for a society where everyone gets a fair chance in life, and no-one is condemned by the circumstances of their birth.
"Education has got to be front and centre of Britain's agenda if we're going to make that happen. So I will raise funding for the poorest children to the levels in private schools.
"And every family must be free from poverty, and feel they have a voice, and a stake, in Britain today."
'People's politics'
Mr Clegg added: "That requires a new kind of politics - a people's politics. If politics is going to solve the problems of people's everyday lives, we need to listen to people, and act on what they say."
Later the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, reacted to Mr Clegg's declaration.
Dr Williams told Radio 5 Live presenter Simon Mayo: "It matters less to me than to know they are honest and reliable and that what beliefs they have they hold sincerely.
"This isn't a country where Christianity is imposed by law. It's a country with a nominally Christian majority. And that's good.
"And whoever becomes prime minister has to understand that and work with it rather than against the grain of it."
Last month, Mr Blair told the BBC his Christian faith had been "hugely important" to his premiership, but that he had been wary of discussing it in case he was labelled a "nutter".
His ex-spokesman Alastair Campbell once told reporters: "We don't do God."
Current Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the son of a church minister, is also a Christian who has spoken of his father's advice acting as his "moral compass".
Mr Clegg, an MP since 2005, beat Chris Huhne to the Lib Dem leadership by 20,988 votes to 20,477 - a margin of just 511.
Mr Clegg's election follows a two-month contest caused by the resignation of Sir Menzies Campbell.October 12, 2012 Tropical Storm Patty Forms, T.D. 17 in the Making
By By Alex Sosnowski, expert senior meteorologist. October 12, 2012, 8:55:11 AM EDT
Even though the peak of hurricane season has passed, there is sometimes a second pulse of tropical storms and hurricanes during October.
While it may seem the door has shut in the Atlantic Basin for this season, there are still some reasons to keep up the guard.
Tropical Depression 16 was upgraded to Tropical Storm Patty Thursday evening.
There have now been 16 named tropical systems this year in the Atlantic and there has recently been one of the longest-lived tropical systems on record, Nadine.
AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center meteorologists do not expect a big new crop of tropical storms and hurricanes for the remainder of the season, but they are monitoring a couple of areas in the Atlantic during week two of October.
One is an area of disturbed weather east of the Bahamas that has yielded Tropical Storm Patty.
The lifespan of this system may be rather short as it will soon merge with or be shredded by a cold front nearby to the west.
According to Expert Senior Meteorologist Dan Kottlowski, "The front and some of tropical moisture from the system will bring Bermuda heavy rain into the weekend. The rest of the tropical moisture may slice southward over part of the Bahamas and Cuba."
While the system remains an entity, it will bring rough seas to the northeastern facing beaches and shoreline of the Bahamas.
Another concern is a broad area of low pressure that has formed from a tropical wave over the Central Atlantic.
"There is a chance that this feature, could soon develop into the next Atlantic tropical depression of the season," Kottlowski said.
The system is likely to travel in the neighborhood of the Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico spanning late this week into early next week.
"Strong westerly winds aloft currently exist where the system is heading, but they may weaken for a time, allowing for some development," Kottlowski said.
Showers and thunderstorms will enhance from east to west from the Leeward Islands to Puerto Rico this weekend into early next week. While there is a risk from flash and urban flooding and potentially gusty squalls, the region is in need of rain.
People from the northeastern Caribbean islands to Bermuda will want to keep an eye on the system and be prepared for potentially adverse weather conditions.
Why a Second Spike in Atlantic Tropical Storms, Hurricanes?
Hurricanes need warm water, weak upper-level winds and moist air to develop.
During October, ocean waters begin to cool and upper-level winds begin to increase. However, water temperatures often remain just warm enough for development. In addition, strong upper-levels winds can still be absent long enough to allow development.
During the peak of hurricane season, September, most tropical systems are born from disturbances moving westward off the coast of Africa. The disturbances are called tropical waves. While the number of waves tends to decline during October, there are still enough remaining to cause trouble occasionally.
Plenty of moist air also remains over the Atlantic well into autumn.
"During October, we begin to see more fronts move to and stall over the Gulf of Mexico and just off the Atlantic coast of the United States," Kottlowski said.
The fronts offer a means to spawn thunderstorms, which can then gradually develop into a tropical system.
"We also tend to get more frequent, large areas of high pressure building over the United States," Kottlowski said, "The circulation around these fair weather systems can help to spin up tropical systems to their south and east over the warm Gulf and Atlantic waters."
While westerly winds aloft tend to strengthen and guide many tropical storms and hurricanes away from North America moving forward through the autumn, every once in a while, these winds back around and allow a tropical system to plow inland or parallel the coast.
There have been very costly October hurricanes in terms of lives lost and destruction to property.
1954's Hazel was one of the worst October hurricanes on record. The storm claimed over 1,000 lives (most of them in Haiti) and caused over $400 million (1954 dollars) in damage. Hazel was captured by strong upper-level steering winds and drawn northward at amazing speed along the Atlantic Seaboard of the U.S.
According to AccuWeather.com Chief Meteorologist Elliot Abrams, "The highest winds ever recorded, 94 mph, at Philadelphia International Airport, occurred as Hazel passed to the west. Hurricane-force winds occurred as far inland as Toronto, Canada, on the shores of Lake Ontario."
AccuWeather will have more on this historic hurricane on Monday, Oct. 15, 2012.
1964's Hilda curved in from the Caribbean, turned northward over the central Gulf of Mexico and slammed into Louisiana with 135-mph winds and tremendous storm surge. More than 35 people died in the storm.
Dangers from the tropics not only come from hurricanes, but also from tremendous moisture from a tropical storm or depression. As these tropical systems move into a cooler environment, they can no longer hold their moisture and release it in the form of tremendous rainfall and the risk of flooding.
1985's Juan dropped nearly a foot of rain on the north-central Gulf Coast. As many as 48 people died as a result of the storm. Damage approached $3 billion.
Report a TypoWhen Tinker Hatfield created the Nike Air Max 1 in 1987, it would trigger nearly three decades' worth of running innovation. From Hatfield's follow-up design with the coveted Air Max 90 to the Air Max 97 and its full-length Max Air unit, the innovation behind visible Air never lost its stride and still continues today with the Air Max 2015.
But while Hatfield has deservingly become synonymous with the Air Max line, there was actually another Nike designer who helped play a major role in making visible Air possible.
In the late '70s, the Tailwind silhouette debuted Nike's Air technology, but was enclosed within the sneaker's midsole and hidden from plain view. When Nike’s Director of Cushioning Innovation David Forland joined the team in 1985, he wanted to change that.
Forland experimented with the technology and built the first prototype after realizing a simple adjustment to the air bag's seams would make it possible to provide an unobstructed look at the cushioning system.
"At that exact moment the light bulb turned on," Forland says. "I built a new prototype right there on the spot." And from there, visible Nike Air technology was incorporated on the Air Max 1 and every other runner in the line since.
POST CONTINUES BELOW
With Air Max Day coming up in just two weeks, Nike shares a visual guide to every Nike Air runner in its line and the evolution of each style over the years.
[via Nike]Toyota's plant in Venezuela has more than 2,000 workers
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has told car companies they must share their technology with local businesses or leave the country.
Mr Chavez gave the ultimatum to Toyota, Ford, General Motors and Fiat during a public address.
If the demand isn't met, he said: "I invite you to pack up your belongings and leave. I'll bring in the Russians, the Belorusians, the Chinese."
Venezuela has nationalised most of the oil, metal and coffee industries.
Mr Chavez attacked Toyota in particular, saying it was not producing enough four-wheel drive vehicles, which are used for public transport, and ordered an investigation.
So far, the carmakers have not responded.
Last year, car plants in Venezuela produced 135,042 cars and trucks.
Currency controls in Venezuela mean the industry is struggling to get enough money to import parts and pay off debts.DALLAS (CBS Houston) – Houston Texans first round pick, DeAndre Hopkins, still has not passed the NFL mandated concussion protocol to allow him back on the field. However, Texans head coach Gary Kubiak is not worried about Hopkins missing week one.
“He’s fine,” Kubiak said of the young Wide Receiver, “I think if we weren’t here in Dallas and we were back with our doctors in Houston he would pass [the protocol] today. So, I don’t see any problem. ”
Hopkins received the concussion in the first series of the second preseason game against the Miami Dolphins. The Texans are looking for Hopkins to make an immediate impact as another threat on an already powerful offense.
If Hopkins can come back and play to the ability he showed in training camp and the first preseason game against the Minnesota Vikings the Texans are hoping it will make their already potent offense that much harder to stop.
Hopkins has passed the first 4 stages of the protocol and just needs to pass the fifth for the team to allow him to participate in team activities, practices and games.HAWTHORN legend Robert “Dipper” DiPierdomenico has quit social media after making a shocking claim about troubled footy star Ben Cousins.
Given incorrect information, the popular former footy commentator posted on Twitter on Monday he was informed former West Coast superstar Cousins had just passed away.
The 58-year-old declared his grief over Cousins’ death before he immediately retracted the statement and offered an apology to the families of the people involved.
An hour later the 240-game Hawks goal-kicker declared he was quitting social media.
Cousins was recently spotted in public for the first time since he was taken to hospital when police were called to a busy West Australian intersection where the 2005 Brownlow medallist was reportedly spotted incoherently directing traffic.
Since being released from hospital, Cousins has also posed for a photo which was posted on AFL player manager Ricky Nixon’s Facebook page.
“Caught up with old mate Benny last night in Perth he’s looking as slick... as slick... well let’s just say as slick as old Rick!!!!,” Nixon wrote.
Cousins last month took his son to his first game of AFL footy when West Coast beat North Melbourne at Domain Stadium in round 16.
Dipper’s incorrect information painted Cousins’ ongoing rehab from reported drug addiction-related personal issues in a much darker light.
After confirming his information about Cousins was incorrect, the 1986 Brownlow medallist went on to apologise to the family of the young man he mistook Cousins for.
Have heard the news Ben Cousin has passed away please tell me this is not true #restinpeace — Dipper (@dipperinc) August 1, 2016
Good news wrong information — Dipper (@dipperinc) August 1, 2016
A young man called@Ben Hornby — Dipper (@dipperinc) August 1, 2016
Sorry for wrong information the person that has sent me the news has names wrong sad to say that Ben Horn has passed away — Dipper (@dipperinc) August 1, 2016
This is my last tweet ever, apologies to all I have upset i have been given wrong information to all friends and families — Dipper (@dipperinc) August 1, 2016
After an 18-year career with Hawthorn and a 15-year career as a footy expert on radio and television, DiPierdomenico recently appeared on Fox Footy’s Retro Round roundtable discussion panel and is still a popular figure with many footy fans.
It is not the first time a public statement has got him in trouble, though.
DiPierdomenico was stood down from his position as an AFL ambassador in 2010 for racist comments towards Essendon and Port Adelaide great Gavin Wanganeen.Sen. Chuck Grassley Charles (Chuck) Ernest GrassleyOvernight Health Care: Senators grill drug execs over high prices | Progressive Dems unveil Medicare for all bill | House Dems to subpoena Trump officials over family separations Senate confirms Trump court pick despite missing two 'blue slips' GOP lawmaker says panel to investigate drug company gaming of patent system MORE (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is calling for an investigation into “potentially fraudulent statements and misrepresentations” made by a Chinese company promoting investments in property partly managed by White House adviser Jared Kushner's family's company.
Reuters noted that Grassley cited one of its reports in a May 25 letter to the Department of Homeland Security and the Securities and Exchange Commission calling for the probe.
The Republican senator is requesting a review of claims made by Chinese firm Qiaowai in the marketing of the One Journal Square project in Jersey City, N.J., to potential Chinese investors.
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“Given all of these concerns, a closer look at Qiaowai Group and the U.S. Immigration Fund are clearly warranted, as reports suggest both companies have long employed questionable practices,” Grassley wrote.
Qiaowai and Kushner Companies are looking for investors to help finance a pair of luxury apartment buildings as part of the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Visa Program. That program offers visas in exchange for a $500,000 investment in a U.S. business.
The Chinese firm boasted about its connections to President Trump via Kushner, who is Trump's son-in-law, and promised clients that Trump would ensure their visas were approved, according to The New York Times.
Kushner's sister, Nicole Meyer, came under fire earlier this month for reportedly using her brother's role in the Trump administration to attract investors.Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images
Through the first six years of Cam Newton's career, the Carolina Panthers set their offense with a few consistent building blocks. They were going to use bigger backs to run between the tackles, use that power running game to establish play action and the deep pass, and use Newton's mobility and escapability to add another level of dynamism, especially in the red zone.
It's worked for the most part, but serious questions popped up last season regarding that approach.
Those power backs weren't as effective—Jonathan Stewart led the team with 824 yards on 215 carries—and the deep ball wasn't working as well. Per Pro Football Focus, he completed just 20 of 71 passes in which the ball went over 20 yards in the air for a 28.2 completion percentage that's far down from his 37 percent completion rate on such passes in 2015.
Moreover, Newton wasn't nearly as productive in the play-action game as he'd been the year before, throwing just five touchdowns on play-action passes in 2016. Compare that to his 13 play-action touchdowns in 2015, and you start to see the extent of the problem, especially when you combine that with an offensive line that has degraded in quality. The Panthers no longer have the personnel to run the old ideal of their offensive philosophy.
When this happens, a team has two choices: It can either restock with the same kinds of players it's had before and hope for the best, or it can throw out the old playbook and try something new. And with the additions of Stanford running back
And with the additions of Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey in the first round of the 2017 draft and the follow-up selection of Ohio State receiver Curtis Samuel, the Panthers are absolutely going with a new paradigm.
In McCaffrey, the Panthers give Newton a weapon he's never had before—a running back with great outside speed and some inside power as well as the versatility of a true receiver to line up everywhere from the slot to the outside. But the real magic with McCaffrey, and the problems for defenses, comes when he starts in the backfield and then motions out as a receiver.
PLAY 1
YouTube/Draft Breakdown
As we see in this 56-yard touchdown against USC in 2016, McCaffrey can take a simple wheel route to the house in a hurry, especially when the complexity of the offense puts defenders in bad positions. The Cardinal have USC spread out in a nickel defense against a three-wide set, and McCaffrey is the left-sided back in a two-back set.
The backfield formation indicates that it could be a power run, but at the snap, McCaffrey (No. 5) heads out on his route and goes upfield after catching the ball in stride from Ryan Burns. Of note here is the inefficient movement from USC free safety Marvell Tell III (No. 7). The Trojans appear to be playing man coverage outside and zone with their inside reads. Tell is taking the underneath coverage and somebody isn't where they should be, because McCaffrey is able to drive the route all the way.
Most backs would take the simple short backfield route and attain yards after the catch, but McCaffrey is a real receiver—I would have given him a second- or third-round grade as a receiver alone.
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YouTube/Draft Breakdown
As a runner, McCaffrey has the talent and total skill set to be a franchise guy, but he's not a power back. At 5'11" and 202 pounds, he doesn't really fit that profile. Yes, he can run inside, but a lot of the tackles he broke in college were arm tackles by bad Pac-12 defenses that would be stops in the NFL. Washington had the best defense Stanford faced in 2016, and he gained
Washington, in the above clip, had the best defense Stanford faced in 2016, and he gained a respectable 49 yards on 12 carries on the ground in that game. The Huskies had the strength along their front seven to counter Stanford's advanced blocking concepts, and they often bottled McCaffrey up in the backfield.
When McCaffrey was able to break free for short gains, it was based on a running style that's more LeSean McCoy and less LeGarrette Blount. Here, he uses his patience to let the blocks develop and an easy acceleration to get to the second level. For him, it's more about finding open space and using speed through the hole than driving his legs and casting tacklers aside.
But again, the Panthers' interest in adding McCaffrey as a major cog in their offense isn't about any one thing—it's about the whole package and what he does do defenses. He led the FBS in all-purpose yards per game in each of the last two seasons, and he set the NCAA's record for all-purpose yards in 2015 with 3,864. The old record-holder? Some guy named Barry Sanders.
As a runner, receiver and returner, McCaffrey is practically an offense unto himself. Anyone questioning his ability to carry a high-volume offense as a back need only look to his 2015 season, when he gained 2,019 yards and scored eight touchdowns on 337 carries.
Panthers head coach Ron Rivera said of McCaffrey said after the pick was made:
It's going to be about position flexibility more so than anything else. He's going to be used a lot in a way of how they used him at Stanford. When you watch the tape, break the tape down, you see him line up sometimes in the backfield as a running back. Sometimes he's a quarterback in their wildcat offense. Sometimes they motion him out and put him out to the slot. Sometimes they motion him out and put him wide. So, we’re looking at opportunities to create opportunities for him to make plays for us.
And that will help Newton most of all. The Panthers didn't throw to their backs a lot in 2016 (44 receptions by their backs in 2016), and the lack of easy outlet targets, combined with a porous offensive line, led Newton to get hit—and hurt—a lot.
Rivera compared McCaffrey to Reggie Bush when Bush was the Saints' multiposition weapon from 2006 through 2010, and I like the comparison a lot, though I think McCaffrey has far more potential as a running back. In head coach Sean Payton's offense, Bush would often flare into the slot from the backfield, causing three-linebacker defenses to put more defensive backs on the field.
Also, Rivera knows all too well about the brilliant offense Kyle Shanahan put together for the Falcons in 2015 and 2016, and Shanahan loved to move running backs Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman, and fullback Patrick DiMarco all along the formation pre-snap—very similar to what the Saints did with Bush back in the day. The Falcons scored 48 and 33 points against Carolina's defense last year in two losses for Carolina, and Matt Ryan completed 78.6 percent of his passes for 780 yards, six touchdowns and one interception.
Jay LaPrete/Associated Press
Samuel is a different breed of cat, though just as versatile.
At 5'11" and 196 pounds, he's listed as a receiver on the Panthers official roster, but he's more of an overall offensive weapon. He played everywhere from wideout to the slot to H-back to the backfield for the Buckeyes, and he's the only player in Ohio State history to gain more than 1,000 yards each rushing and receiving in his career. He averaged 7.5 yards per rush with 15 rushing touchdowns over three seasons, adding nine touchdowns as a receiver, including seven last season.
Some have compared Samuel to Percy Harvin, though I think Samuel is a less explosive, more well-developed pure football player. He was used on a ton of jet sweeps and short passes, primarily in the slot, though he also motioned around the field.
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YouTube/Draft Breakdown
This play against Clemson shows one thing I really like about Samuel (No. 4) that will transition well to Carolina's offense—watch how he aligns himself and adjusts his route to stay open for quarterback J.T. Barrett. When the play breaks down and mobile quarterbacks start to move, they need to know that their receivers will move outside structure with them.
Ohio State was blown out in a 31-0 shutout in this Fiesta Bowl, but Samuel was one of the highlight players on the ground, gaining 67 yards on six carries. Like McCaffrey, Samuel gets his rushing yards more through patience, agility and speed than pure power.
PLAY 4
YouTube/Draft Breakdown
Watch this run against the Tigers to see what he can find space—he's breaking tackles, but he's primarily looking for gaps and making some pretty amazing cuts. And check out the second gear in the open field. He'll have his share of negative plays as a runner, but if you keep him away from the bigger defenders inside, he's a highlight play waiting to happen.
Panthers general manager Dave Gettleman said of Samuel, citing his "oh my gosh" speed:
He's been bounced between running back and wide, and he's shown the ability to catch the ball down the field over his head and all that stuff. He's got really good quickness in and out of his routes. He's got really good inside run skills. He's got the speed to cross the formation. He's got the speed to go the distance.
Here's how I think both players will be used in Carolina's new offense.
McCaffrey ran a lot of two types of plays for the Cardinal: sweeps and stretch plays to the outside from a pistol formation behind slide blocking, and "power" plays with two backs in which a guard might pull or an extra tight end might provide more blocking.
The key to the power game for any back on Stanford's offense is to have the patience to wait for second-level blocks to happen. Both concepts are already common to the Panthers. I think McCaffrey will be a vital factor in an offense that has much more pre-snap motion, and passing plays off that motion from backfield to outside in which he's the primary target.
As I said before, the Falcons have had a ton of success with these concepts, and I think the Panthers are going with the "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" ethos.
Samuel will see his share of backfield stuff where he's either taking a little sweep or getting a dump pass behind the line of scrimmage, but I rate him pretty highly as a slot receiver. He has a nice understanding of routes that can be further developed, he has a good sense of how to sink into zones and fake his way out of coverage, and he's pretty fearless about going over the middle.
He said in his post-draft phone conference that he expects to be used primarily in the slot, but that doesn't mean he'll always stay there—he took some of his sweeps from the slot.
Remember the touchdown pass to McCaffrey, in which there were two backs flanking the quarterback in a pistol set? It's the same base formation as in Samuel's long run, with Samuel motioning from the slot. I think you'll see a lot of this from the Panthers this upcoming season, because it allows the play-designers to do so much.
Imagine a backfield with Newton taking the snap three yards behind the center, McCaffrey on his right, Samuel on his left, and one or both of the rookies motioning to receiver depth pre-snap. Then, imagine Stewart coming onto the field, either McCaffrey or Samuel moving to the slot. Now, you have a combination of power running and receiver versatility that few NFL teams can match and few can stop.
"This is a matchup league," Gettleman said at the end of the draft. "Is my guy better than your guy? These two guys can give us matchup advantages from a variety of positions, and that ain't bad."
It ain't bad at all, and Gettleman is exactly right. The NFL has become a matchup league, and the Panthers have come two very big steps closer to mastering that reality.If you hadn't heard, there are two rival nano-SIM designs going around, but there's only room for one of them to become an industry standard. Nokia, Motorola and RIM sit together in one corner, and we've already covered why they think their design is superior. On the other side of the ring sits Apple, which has its own tactics for bringing ETSI, the European Telecoms Standards Institute, over to its way of thinking. According to a legal letter shown to FOSS Patents by a "perfectly reliable source", Apple is prepared to license its nano-SIM design royalty-free, so long as it becomes the new standard and all other nano-SIM patent holders reciprocate the gesture. Such a gambit may not appease Cupertino's rivals and |
City.
On 28 July, various Uber vehicles operating near Mexico City's international airport were attacked. Those behind the attacks accused Uber of operating from taxi stands designated for traditional cabs authorised by the government. No Uber drivers or passengers were hurt in the attacks.
Lorena Villarreal, communications manager for Uber in Latin America, vehemently condemned the attacks and called on all parties to engage in dialogue to resolve differences.
"What happened yesterday was a very serious incident that we condemn. Violence is unacceptable. We invite everyone to have a dialogue and we're open to working with authorities and taxi associations to benefit citizens," she said.
Villarreal added that the car-hailing app is still operating as normal in other Latin American countries.
"In Brazil we continue to operate normally, the same in Colombia. We know that new technology can be disruptive in cities and normally technology advances more rapidly than regulations. So, this is why we're completely open to working with the government so that their regulation places citizens as the priority and benefits everyone," she said.
According to Uber, Mexico City is the largest city in the world to regulate ride-hailing apps and is one of its biggest markets. In the Mexican capital alone there are some 10,000 drivers on the road and half a million registered users.by
On the face of it, Trump is Reagan on steroids. His towering size, his nativist US supremacism, his down-home talk, and his reality-show confidence make him ideal for the role of bullying and big lies from the oval office. He is America come to meet itself in larger-than-life image to rejuvenate it as its pride slips away in third-world conditions and a multi-polar world.
While Trump’s narrative is that the American Dream seeks recovery again, the dominant media and political elite relentlessly denounce him as an implicit fascist and disastrous fake. Something deeper is afoot. An untapped historic resentment is boiling up from underneath which has long been unspeakable on the political stage. Trump has mined it and proposed a concrete solution always denied of his candidacy. From his promise to halve the Pentagon’s budget to getting the Congress off corporate-donation payrolls, the public money that the big corporate lobbies stand to lose from a Trump presidency are off the charts. But his attackers dare not recognize these explosive issues because they are all part of the problem.
The public money stakes may be bigger than the US corporate stakes behind the foreign wars the US state has initiated since 1991. The takeaway promised by Trump’s policies threaten almost every big lobby now in control of US government purse strings. It grounds in the military-industrial complex spending close to $2,000,000,000 a day for its endless new untested weapons and foreign wars both of which Trump opposes. But the cut-off of hundreds of billions of public giveaways to the Big Corps do not end here. They hit almost every wide-mouthed transnational corporate siphon into the US Treasury, taxpayers’ pockets and the working majority of America. Masses of American citizens increasingly without living wages and benefits and in increasing public squalor and insecurity are paying attention to what the political establishment and corporate media have long buried and continue to silence.
Trump has raised the great dispossession from impotence into the establishment’s face, and this is why he is a contagion on the American political scene. He is pervasively mocked, accused and slandered in non-stop public fireworks of ad hominem hits, but the counter-attacks never engage what Trump has set his sights on – the long stripping of America by
corporate globalization selecting for the limitless enrichment of the very rich living off an ever-growing take from public coffers and the impoverishment of America’s working people. A primal rage unites the political establishment across party lines, but they can’t say why. No defaming scorn and abuse is off limits, but Trump’s underlying betrayal of the ruling game remains unspeakable on the stage.
The electoral dynamite of all the Americans who have lost all their good blue-collar jobs, social benefits and public infrastructures is recognized only in class condescension. But the facts cannot be denied of a corporate globalization effectively stripping the lower middle classes and the public realm itself with no-one in Washington establishment saying a word against the greatest transfer of wealth to the 1% in history.
Trump may deserve back as bad he gives. But this understanding keeps our eyes on the ego-contest which is the standard spectacle to avoid the real issues. The personal attacks only tells us how deep the rupture has become between Trump’s campaign and the establishment on the issues kept out of sight. This is why the corporate politicians and media are almost as wound into one-way demonization of Trump as they are when they beat the drums of war against a designated Enemy abroad.
In the end, it may get to him – as when he tries to find angry millions again from onside with an evangelical trumpet of abortion-is-murder just before the primary in Wisconsin.
Trump is a shameless opportunist, no doubt. Yet we continue to revolve within an ad hominem circle until we go deeper than the establishment morality tale of the evil of the stigma object – the oldest propaganda trick in the book. The major money interests that are really at stake in the conflict between Trump and the political-economic establishment remain unconnected and blocked out. “Who will stop Trump’ is not only now asked across America, but the world’s media in China too. But nothing is less talked about than the globally powerful interests he has promised to rein back from the public troughs bleeding the country’s capacities to build for and to employ its people. On this topic, there is only silence or abusive distortion frothing from the mouth.
Joining the Dots of the Great Silence
Eventually people may ask why the establishment unanimously abhors Trump across party divisions which are otherwise unbridgeable. Even if he is a caricature of American privilege and self-promotion, who else could fight the corrupt corporate-state and media establishment? Who else could ever get public support from dispossessed masses and from inside the Republican Party base itself? Who else could take on the supra-dominant corporate interests of the war state, drug monopoly, health insurance racket, lobby-run foreign policy, off-shore tax evasion, and global trade with only corporate rights to profit taking jobs in the tens of millions from home workers, and still hold a large and right-wing voter base onside?
Conversely, what else than Trump’s threat to the corporate-state establishment can explain the unity of voice and venom against an American paragon of wealth and chupzpah? What else could motivate a cross-party and corporate media hate campaign where there is nothing else in common across the condemning voices? Only those citizens depending on the deep system corruptions he promises to reverse are really threatened by Trump’s candidacy. But how do these huge private interests go on getting away with a corporate-lobby state transferring every more public wealth and control to them at the expense of the American majority and their common interest when most people already dislike and are systemically exploited by them? They get away with it by no-one being able to do anything about it.
Trump represents a threat to these gargantuan public-trough interests that even the super clean and informed Ralph Nader candidacy for president never did. The corporate media and party machines just shut him down on the electoral stage so few even knew he was a presidential candidate. You can’t do that with Trump. That is the very big problem for the otherwise seamless political and media establishment who are all in on the fabulous payoffs of this corporate state game. Trump’s entire strategy is based on getting public attention, and he is a master at it, unbuyably rich, and the most watched person in America across the country and the world. He can’t be shut up. Personal stigmatization and attack without let-up are the only way to gag his policies and turn the tide against him at the same time.
Maybe it will work in the end. It’s how disastrous and bankrupting foreign aggressions and wars have been sold whatever the ruinous costs to the public paying for them.
Until Wisconsin
When you join the dots to Trump also preaching a policy revolt against the insatiable corporate jaws feeding on trillions of dollars of public budgets in Washington, the meaning becomes clear. But that connected meaning is blacked out. In its place, the corporate media and politicians present an egomaniac blowhard bordering on fascism who preaches hate, racism and sexism. But the silenced policies he advocates are more like jumping into a crocodile pit. He is on record saying he will cut the Pentagon’s budget “by 50%”. No winning politician has ever dared to take on the military-industrial complex, with even Eisenhower only naming it in his parting speech. Trump also says that the US “must be neutral, an honest broker” on the Israeli-Palestine conflict – as unspeakable as it gets in US politics. Big Pharma is also called out with “$400 billion to be saved by government negotiation of prices”. The even more powerful HMO’s are confronted by the possibility of a “one-payer system”, the devil incarnate in America’s corporate-welfare state.
Trump even challenges “the Enemy” cornerstone of US ideology when he says “wouldn’t it be nice to get along with Russia and China for a change?” Not very fascist of him. He was also open to nationalizing the Wall Street banks after 2008. None of this sees the light of day in the hate-Trump culture that been effectively mounted across even left-right divisions. Most of all, Trump rejects the whole misnamed “free trade” global system because it has “hollowed out the lives of American workers” with rights to corporations to move anywhere to get cheaper labour and import back into the US tariff-free. But again the connected meaning is repressed. That Trump also wants to get the US out of foreign wars at the same time, the other great pillar of corporate globalization, is the real danger to the transnational corporate state he has set in motion.
All these policies threaten only the ruling money interests of America that depend on the superpower public purse to extend their transnational monopolies and multiply their wealth. This is the real establishment interest that has so far evaded the glare of publicity and critique of the Donald Trump phenomenon, bigger now with Bernie Sanders than any political challenge to the US system since the 1960’s. Trump is certainly not a working-class hero. He is a pure capitalist, with all the furies of private interest and greed that capitalism selects for. But at this time he is a capitalist who is not rich from looting the public purse as the biggest annual cash flow, nor from exporting the costs of labor and taxes to foreign jurisdictions with subhuman standards that come back to the US as “necessary to compete”. Trump has initiated a long overdue recognition of parasite capitalism eating out the life capacities of the US itself.Google is testing an interesting new feature in search, as spotted by one Matt Gibstein on Twitter. As you can see in the above screenshot, there’s a small “Chat” icon next to the phone number of a business called “Dizengoff” in Philadelphia—and it looks like clicking it will launch you into a chat session directly with that business via Hangouts.
Deal: Get Pixelbook at 25% off: $750!
While it’s definitely not a feature that’s rolling out to all businesses that show up in Google search (as the business would of course have to be on board to answer the other end of a chat session), TechCrunch has confirmed that the experimental feature is indeed being tested by the Mountain View company.
“Dizengoff typically responds within hours,” the chat window says, suggesting that you wouldn’t use this feature with this business if you wanted an answer immediately. This might be great for less urgent requests, like making a reservation at the restaurant some time in advance, however. Assumably, this label would change to say “minutes,” for example, if a business shows a record of responding more promptly (although that’s simply speculation on my part).
This service is a lot like Path’s “Path Talk” platform, which lets users of the social network chat directly with businesses just like this new feature. The company likely originally launched the feature to set itself apart from other social networks, but it looks like Google—the web’s largest search engine—is also embracing the idea.These are ten films i have come across in my lifetime, all ten of them have radically changed my ideals and hold a place in my heart. I particularly recommend number one, obviously. Enjoy!
10. Five Minutes Of Heaven (2009)
Five minutes of heaven is the story of a former UVF member (Liam Neeson) and the younger brother of the man he killed (James Nesbitt) during the troubles. The film is a gritty and realistic insight into Ireland’s troubles, what’s interesting is that it explores the consequences after the troubles, something i haven’t seen in a film before. I highly recommend this movie to anyone interested in Ireland’s history.
9. Possession (1981)
A very unique cult film that was released at the wrong time, starring Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neil. The film is similar to modern films like inception, the viewer must figure out what’s going on for themselves.
Adjani’s character Anna is going insane, from the title i’m sure you can guess the cause. A series of strange events take place that lead to a very rewarding ending. Be warned though, the film is very gory.
8. Battle Royale (2000)
A highly controversial film set in Japan where the students have stopped attending school, to teach them a lesson the government puts the BR (Battle Royale) act in place. The students are kidnapped and placed on an abandoned island where they must kill each other off, the last survivor earns the right to live. Fun fact Tatsuya Fujiwara, the protagonist of the film voiced Light Yagami in Death Note.
The film has been called the better version of the hunger games, and frankly i’d agree. If you like the hunger games, i think you’d enjoy this more.
7. The Yellow Sea (2010)
This film revolves around Gu-Nam, A Korean cab driver who’s life has fallen apart. He owes a Hit man a serious amount of money and cuts a deal to do a job, he must kill a target within a time limit. Gu-Nam’s wife went missing in the city where the proposed job is.
This is another typically gritty and realistic Korean action thriller, with some amazing acting from Jung-woo ha. Definitely worth a watch.
6. 2046 (2004)
2046 is a film by the renowned director Kar Wai Wong, one of Tarantino’s favorite directors. The film stars Tony Leung (Infernal Affairs) and revolves around a writer who is down on his luck, Chow (Tony Leung) becomes fascinated by the number 2046 and it inspires him to write a novel, in his novel a train would arrive and depart for 2046 every once in a while, so people could recapture lost memories. No one has ever returned, except for Chow.
5. I Saw The Devil (2010)
I Saw The Devil revolves around a psychopathic serial killer called Kyung-Chul (Oldboy’s Min Sik Choi). Kyung-Chul kills a woman who happens to be a secret agents pregnant fiance, the secret agent (Byung-Hun Lee) abandons his ‘good’ life to seek revenge becoming a monster himself.
4. Oldboy (2003)
This is a fairly popular film and i’m sure you have heard of it, it’s even getting a Hollywood remake (yay…).
The films stars veteran Korean actor Min Sik Choi, who is kidnapped for no apparent reason and kept prisoner for 15 years. One day he is released and his captor gives him clues to why he was imprisoned.
“Be it a grain of sand or a rock, in water they sink the same”
Dae-Suh Oh at first wants to kill his captor but along his journey he discovers the real reason he was imprisoned and repents.
3. No Mercy (2010)
No mercy is a really interesting film, American cinema has yet to make a similar film. The film revolves around Dr. Kang, Korea’s top medical examiner.
An environmental activist kills a woman and immediately confesses, he has also kidnapped Dr. Kangs daughter whom he hasn’t seen in 13 years. The killer demands Dr. Kang frees him in three days or his daughter will die.
This film is simply amazing, full of twists and surprises, worth a watch.
2. The Brotherhood of War
Two brothers are drafted into the S.Korean Army to fight the communist North, Jin-tae Lee rises through the ranks, he believes that if he excels his younger brother, Jin-seok Lee, will be allowed to go home.
Jin-Tae believes his brother is killed by the South and defects to the North, not knowing his brother is alive. I feel justified in saying this is the best war film ever made, don’t believe me?, watch it. The full film is available on YouTube. (Link Below)
1. Breathless (2008)
Breathless revolves around Sang-Hoon, a low level gangster who is angry at the world. He beats people to a pulp on a daily basis, even though his job doesn’t require it. As a child his father domestically abused his mother and sister, eventually killing them both.
He meets a young high school girl, who despite his foul mouth and manner, enjoys Sang-Hoon’s company. The high school girl’s brother is fast becoming a man like Sang-Hoon, she seeks insight from Sang-Hoon.
Sang-Hoon’s father is released from prison and moves in with Sang-Hoon as he has nowhere else to go, he is a frail old man who truly regrets what he has done. For Sang-Hoon prison wasn’t enough of a punishment, he becomes his father and routinely beats him to a pulp. One night his father cuts his wrists unable to take it anymore, Sang-Hoon repents and his life drastically changes.
Please check this film out, IT WILL MAKE YOU CRY.
If you can’t find a link or torrent to any of these movies, contact me at NemoNobody2092@gmail.com and i’ll send you a link.
Thanks for reading, please check out these movies!
AdvertisementsGanesh Parkar was charged with sexual assault for groping a woman on an Air India flight. (File Photo)
Highlights Indian man allegedly groped woman while she was asleep on flight Parkar, 40, in apology notes to woman said his actions were "stupid". He was charged with abusive sexual contact, detained in New Jersey
© Thomson Reuters 2016
An Indian man living in the US groped a woman onboard an Air India flight and later apologised in a pair of notes in which he said his actions were "stupid", authorities said on Thursday.Ganesh Parkar, 40, was detained on the woman's complaint and charged with abusive sexual contact in a federal court in Newark, New Jersey.Parkar had a business class seat on the transcontinental flight from Mumbai to Newark but chose to sit in a middle seat next to the woman in economy class, prosecutors said.The woman fell asleep and later awakened to discover that her blanket had been pulled off her body, according to a criminal complaint. After replacing the blanket and going back to sleep, the woman again woke up to find Parkar's hand inside her shirt, prosecutors said.According to court documents, the woman yelled, "What the hell are you doing?" and crew members instructed Parkar to move back to his assigned seat.Parkar repeatedly asked flight attendants to allow him to speak to the woman but his requests were denied, prosecutors said. He wrote her two notes in which he apologised for a "moment's stupidity" and admitted he had been "stupid," according to the complaint.A defence lawyer for Parkar did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Parkar was released on $50,000 bond and ordered to remain under house arrest.A Flamenco Pilgrimage, In Pursuit Of Duende
toggle caption Jose Luis Roca/AFP/Getty Images
I've been dancing flamenco for years. I love it. Flamenco's got attitude. It makes me feel like I've got attitude. Dancing is like letting out a scream from the feet up, all emotion and passion. I need it after the work I do every day. As a public defender in Manhattan, I deal with clients stuck in desperate situations.
Flamenco recharges me. It's exotic, and fun, and I'm good at it. But no matter how long I've been dancing, I'm never as good as I want to be. Maybe because I'm not a professional, or maybe because I'm not a Gypsy.
What I'm missing is duende — a magical moment of abandon that's part of Gypsy lore. It makes men rip off their shirts or listeners bang their heads against walls.
I've never lived that moment of pure passion, but I wanted to, so I went to Jerez, the birthplace of flamenco. The city lives and breathes it. It streams out of car radios, and kids learn it as soon as they're born. When I arrived, I opened the windows in the apartment where I was staying and flamenco floated in.
Once a year, Jerez throws a giant party celebrating its three main attractions: sherry, Andalusian stallions and flamenco. I couldn't wait to get to the festival to see what I'd find.
In a huge dusty fairground covered with casetas — tents the size of big ballrooms — with facades of Spanish houses and thousands of lights overhead, people were listening to pounding music, drinking sherry and dancing flamenco. The women wore form-fitting dresses in bright colors and polka dots with flowers pinned to their hair. There weren't many tourists — at least not Americans. This was a fiesta for friends and neighbors, and even though they danced freely and with great joy, I didn't see duende there.
The next day, I decided to take a private class with a Gypsy woman, Manuela Carpio. She was the real thing, people said. She had an air, a way about her, that made flamenco fun but still deep. She was small and chubby and her round face broke into a smile when I asked her about duende.
"It's like being touched by the hand of God," she told me. "A moment of pure pleasure, like when you're making love."
Hearing what duende meant to Manuela Carpio, I had even more incentive to find it. I headed back to the fair and stopped in the first caseta I saw. People were sitting and standing in a semicircle craning for a look. A dance space opened and an older woman from the crowd pushed her way inside and improvised her steps.
Here I was, this 50-year-old suburban mom and lawyer from New Jersey. I wondered if I'd have the nerve to dance. I stood still, watching; when the next dancer finished her short solo, I pushed my way to the front and concentrated on the music. I started my palmas, clapping my hands to the rhythm, and moved to center stage. I improvised — doing bulerias, the 12-count dance that is the mark of a real flamenco.
It took all my nerve to dance in front of people who have been steeped in this tradition their whole lives. It was over in a flash, and in that moment tears filled my eyes. Maybe what I felt wasn't duende — nobody ripped a shirt or slapped his face — but it was close enough for me.Cheetah escape from enclosure in safari park
Los Angeles : In a bizarre news, parents visiting a safari park in Port Lympne Reserve in Kent got the shock of their life when a cheetah escaped from its enclosure.
Following the escape of two year old Kitwana from his pen at feeding time, parents were told to “grab their kids and run”.
The Cheetah was on the run for about 25 minutes during which time parents and families tried to hide in gift shops and toilets.
While the park was placed on emergency lockdown, guards disclosed that the big cat climbed a fence during feeding time in a bid to be reunited with his mother.
According to Alice Stittle, who was visiting the tourist attraction with her family and friends, "We were about to go home and were walking back to the entrance when one of the zookeepers ran over in a panic. They told us to grab our kids and run. A cheetah’s escaped and it’s on the loose. There was no room at the gift shop, so we had to hide in the ladies’ toilets. The kids thought it was amazing and kept trying to poke their heads out to see."
Another lady Maggie Jones 38, was heard saying, “It was pretty scary. Word quickly spread that a big cat was on the loose and parents were shooing their children into the shops and even into the toilets. Everyone was looking round nervously in case it was about to jump out on us. They reassured us it was harmless, but none of the mums and dads were taking any chances."
The cheetah escaped from Port Lympne Reserve in Kent at around 4pm on Sunday. But the keepers were successful in able to entice Kitwana back into his enclosure with the help of a chicken.
An investigation has now been launched to determine exactly how the animal escaped.
Animal director Adrian Harland said: "The cheetah was calm and pacing the enclosure fence looking to get back in. Some food was thrown into the enclosure and the cheetah walked back in to get it. No vet intervention was needed. The full escape procedure was run because the safari lorries travel past the enclosure. This particular cheetah was no real threat to our guests. He only climbed out to get back with his mother after having been separated to stop him eating all her dinner. We have secured the enclosures perimeter fencing to ensure that the cheetah cannot climb out again."
Cheetahs are known to be the fastest land mammals on earth and can run at speeds of 112kmh (70mph).Rick Westhead TSN Senior Correspondent Follow|Archive
The family of deceased NHL player Steve Montador, who was found dead in his Toronto-area home in February at the age of 35, is suing the National Hockey League, charging the league failed to provide him with up-to-date medical information about the risk of long-term brain damage.
Montador played 10 NHL seasons with six teams and had a well-documented history of concussions, depression, memory problems and erratic behaviour. According to the lawsuit - filed on behalf of Steve's son, Morrison Montador, and other family members by Steve's father, Paul - Steve had 69 fights and 15 documented concussions in the NHL.
"During regular season NHL games, preseason NHL games, NHL practices and morning skates prior to NHL games, Steven Montador sustained thousands of sub-concussive brain traumas and multiple concussions, many of which were undiagnosed and/or undocumented," says the statement of claim, filed in U.S. federal court in Chicago on Tuesday. "The league induced him into continuing to play, and fight, in NHL games and practices."
The claims of Montador's family have not been proven and the NHL has not filed a statement of defence. Neither NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly nor league executive vice-president of communications Gary Meagher responded to an email seeking comment on the lawsuit.
"The NHL continues to ignore the lasting problems caused by multiple head traumas suffered by its players," Paul Montador said in a statement. "Tragedies like that of my son Steven will continue until the problem is addressed. The NHL knows, but denies, that years of repeated head injuries cause long-term brain problems."
The lawsuit details several of Montador's concussions. He allegedly sustained at least three concussive brain traumas in six months in 2003; four in nine months in 2010; and "four to five" in three months in 2012 while he played for the Chicago Blackhawks. He also played for the Calgary Flames, Florida Panthers, Anaheim Ducks, Boston Bruins and Buffalo Sabres during his career.
"By promoting and, in fact, glorifying fighting, the NHL continues to perpetuate its message to players, coaches and fans that blows to the head should not be considered serious injuries," the lawsuit says. "The NHL knew that by eliminating staged fights from their game they would decrease drug addiction and depression in the men it enlisted in the barbaric role."
Montador decided several years before his death to donate his brain to the Canadian Sports Concussion Project, which is headed by Toronto doctor Charles Tator. In May, three months after his death, researchers confirmed Montador's brain had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, the brain withering disease that has been linked to repeated head trauma.
"The NHL has long known that its players were susceptible to developing CTE and other neurodegenerative brain diseases as a result of the fist-fighting it allowed and promoted, the hard hits it encouraged and marketed, and/or the blows to the head that it steadfastly refused to eliminate from its game," the Montador family's lawsuit says.
The NHL, the statement says, was "armed with vastly superior managerial, medical, legal and other resources to gather, analyze and understand" head injury data.
The lawsuit echoes many of the same claims made by a group of 100-plus former NHL players who charge the league put its financial interests over the health of its players.
Bill Gibbs, a lawyer with the Chicago firm of Corboy & Demetrio, represents Montador's family. Gibbs is also representing the family of Derek Boogaard, a one-time NHL enforcer who died in 2011 at the age of 28 of an overdose of alcohol and painkillers. Researchers found Boogaard's brain, too, showed signs of CTE.
The Montador family's lawsuit describes how the NHL in 1997 promised to study the issue of concussions and brain injuries among its players.
The league "supposedly studied the frequency, timing, duration of symptoms" and other data for brain traumas suffered by NHL players from 1997 through 2004.
"The NHL's study was highly anticipated by many, including NHL players," the lawsuit says. "NHL players hoped that the NHL's study would address the critical question: ‘Does repetitive head trauma in NHL hockey lead to long-term neurocognitive or neurodegenerative changes in NHL players' brains?'
"In reality, the NHL simply sat on the data it collected," the lawsuit says. "In fact, the NHL waited to publish its data for 14 years."
The league published findings from its NHL-NHLPA Concussion Working Group in 2011, although it didn't pass a rule insisting players who suffer concussions do not return to the same games in which they sustained the injury until 2013.
The lawsuit also assails the NHL for continuing to market and profit from fighting.
"While personal tragedies such as that endured by the Montador family mount, the NHL still refuses to eliminate fighting," the lawsuit says. "Eliminating fighting is a rules issue that can be easily implemented by the NHL without any collective bargaining. Instead, for nearly a century, the NHL has developed and promoted a culture of gratuitous violence within NHL hockey."
The National Hockey League Competition Committee, established by the collective bargaining agreement that ended the 2004-05 lockout, is now responsible for making recommendations about rules and related issues to the NHL Board of Governors and the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA) executive board. The NHLPA and NHL are represented on the committee by equal voting members, who are joined by club officials and a non-voting supervisor.
At a 1992 Board of Governors' meeting regarding the introduction of a game misconduct penalty for players who fight, the discussion was never brought to a vote, the lawsuit says, despite seven NHL teams allegedly "expressing strong desire for such a rule."
Years later, in 2007, during Montador's sixth season in the NHL, the league was asked how it reconciled the fact boxers who are knocked out are banned from fighting for up to 90 days while NHL players who were knocked unconscious could "come back for more" almost immediately.
"The NHL thought this was a good question, but did nothing to act on the provocative reality," the Montador family's lawsuit says. The lawsuit also references a controversial email sent by a top league lawyer about player brain injuries.
In November 2009, the NHL contemplated a long-term study of brain injuries and cognitive problems. Rather than pursuing that study, NHL lawyer Julie Grand wrote in an email to colleagues that she would prefer to "leave the dementia issues up to the NFL!"
"As a result of its repeated decisions to bury its collective head in the sand, the NHL never conducted any proposed studies on its retirees, apparently not wanting to confirm what it already suspected - that repetitive head trauma sustained in contact sports can, and does, lead to permanent brain damage," the lawsuit says.Several rightwing advocacy groups were caught violating the rules of the Supreme Court in an attempt to mis-gender Gavin Grimm.
Grimm, who was barred by his town’s school board from using the correct bathroom and told to use a janitor’s closet, is suing his school district under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which bans sex discrimination. The case is headed to the Supreme Court, and it has attracted the attention of many advocacy groups, many of which have filed amicus briefs in support of or opposition to transgender rights.
Since Grimm is a minor (age 17), the briefs must refer to him in this manner:
G. G., BY HIS NEXT FRIEND AND MOTHER, DEIRDRE GRIMM
The National Organization for Marriage and the Liberty Counsel filed briefs with this on the cover:
G. G., BY HER NEXT FRIEND AND MOTHER, DEIRDRE GRIMM
The conservative groups, of course, don’t want to acknowledge Grimm’s gender. While their anti-transgender rights arguments usually focus on sexual assault, federalism, and “religious freedom,” it’s just subterfuge for antipathy and an attempt to deny other people’s right to exist.
A spokesperson for the Liberty Counsel told Slate, “Gavin Grimm is a biological girl who now says she subjectively ‘identifies’ as a ‘boy.'”
The transphobic organizations’ covers violate Rule 34 of the Supreme Court Rules. As a result, the Liberty Counsel received this letter from a Supreme Court Clerk:
It has come to the attention of this office that the cover of your amicus brief in this case identifies the respondent as “G.G., by her next friend and mother, Deirdre Grimm.” In fact, the caption for the case in this Court, as in the lower courts, identifies the respondent as “G.G., by his Next Friend and Mother, Deirdre Grimm.” (Emphasis added.) Under Rule 34, your cover is to reflect the caption of the case. Please ensure careful compliance with this requirement in this and other cases in the future.
It may not seem that big in the grand scheme of things, but mislabeling a brief to the Supreme Court for no reason other than spite, in a case where someone is claiming that they’re being discriminated against for no good reason, isn’t a smart move.
This Story Filed UnderEven though many of us likely imagine that slavery is a relic of the ancient past, the practice is alive and well. Since 2009, photographer Lisa Kristine has been documenting those caught up in the barbaric trade. Her images are shocking, powerful, in-your-face. Yet they are also dignified portraits of those with no choice. “No matter how dire, how hard their experience of life has been because of their suffering as a slave, these people still have dignity, sensitivity, humanness and beauty,” she said on the phone from her home in California, shortly before another trip saw her head off to southeast Asia. “These images are not intended to be spectacles of horror; they’re intended to engage people in connecting so we realize we’re all brothers and sisters.” Here, take a look at 17 of Kristine’s astonishingly powerful photographs.
Women move bricks
Kristine spent months photographing the brick kilns of India and Nepal. Here, in India, women balance stacks of bricks on their head in order to carry them to nearby trucks.
These people work 17 hour days, without breaks, without water
“Deadened by monotony and exhaustion, they work silently, doing this task over and over for 16 or 17 hours a day,” Kristine says of the unreal conditions of these workers in Nepal. “There were no breaks for food, no water breaks, and the severe dehydration made urinating pretty much inconsequential.”
Children work in unbearable heat
Children are put to work, too; here, a child stands in a kiln in Nepal. “So pervasive was the heat and the dust that my camera became too hot to even touch and ceased working,” Kristine said of her experience there. “Every 20 minutes, I’d have to run back to our cruiser to clean out my gear and run it under an air conditioner to revive it, and as I sat there, I thought, ‘my camera is getting far better treatment than these people.’”
A powerless photographer documenting powerless people
While photographing in the kilns, Kristine says she often wanted to break down and cry, but was instructed firmly by one of the abolitionists she was there with to do no such thing. “He very clearly explained to me that emotional displays are very dangerous in a place like this, not just for me, but for them,” she recalls. “I couldn’t offer them any direct help. I couldn’t give them money, nothing. I wasn’t a citizen of that country. I could get them in a worse situation than they were already in.”
Children carry stones down mountains
“In the Himalayas, I found children carrying stone for miles down mountainous terrain to trucks waiting at roads below,” says Kristine. “The big sheets of slate were heavier than the children carrying them, and the kids hoisted them from their heads using these handmade harnesses of sticks and rope and torn cloth.”
A family portrait in toxic color
“This is a family portrait,” says Kristine of a picture she took at a textile factory in India. “The dyed black hands are the father, while the blue and red hands are his sons. They mix dye in these big barrels, and they submerge the silk into the liquid up to their elbows, but the dye is toxic.”
The currency of Lake Volta: fish
Lake Volta, in Ghana, is the largest man-made lake in the world. There, fish are a form of currency; a recent estimate figured that more than 4,000 children are enslaved and at work fishing on the lake.
Children taken, trafficked, vanished
When Kristine first arrived at Lake Volta, she saw what she thought was a family fishing trip. Wrong. “They were all enslaved. Children are taken from their families and trafficked and vanished, and they’re forced to work endless hours on these boats on the lake, even though they do not know how to swim,” she says.
Meet Kofi, who survived slavery
This is Kofi, who |
area’s native-born conservatives the Republicans easily get a majority and begin defunding public parks, libraries, and schools. Also, Conservians have one pet issue which they promote even more intently than the destruction of secular science – that all Conservians illegally in the United States must be granted voting rights, and that no one should ever block more Conservians from coming to the US.
Is this fair to the native Berkeleyans? It doesn’t seem that way to me. And what if 10 million Conservians move into America? That’s not an outrageous number – there are more Mexican immigrants than that. But it would be enough to have thrown every single Presidential election of the past fifty years to the Republicans – there has never been a Democratic candidate since LBJ who has won the native population by enough of a margin to outweight the votes of ten million Conservians.
But isn’t this incredibly racist and unrealistic? An entire nation of people whose votes skew 90% Republican? No. African-Americans’ votes have historically been around 90% Democratic (93% in the last election). Latinos went over 70% Democratic in the last election. For comparison, white people were about 60% Republicans. If there had been no Mexican immigration to the United States over the past few decades, Romney would probaby have won the last election.
Is it wrong for a liberal citizen of Berkeley in 2013 to want to close the hyperborder with Conservia so that California doesn’t become part of the Bible Belt and Republicans don’t get guaranteed presidencies forever? Would that citizen be racist for even considering this? If not, then pity the poor conservative, who is actually in this exact situation right now.
(a real Reactionary would hasten to add this is more proof that progressives control everything. Because immigration favors progressivism, any opposition to it is racist, but the second we discover the hyperborder with Conservia, the establishment will figure out some reason why allowing immigration is racist. Maybe they can call it “inverse colonialism” or something.)
None of this is an argument against immigration. It’s an argument against immigration by groups with bad Luck and with noticeably different values than the average American. Let any Japanese person who wants move over. Same with the Russians, and the Jews, and the Indians. Heck, it’s not even like it’s saying no Afghans – if they swear on a stack of Korans that they’re going to try to learn English and not do any honor killings, they could qualify as well.
The United States used to have a policy sort of like this. It was called the Immigration Act of 1924. Its actual specifics were dumb, because it banned for example Asians and Jews, but the principle behind it – groups with good outcomes and who are a good match for our values can immigrate as much as they want, everyone else has a slightly harder time – seems broadly wise. So of course progressives attacked it as racist and Worse Than Hitler and it got repealed in favor of the current policy: everyone has a really hard time immigrating but if anyone sneaks over the border under cover of darkness we grant them citizenship anyway because not doing that would be mean.
Once again, coming up with a fair and rational immigration policy wouldn’t require some incredibly interventionist act of state control. It would just require that we notice the hole we’ve been deliberately sticking ourselves in and stop digging.
Imperialism Strikes Back
In an externalist/progressive worldview, the best way to help disadvantaged minorities is to eliminate the influence of more privileged majority groups. In a culturalist/Reactionary worldview, the best way to help disadvantaged minorities is to try to maximize the influence of more privileged majority groups. This suggests re-examining colonialism. But first, a thought experiment.
Suppose you are going to be reincarnated as a black person (if you are already black, as a different black person). You may choose which country you will be born in; the rest is up to Fate. What country do you choose?
The top of my list would be Britain, with similar countries like Canada and America close behind. But what if you could only choose among majority-black African countries?
Several come to my mind as comparatively liveable. Kenya. Tanzania. Botswana. South Africa. Namibia (is your list similar?) And one thing these places all have in common was being heavily, heavily colonized by the British.
We compare the sole African country that was never colonized, Ethiopia. Ethiopia has become a byword for senseless suffering thanks to its coups, wars, genocides, and especially famines. This seems like counter-evidence to the “colonialism is the root of all evil” hypothesis.
Yes, colonization had some horrible episodes. Anyone who tries to say King Leopold II was anything less than one of the worst people who ever lived has zero right to be taken seriously. On the other hand, eventually the Belgian people got outraged enough to take it away from Leopold, after which there follows a fifty year period that was the only time in history when the Congo was actually a kind of nice place. Mencius Moldbug likes to link to a Time magazine article from the 1950s praising the peace and prosperity of the Congo as a model colony. Then in 1960 it became independent, and I don’t know what happens next because the series of civil wars and genocides and corrupt warlords after that are so horrible that I can’t even read all the way through the articles about them. Seriously, not necessarily in numbers but in sheer graphic brutality it is worse than the Holocaust, the Inquisition, and Mao combined and you do not want to know what makes me say this.
So yes, Leopold II is one of history’s great villains, but once he was taken off the scene colonial Congo improved markedly. And any attempt to attribute the nightmare that is the modern Congo to colonialism has to cope with the historical fact that the post-Leopold colonial Congo was actually pretty nice until it was decolonized at which point it immediately went to hell.
So the theory that colonialism is the source of all problems has to contend with the observation that heavily colonized countries are the most liveable, the sole never-colonized country is among the least liveable, and countries’ liveability plummeted drastically as soon as colonialism stopped.
But let’s stop picking on Africans. Suppose you are going to be reincarnated as a person of Middle Eastern descent (I would have said “Arab”, but then we would get into the whole ‘most Middle Easterners are not Arabs’ debate). Once again, you can choose your country. Where do you go?
Once again, Britain, US, or somewhere of that ilk sound like your best choices.
Okay, once again we’re ruling that out. You’ve got to go somewhere in the Middle East.
Your best choice is one of those tiny emirates where everyone is a relative of the emir and gets lots of oil money and is super-rich: I would go with Qatar. Let’s rule them out too.
Your next-best choice is Israel.
Yes, Israel. Note that I am not saying the Occupied Palestinian Territories; that would be just as bad a choice as you expect. I’m saying Israel, where 20% of the population is Arab, and about 16% Muslim.
Israeli Arabs earn on average about $6750 per year. Compare this to conditions in Israel’s Arab neighbors. In Egypt, average earnings are $6200; in Jordan, $5900; in Syria, only $5000.
Aside from the economics, there are other advantages. If you happen to be Muslim, you will have a heck of a lot easier time practicing your religion freely in Israel than in some Middle Eastern country where you follow the wrong sect of Islam. You’ll be allowed to vote for your government, something you can’t do in monarchical Jordan or war-torn Syria, and which Egypt is currently having, er, severe issues around. You can even criticize the government as much as you want (empirically quite a lot), a right Syrian and Egyptian Arabs are currently dying for. Finally, you get the benefit of living in a clean, safe, developed country with good health care and free education for all.
I’m not saying that Israeli Arabs aren’t discriminated against or have it as good as Israeli Jews. I’m just saying they have it better than Arabs in most other countries. Once again, we find that colonialism, supposed to be the root of all evil, is actually preferable to non-colonialism in most easily measurable ways.
It may be the case that pre-colonial societies were better than either colonial or post-colonial societies. I actually suspect this is true, in a weird Comanche Indians are better than all of us sort of sense. But “pre-colonial” isn’t a choice nowadays. Nowadays it’s “how much influence do we want the better parts of the West to have over countries that have already enthusiastically absorbed the worst parts of the West?” Whatever I may feel about the Safavid Dynasty, I would at least rather be born in Afghanistan-post-American-takeover than Afghanistan-pre-American-takeover.
So does this mean some sort of nightmarish “invade every country in the world, kill their leadership, and replace them with Americans, for their own good” type scenario?
Once again, no. Look at China. They’ve been quietly colonizing Africa for a decade now, and the continent has never been doing better. And by “colonizing”, I mean “investing in”, with probably some sketchy currying of influence and lobbying and property-gathering going on on the side. It’s been great for China, it’s been a hugely successful injection of money and technology into Africa, and they probably couldn’t have come up with a better humanitarian intervention if they had been trying.
Why hasn’t the West done it? Because every time an idea like that has been mooted, the progressives have shot it down with “You neo-colonialist! You’re worse than King Leopold II, who was himself worse than Hitler! By the transitive property, you are worse than Hitler!”
No one needs to go about invading anyone else or killing their government. But if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
The Uncanny Valley Of Dictatorship
I kind of skimmed over the Palestinian Territories in the last section. They are, indeed, a terrible dehumanizing place and the treatment of their citizens is an atrocity that blemishes a world which allows it to continue. Is this a strike against colonialism?
Any 19th century European aristocrat looking at the Palestinian Territories would note that Israel is being a terrible colonizer, not in a moral sense but in a purely observational sense. It’s not getting any money or resources out of its colony at all! It’s letting people totally just protest it and get away with it! They’ve even handed most of it over to a government of natives! Queen Victoria would not be amused.
Suppose a psychopath became Prime Minister of Israel (yes, obvious joke is obvious). He declares: “Today we are annexing the Palestinian territories. All Palestinians become Israeli residents with most of the rights of citizens except they can’t vote. If anyone speaks out against Israel, we’ll shoot them. If anyone commits a crime, we’ll shoot them.” What would happen?
Well, first, a lot of people would get shot. After that? The Palestinians would be in about the same position as Israeli Arabs are today, except without the right to vote, plus they get shot if they protest. This is vastly better than the position they’re in now, and better than the position of say the people of Syria who are poorer, also lack the right to vote, and also empirically get shot if they protest.
No more worries about roadblocks. No more worries about passports. No more worries about sanctions. No more worries about economic depression. The only worry is getting shot, and you can avoid that by never speaking out against Israel. Optimal? Probably not. A heck of a lot better than what the Palestinians have today? Seems possible.
It seems like there’s an uncanny valley of dictatorship. Having no dictator at all, the way it is here in America, is very good. Having a really really dictatorial dictator who controls everything, like the czar or this hypothetical Israeli psychopath, kinda sucks but it’s peaceful and you know exactly where you stand. Being somewhere in the middle, where it’s dictatorial enough to hurt, but not dictatorial enough for the dictator to feel secure enough to mostly leave you alone except when he wants something, is worse than either extreme.
Mencius Moldbug uses the fable of Fnargl, an omnipotent and invulnerable alien who becomes dictator of Earth. Fnargl is an old-fashioned greedy colonizer: he just wants to exploit Earth for as much gold as possible. He considers turning humans into slaves to work in gold mines, except some would have to be a special class of geologist slaves to plan the gold mines, and there would have to be other slaves to grow food to support the first two classes of slaves, and other slaves to be managers to coordinate all these other slaves, and so on. Eventually he realizes this is kind of dumb and there’s already a perfectly good economy. So he levies a 20% tax on every transaction (higher might hurt the economy) and uses the money to buy gold. Aside from this he just hangs out.
Fnargl has no reason to ban free speech: let people plot against him. He’s omnipotent and invulnerable; it’s not going to work. Banning free speech would just force him to spend money on jackbooted thugs which he could otherwise be spending on precious, precious gold. He has no reason to torture dissidents. What are they going to do if left unmolested? Overthrow him?
Moldbug claims that Fnargl’s government would not only be better than that of a less powerful human dictator like Mao, but that it would be literally better than the government we have today. Many real countries do restrict free speech or torture dissidents. And if you’re a libertarian, Fnargl’s “if it doesn’t disrupt gold production, I’m okay with it” line is a dream come true.
So if the Israelis want to improve the Palestinian Territories’ plight, they can do one of two things. First, they can grant it full independence. Second, they do exactly the opposite: can take away all of its independence and go full Fnargl.
We already know Israel doesn’t want to just grant full independence, which leaves “problem continues forever” or “crazy psychopath alien solution”. Could the latter really work?
Well, no. Why not? Because the Palestinians would probably freak out and start protesting en masse and the Israelis would have to shoot all of them and that would be horrible.
But it’s worth noting this is not just a natural state of the world. The British successfully colonized Palestine for several decades. They certainly tried the Fnargl approach: “No way you’re getting independence, so just sit here and deal with it or we shoot you.” It worked pretty well then. I would hazard a guess to say the average Palestinian did much better under British rule than they’re doing now. So why wouldn’t it work again?
In a word, progressivism. For fifty years, progressives have been telling the colonized people of the world “If anyone colonizes you, this is the worst thing in the world, and if you have any pride in yourself you must start a rebellion, even a futile rebellion, immediately.” This was non-obvious to people a hundred years ago, which is why people rarely did it. It was only after progressivism basically told colonized peoples “You’re not revolting yet? What are you, chicken?” that the modern difficulties in colonialism took hold. And it’s only after progressivism gained clout in the countries that rule foreign policy that it became politically impossible for a less progressive country to try colonialism.
If not for progressivism, Israel would have been able to peacefully annex the Palestinian territories as a colony with no more of a humanitarian crisis than Britain annexing New Zealand or somewhere. Everything would have been solved and everyone could have gone home in time for tea.
Once again, the problem with these holes is that we keep digging them. Maybe if we’d stop, there wouldn’t be so many holes anymore.
Humane, All Too Humane
There seem to be similar uncanny valley effects in the criminal justice system and in war.
Modern countries pride themselves on their humane treatment of prisoners. And by “humane”, I mean “lock them up in a horrible and psychologically traumatizing concrete jail for ten years of being beaten and raped and degraded, sometimes barely even seeing the sun or a green plant for that entire time, then put it on their permanent record so they can never get a good job or interact with normal people ever again when they come out.”
Compare this to what “inhumane” countries that were still into “cruel and unusual punishment” would do for the same crime. A couple of lashes with the whip, then you’re on your way.
Reader. You have just been convicted of grand theft auto (the crime, not the game). You’re innocent, but the prosecutor was very good at her job and you’ve used up all your appeals and you’re just going to have to accept the punishment. The judge gives you two options:
1) Five years in prison
2) Fifty strokes of the lash
Like everyone else except a few very interesting people who help provide erotic fantasies for the rest of us, I don’t like being whipped. But I would choose (2) in a fraction of a heartbeat.
And aside from being better for me, it would be better for society as well. We know that people who spend time in prison are both more likely to stay criminals in the future and better at being criminals. And each year in jail costs the State $50,000; more than it would cost to give a kid a year’s free tuition at Harvard. Cutting the prison system in half would free up approximately enough money to give free college tuition to all students at the best school they can get into.
But of course we don’t do that. We stick with the prisons and the rape and the kids who go work at McDonalds because they can’t afford college. Why? Progressives!
If we were to try to replace prison with some kind of corporal punishment, progressives would freak out and say we were cruel and inhumane. Since the prison population is disproportionately minority, they would probably get to use their favorite word-beginning-with-“R”, and allusions would be made to plantation owners who used to whip slaves. In fact, progressives would come up with some reason to oppose even giving criminals the option of corporal punishment (an option most would certainly take) and any politician insufficiently progressive to even recommend it would no doubt be in for some public flagellation himself, albeit of a less literal kind.
So once again, we have an uncanny valley. Being very nice to prisoners is humane and effective (Norway seems to be trying ths with some success), but we’re not going to do it because we’re dumb and it’s probably too expensive anyway. Being very strict to prisoners is humane and effective – the corporal punishment option. But being somewhere in the fuzzy middle is cruel to the prisoners and incredibly destructive to society – and it’s the only route the progressives will allow us to take.
Some Reactionaries have tried to apply the same argument to warfare. Suppose that during the Vietnam War, we had nuked Hanoi. What would have happened?
Okay, fine. The Russians would have nuked us and everyone in the world would have died. Bad example. But suppose the Russians were out of the way. Wouldn’t nuking Hanoi be a massive atrocity?
Yes. But compare it to the alternative. Nuking Hiroshima killed about 150,000 people. The Vietnam War killed about 3 million. The latter also had a much greater range of non-death effects, from people being raped and tortured and starved to tens of thousands ending up with post-traumatic stress disorder and countless lives being disrupted. If nuking Hanoi would have been an alternative to the Vietnam War, it would have been a really really good alternative.
Most of the countries America invades know they can’t defeat the US military long-term. Their victory condtion is helping US progressives bill the war as an atrocity and get the troops sent home. So the enemy’s incentive is to make the war drag on as long as possible and contain as many atrocities as possible. It’s not too hard to make the war drag on, because they can always just hide among civilians and be relatively confident the US is too humane to risk smoking them out. And it’s never too hard to commit atrocities. So they happily follow their incentives, and the progressives in the US happily hold up their side of the deal by agitating for the troops to be sent home, which they eventually are.
Compare this to the style of warfare in colonial days. “This is our country now, we’re not leaving, we don’t really care about atrocities, and we don’t really care how many civilians we end up killing.” It sounds incredibly ugly, but of colonial Britain or very-insistently-non-colonial USA, guess which one ended up pacifying Iraq after three months with only about 6,000 casualties, and guess which one took five years to re-establish a semblance of order and killed about 100,000 people in the process?
Once again we see an uncanny valley effect. Leaving Iraq alone completely would have been a reasonable humanitarian choice. Using utterly overwhelming force to pacify Iraq by any means necessary would have briefly been very ugly, but our enemies would have folded quickly and with a few assumptions this could also have been a reasonable humanitarian choice. But a wishy-washy half-hearted attempt to pacify Iraq that left the country in a state of low-grade poorly-defined war for nearly a decade was neither reasonable nor humanitarian.
Once again, the solution isn’t some drastic nightmare scenario where all prisoners are tortured and all wars are fought with sarin nerve gas. It’s that if prisoners prefer corporal punishment, progressives don’t call “racism!” or “atrocity!” so loudly that it becomes politically impossible to give them what they want. Once again, all we have to do is stop digging.
Gender! And Now That I Have Your Attention, Let’s Talk About Sex
So the two things Reactionaries like to complain about all the time are race and sex, and since we have more then gone overboard with our lengthy diversion into race, we might as well take a quick look at sex.
As far as I know, even the Reactionaries who are really into biological differences between races don’t claim that women are intellectually inferior to men. I don’t even think they necessarily believe there are biological differences between the two groups. And yet they are not really huge fans of feminism. Why?
Let’s start with some studies comparing gender roles and different outcomes.
Surveys of women show that they were on average happier fifty years ago than they are today. In fact, in the 1950s, women generally self-reported higher happiness than men; today, men report significantly higher happiness than women. So the history of the past fifty years – a history of more and more progressive attitudes toward gender – have been a history of women gradually becoming worse and worse off relative to their husbands and male friends.
This doesn’t necessarily condemn progressivism, but as the ancient proverb goes, it sure waggles its eyebrows suggestively and gestures furtively while mouthing ‘look over there’.
To confirm, we would want to look within a single moment in time: that is, are feminist women with progressive gender roles today less happy than their traditionalist peers? The answer appears to be yes.
Amusingly, because we do still live in a society where these things couldn’t be published unless someone took a progressivist tack, the New York Times article quoted above ends by saying the real problem is that men are jerks who don’t do their share of the housework.
But when we actually study this, we find that progressive marriages in which men and women split housework equally are 50% more likely to end in divorce than traditional marriages where the women mostly take care of it. The same is true of working outside the home: progressive marriages where both partners work are more likely to end in divorce than traditional marriages where the man works and the woman stays home.
Maybe this is just because the same people who are progressive enough to defy traditional gender roles are also the same people who are progressive enough not to think divorce is a sin? But this seems unlikely: in general religious people get divorced more than the irreligious. And since I did promise we’d be talking about sex, consider the studies showing people in traditional marriages have better sex lives than their feminist and progressive friends. This doesn’t seem like something that could easily be explained merely by religion, unless religion has gotten way cooler since the last time I attended synagogue.
So why is this? I have heard some reactionaries say that although there are not intellectual differences between men and women, there are emotional differences, and that women are (either for biological or cultural reasons) more “submissive” to men’s “dominant” – and a quick search of the BDSM community seems to both to validate the general rule and to showcase some very striking exceptions.
But my money would be on a simpler hypothesis. Every marriage involves conflict. The traditional concept of gender contains two roles that are divided in a time-tested way to minimize conflict as much as possible. In a perfect-spherical-cow sense, either the husband or the wife could step into either role, and it would still work just as well. But since men have been socialized for one role since childhood, and women socialized for the other role, it seems that in most cases the easiest solution is to stick them in the one they’ve been trained for.
We could also go with a third hypothesis: that women aren’t actually bizarre aliens from the planet Zygra’ax with completely inexplicable preferences. I mean, suppose you had the following two options:
1. A job working from home, where you are your own boss. The job description is “spending as much or as little time as you want with your own children and helping them grow and adjust to the adult world.” (but Sister Y also has a post on the childless alternative to this)
2. A job in the office, where you do have a boss, and she wants you to get her the Atkins report “by yesterday” or she is going to throw your sorry ass out on the street where it belongs, and there better not be any complaints about it this time.
Assume both jobs would give you exactly the same amount of social status and respect.
Now assume that suddenly a bunch of people come along saying that actually, only losers pick Job 1 and surely you’re not a loser, are you? And you have to watch all your former Job 1 buddies go out and take Job 2 and be praised for this and your husband asks why you aren’t going into Job 2 and contributing something to the family finances for once, and eventually you just give in and go to Job 2, but also you’ve got to do large portions of Job 1, and also the extra income mysteriously fails to give your family any more money and in fact you are worse off financially than before.
Is it so hard to imagine that a lot of women would be less happy under this new scenario?
Now of course (most) feminists very reasonably say that it’s Totally Okay If You Want To Stay Home And We’re Not Trying To Force Anyone. But let’s use the feminists’ own criteria on that one. Suppose Disney put out a series of movies in which they had lots of great female role models who only worked in the home and were subservient to their husbands all the time, and lauded them as real women who were courageous and awesome and sexy and not just poor oppressed stick-in-the-muds, and then at the end they flashed a brief message “But Of Course Working Outside The Home Is Totally Okay Also”. Do you think feminists would respond “Yeah, we have no problem with this, after all they did flash that message at the end”?
Aside from being better for women, traditional marriages seem to have many other benefits. They allow someone to bring up the children so that they don’t have to spend their childhood in front of the television being socialized by reruns of Drug-Using Hypersexual Gangsters With Machine Guns. They ensure that at least one member of each couple has time to be doing things that every household should be doing anyway, like keeping careful track of finances, attending parent-teacher conferences, and keeping in touch with family.
So do men need to force women to stay barefoot and in the kitchen all the time, and chase Marie Curie out of physics class so she can go home and bake for her husband?
By this point you may be noticing a trend. No, we don’t need to do that. If we stopped optimizing the media to send feminist messages as loud as possible, if we stopped actively opposing any even slightly positive portrayal of a housewife as “sexist” and “behind the times”, and if we stopped having entire huge lobby groups supported vehemently by millions of people dedicated entirely to making the problem worse, then maybe things would take care of themselves.
There’s some sort of metaphor here…something about dirt…or a shovel…nah, never mind.
Plays Well In Groups
Suppose you were kidnapped by terrorists, and you needed someone to organize a rescue. Would you prefer the task be delegated to the Unitarians, or the Mormons?
This question isn’t about whether you think an individual Unitarian or Mormon would make a better person to rush in Rambo-style and get you out of there. It’s about whether you would prefer the Unitarian Church or the Mormon Church to coordinate your rescue.
I would go with the Mormons. The Mormons seem effective in all sorts of ways. They’re effective evangelists. They’re effect fundraisers. They’re effective at keeping the average believer following their commandments. They would figure out a plan, implement it, and come in guns-blazing.
The Unitarians would be a disaster. First someone would interrupt the discussion to ask whether it’s fair to use the word “terrorists”, or whether we should use the less judgmental “militant”. Several people would note that until investigating the situation more clearly, they can’t even be sure the terrorists aren’t in the right in this case. In fact, what is “right” anyway? An attempt to shut down this discussion to focus more on the object-level problem would be met with cries of “censorship!”.
If anyone did come up with a plan, a hundred different pedants would try to display their intelligence by nitpicking meaningless details. Eventually some people would say that it’s an outrage that no one’s even considering whether the bullets being used are recyclable, and decide to split off and mount their own, ecologically-friendly rescue attempt. In the end, four different schismatic rescue attempts would run into each other, mistake each other for the enemy, and annhilate themselves while the actual terrorists never even hear about it.
(if it were Reform Jews, the story would be broadly similar, but with twenty different rescue attempts, and I say this fondly, as someone who attended a liberal synagogue for ten years)
One relevant difference between Mormons and Unitarians seems to be a cultural one. It’s not quite that the Mormons value conformity and the Unitarians value indivduality – that’s not exactly wrong, but it’s letting progressives bend language to their will, the same way as calling the two sides of the abortion debate “pro-freedom” and “anti-woman” or whatever they do nowadays. It’s more like a Mormon norm that the proper goal of a discussion is agreement, and a Unitarian norm that the proper goal of a discussion is disagreement.
There’s a saying I’ve heard in a lot of groups, which is something along the lines of “diversity is what unites us”. This is nice and memorable, but there are other groups where unity is what unites them, and they seem to be more, well, united.
Unity doesn’t just arise by a sudden and peculiar blessing of the angel Moroni. It’s the sort of thing you can create. Holidays and festivals and weird rituals create unity. If everyone jumps up and down three times on the summer solstice, then yes, objectively this is dumb, but you feel a little more bonded with the other people who do it: I’m one of the solstice-jumpers, and you’re one of the solstice-jumpers, and that makes us solstice-jumpers together.
Robert Putnam famously found that the greater the diversity in a community:
…the less people vote, the less they volunteer, and the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings. “The extent of the effect is shocking,” says Scott Paige, a University of Michigan political scientist.
I don’t think this effect is particularly related to race. I bet that if you throw together a community of white, black, Asian, Hispanic, and Martian Mormons, they act as a “non-diverse” community. As we saw before, culture trumps race.
So this sort of cultural unity is exactly the sort of thing we need to improve civic life and prevent racism…and of course, it’s exactly what progressives get enraged if we try to produce.
In America, progressivism focuses on pointing out how terrible American culture is and how much other people’s cultures are better than ours. If we celebrate Columbus Day, we have to spend the whole time hearing about what a jerk Columbus was (disclaimer: to be fair, Columbus was a huge jerk). If we celebrate Washington’s birthday, we have to spend the whole time hearing about how awful it was that Washington owned slaves. Goodness help us if someone tries to celebrate Christmas – there are now areas where if a city puts up Christmas decorations, it has to give equal space to atheist groups to put up displays about how Christmas is stupid and people who celebrate it suck. That’s…probably not the way to maximize cultural unity, exactly?
We are a culture engaged in the continuing project of subverting itself. Our heroes have been toppled, our rituals mocked, and one gains status by figuring out new and better ways to show how the things that should unite us are actually stupid and oppressive. Even the conservatives who wear American flag lapel pins and stuff spend most of their time talking about how they hate America today and the American government and everything else associated with America except for those stupid flag pins of theirs.
Compare this to olden cultures. If someone in Victorian Britain says “God save the Queen!”, then everyone else repeated “God save the Queen!”, and more important, they mean it. “England expects every man to do their duty” is actually perceived as a compelling reason why one’s duty should be done.
It would seem that the Victorian British are more on the Mormon side and modern Americans more like the Unitarians. And in fact, the Victorians managed to colonize half the planet while America can’t even get the Afghans to stop shooting each other. While one may not agree with Victorian Britain’s aims, one has to wonder what would happen if that kind of will, energy, and unity of purpose were directed towards a worthier goal (I wonder this about the Mormon Church too).
Reactionaries would go further and explore this idea in a depth I don’t have time for, besides to say that they believe many historical cultures were carefully optimized and time-tested for unifying potential, and that they really sunk deep into the bones of the populace until failing to identify with them would have been unthinkable. The three cultures they most often cite as virtuous examples here are Imperial China, medieval Catholicism, and Victorian Britain; although it would be foolish to try to re-establish one of those exactly in a population not thoroughly steeped in them, we could at least try to make our own culture a little more like they were.
Once again, the Reactionary claim is not necessarily that we have to brainwash people or drag the Jews kicking and screaming to Christmas parties. It’s just that maybe we should stop deliberately optimizing society for as little unity and shared culture as humanly possible.
Reach For The Tsars
I have noticed a tendency of mine to reply to arguments with “Well yeah, that would work for the X Czar, but there’s no such thing.”
For example, take the problems with the scientific community, which my friends in Berkeley often discuss. There’s lots of publication bias, statistics are done in a confusing and misleading way out of sheer inertia, and replications often happen very late or not at all. And sometimes someone will say something like “I can’t believe people are too dumb to fix Science. All we would have to do is require early registration of studies to avoid publication bias, turn this new and powerful statistical technique into the new standard, and accord higher status to scientists who do replication experiments. It would be really simple and it would vastly increase scientific progress. I must just be smarter than all existing scientists, since I’m able to think of this and they aren’t.”
And I answer “Well, yeah, that would work for the Science Czar. He could just make a Science Decree that everyone has to use the right statistics, and make another Science Decree that everyone must accord replications higher status. And since we all follow the Science Czar’s Science Decrees, it would all work perfectly!”
Why exactly am I being so sarcastic? Because things that work from a czar’s-eye view don’t work from within the system. No individual scientist has an incentive to unilaterally switch to the new statistical technique for her own research, since it would make her research less likely to produce earth-shattering results and since it would just confuse all the other scientists. They just have an incentive to want everybody else to do it, at which point they would follow along.
Likewise, no journal has the incentive to unilaterally demand early registration, since that just means everyone who forgot to early register their studies would switch to their competitors’ journals.
And since the system is only made of individual scientists and individual journals, no one is ever going to switch and science will stay exactly as it is.
I use this “czar” terminology a lot. Like when people talk about reforming the education system, I point out that right now students’ incentive is to go to the most prestigious college they can get into so employers will hire them, employers’ incentive is to get students from the most prestigious college they can so that they can defend their decision to their boss if it goes wrong, and colleges’ incentive is to do whatever it takes to get more prestige, as measured in US News and World Report rankings. Does this lead to huge waste and poor education? Yes. Could an Education Czar notice this and make some Education Decrees that lead to a vastly more efficient system? Easily! But since there’s no Education Czar everybody is just going to follow their own incentives, which have nothing to do with education or efficiency.
There is an extraordinarily useful pattern of refactored agency in which you view humans as basically actors playing roles determined |
' and a version.properties file could not be found. Falling back to metadata version 0.0.1.2 [19:17:42] [Client thread/WARN] [MrTJPCoreMod]: Mod MrTJPCoreMod is missing the required element'version' and a version.properties file could not be found. Falling back to metadata version 1.1.0.33 [19:17:42] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Forge Mod Loader has identified 179 mods to load [19:17:42] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Found mod(s) [GraviSuite] containing declared API package buildcraft.api.tools (owned by BuildCraftAPI|core) without associated API reference [19:17:42] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Found mod(s) [ExtraUtilities] containing declared API package baubles.api (owned by Baubles) without associated API reference [19:17:42] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Found mod(s) [EnderIO] containing declared API package com.cricketcraft.chisel.api (owned by chisel) without associated API reference [19:17:42] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Found mod(s) [ImmersiveEngineering] containing declared API package cofh.api (owned by CoFHLib) without associated API reference [19:17:42] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Found mod(s) [SolarExpansion] containing declared API package cofh.api.item (owned by CoFHAPI) without associated API reference [19:17:42] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Found mod(s) [ExtraUtilities] containing declared API package cofh.api.item (owned by CoFHAPI) without associated API reference [19:17:42] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Found mod(s) [CoFHCore] containing declared API package cofh.api.item (owned by CoFHAPI) without associated API reference [19:17:42] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Found mod(s) [EnderIO] containing declared API package cofh.api.item (owned by CoFHAPI) without associated API reference [19:17:42] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Found mod(s) [EnderTech] containing declared API package cofh.api.item (owned by CoFHAPI) without associated API reference [19:17:42] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Found mod(s) [ImmersiveEngineering] containing declared API package cofh.api.item (owned by CoFHAPI) without associated API reference [19:17:42] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Found mod(s) [RedstoneArsenal] containing declared API package ic2.api.tile (owned by IC2) without associated API reference [19:17:42] [Client thread/WARN] [MineFactoryReloaded|CompatAtum]: Mod MineFactoryReloaded|CompatAtum has been disabled through configuration [19:17:42] [Client thread/WARN] [MineFactoryReloaded|CompatBackTools]: Mod MineFactoryReloaded|CompatBackTools has been disabled through configuration [19:17:42] [Client thread/WARN] [MineFactoryReloaded|CompatChococraft]: Mod MineFactoryReloaded|CompatChococraft has been disabled through configuration [19:17:42] [Client thread/WARN] [MineFactoryReloaded|CompatExtraBiomes]: Mod MineFactoryReloaded|CompatExtraBiomes has been disabled through configuration [19:17:42] [Client thread/WARN] [MineFactoryReloaded|CompatSufficientBiomes]: Mod MineFactoryReloaded|CompatSufficientBiomes has been disabled through configuration [19:17:43] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: FML has found a non-mod file Binnie Patcher 1.6.jar in your mods directory. It will now be injected into your classpath. This could severe stability issues, it should be removed if possible. [19:17:43] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: FML has found a non-mod file CoFHLib-[1.7.10]1.1.1-181.jar in your mods directory. It will now be injected into your classpath. This could severe stability issues, it should be removed if possible. [19:17:43] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: FML has found a non-mod file mcjtylib-1.8.1.jar in your mods directory. It will now be injected into your classpath. This could severe stability issues, it should be removed if possible. [19:17:43] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: FML has found a non-mod file Patcher.jar in your mods directory. It will now be injected into your classpath. This could severe stability issues, it should be removed if possible. [19:17:43] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: FML has found a non-mod file CodeChickenLib-1.7.10-1.1.3.138-universal.jar in your mods directory. It will now be injected into your classpath. This could severe stability issues, it should be removed if possible. [19:17:43] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: FML has found a non-mod file commons-codec-1.9.jar in your mods directory. It will now be injected into your classpath. This could severe stability issues, it should be removed if possible. [19:17:43] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: FML has found a non-mod file commons-compress-1.8.1.jar in your mods directory. It will now be injected into your classpath. This could severe stability issues, it should be removed if possible. [19:17:44] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Attempting connection with missing mods [mcp, FML, Forge, appliedenergistics2-core, CodeChickenCore, NotEnoughItems, ThE-core, ThaumicTinkerer-preloader, ChocoPatcher, OpenModsCore, <CoFH ASM>, BinniePatcher, FastCraft, AdvancedSolarPanel, AgriCraft, aobd, appliedenergistics2, Avaritia, bdlib, BiblioCraft, BiblioWoodsBoP, BiblioWoodsForestry, BiblioWoodsNatura, BigReactors, Botany, BinnieCore, ExtraBees, ExtraTrees, Genetics, BiomesOPlenty, AWWayofTime, Botania, BrandonsCore, BuildCraft|Builders, BuildCraft|Transport, BuildCraft|Energy, BuildCraft|Silicon, BuildCraft|Robotics, BuildCraft|Core, BuildCraft|Factory, BuildCraft|Compat, CarpentersBlocks, chisel, CoFHCore, ComputerCraft, CustomMainMenu, PTRModelLib, props, debug, denseores, DraconicEvolution, endercore, EnderIO, EnderStorage, EnderTech, EnderZoo, extracells, ExtraTiC, ExtraUtilities, fastleafdecay, ForbiddenMagic, Forestry, FTBL, FTBT, FTBU, funkylocomotion, gendustry, GraviSuite, guideapi, Hats, HatStand, headcrumbs, IC2NuclearControl, iChunUtil, ImmersiveEngineering, immersiveintegration, IC2, inpure|core, inventorytweaks, IronChest, JABBA, journeymap, LogisticsPipes, MagicBees, Mantle, MineFactoryReloaded, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatAppliedEnergistics, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatBuildCraft, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatForestry, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatForgeMicroblock, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatIC2, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatProjRed, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatRailcraft, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatThaumcraft, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatThermalExpansion, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatTConstruct, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatTwilightForest, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatVanilla, MineTweaker3, modtweaker2, Morpheus, Mystcraft, Natura, NEIAddons, NEIAddons|Developer, NEIAddons|AppEng, NEIAddons|Botany, NEIAddons|Forestry, NEIAddons|CraftingTables, NEIAddons|ExNihilo, neiintegration, NetherOres, neresources, OpenBlocks, OpenMods, OpenPeripheral, OpenPeripheralCore, OpenPeripheralIntegration, harvestcraft, PortalGun, ProjRed|Core, ProjRed|Compatibility, ProjRed|Integration, ProjRed|Transmission, ProjRed|Illumination, ProjRed|Expansion, ProjRed|Transportation, ProjRed|Exploration, Railcraft, RedstoneArsenal, ResourceLoader, rftools, runicdungeons, simplyjetpacks, SolarExpansion, springboards, StevesAddons, StevesCarts, StevesFactoryManager, StevesWorkshop, StorageDrawers, StorageDrawersBop, StorageDrawersForestry, StorageDrawersMisc, StorageDrawersNatura, tcinventoryscan, TConstruct, Thaumcraft, thaumcraftneiplugin, thaumicenergistics, ThaumicExploration, ThaumicTinkerer, ThermalDynamics, ThermalExpansion, ThermalFoundation, TiCTooltips, TMechworks, Translocator, TwilightForest, Waila, WailaHarvestability, wawla, witchery, WR-CBE|Core, WR-CBE|Addons, WR-CBE|Logic, Baubles, ForgeMicroblock, ForgeMultipart, McMultipart, MCFrames, ForgeRelocation, RelocationFMP, MrTJPCoreMod] at CLIENT [19:17:44] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Attempting connection with missing mods [mcp, FML, Forge, appliedenergistics2-core, CodeChickenCore, NotEnoughItems, ThE-core, ThaumicTinkerer-preloader, ChocoPatcher, OpenModsCore, <CoFH ASM>, BinniePatcher, FastCraft, AdvancedSolarPanel, AgriCraft, aobd, appliedenergistics2, Avaritia, bdlib, BiblioCraft, BiblioWoodsBoP, BiblioWoodsForestry, BiblioWoodsNatura, BigReactors, Botany, BinnieCore, ExtraBees, ExtraTrees, Genetics, BiomesOPlenty, AWWayofTime, Botania, BrandonsCore, BuildCraft|Builders, BuildCraft|Transport, BuildCraft|Energy, BuildCraft|Silicon, BuildCraft|Robotics, BuildCraft|Core, BuildCraft|Factory, BuildCraft|Compat, CarpentersBlocks, chisel, CoFHCore, ComputerCraft, CustomMainMenu, PTRModelLib, props, debug, denseores, DraconicEvolution, endercore, EnderIO, EnderStorage, EnderTech, EnderZoo, extracells, ExtraTiC, ExtraUtilities, fastleafdecay, ForbiddenMagic, Forestry, FTBL, FTBT, FTBU, funkylocomotion, gendustry, GraviSuite, guideapi, Hats, HatStand, headcrumbs, IC2NuclearControl, iChunUtil, ImmersiveEngineering, immersiveintegration, IC2, inpure|core, inventorytweaks, IronChest, JABBA, journeymap, LogisticsPipes, MagicBees, Mantle, MineFactoryReloaded, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatAppliedEnergistics, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatBuildCraft, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatForestry, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatForgeMicroblock, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatIC2, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatProjRed, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatRailcraft, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatThaumcraft, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatThermalExpansion, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatTConstruct, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatTwilightForest, MineFactoryReloaded|CompatVanilla, MineTweaker3, modtweaker2, Morpheus, Mystcraft, Natura, NEIAddons, NEIAddons|Developer, NEIAddons|AppEng, NEIAddons|Botany, NEIAddons|Forestry, NEIAddons|CraftingTables, NEIAddons|ExNihilo, neiintegration, NetherOres, neresources, OpenBlocks, OpenMods, OpenPeripheral, OpenPeripheralCore, OpenPeripheralIntegration, harvestcraft, PortalGun, ProjRed|Core, ProjRed|Compatibility, ProjRed|Integration, ProjRed|Transmission, ProjRed|Illumination, ProjRed|Expansion, ProjRed|Transportation, ProjRed|Exploration, Railcraft, RedstoneArsenal, ResourceLoader, rftools, runicdungeons, simplyjetpacks, SolarExpansion, springboards, StevesAddons, StevesCarts, StevesFactoryManager, StevesWorkshop, StorageDrawers, StorageDrawersBop, StorageDrawersForestry, StorageDrawersMisc, StorageDrawersNatura, tcinventoryscan, TConstruct, Thaumcraft, thaumcraftneiplugin, thaumicenergistics, ThaumicExploration, ThaumicTinkerer, ThermalDynamics, ThermalExpansion, ThermalFoundation, TiCTooltips, TMechworks, Translocator, TwilightForest, Waila, WailaHarvestability, wawla, witchery, WR-CBE|Core, WR-CBE|Addons, WR-CBE|Logic, Baubles, ForgeMicroblock, ForgeMultipart, McMultipart, MCFrames, ForgeRelocation, RelocationFMP, MrTJPCoreMod] at SERVER [19:17:44] [Client thread/INFO] [ForgeRelocation]: transforming: net.minecraft.client.renderer.tileentity.TileEntityRendererDispatcher [19:17:44] [Client thread/INFO] [ForgeRelocation]: bmk net.minecraft.client.renderer.tileentity.TileEntityRendererDispatcher a (Laor;F)V [19:17:44] [Client thread/INFO] [Patcher]: Suceeded in transforming AdvancedSolarPanel (1 recipe item) [19:17:45] [Client thread/INFO] [ThE-Core]: Transforming Class (thaumcraft/client/renderers/entity/RenderGolemBase) [19:17:46] [Client thread/INFO] [Binnie Patcher]: Succeeded in transforming binnie.extratrees.block.decor.BlockFence [19:17:46] [Client thread/INFO] [Brandon's Core]: Hello Minecraft!!! [19:17:46] [Client thread/INFO] [Draconic Evolution]: Hello Minecraft!!! [19:17:47] [Client thread/INFO] [TConstruct]: Natura, what are we going to do tomorrow night? [19:17:47] [Client thread/INFO] [Natura]: TConstruct, we're going to take over the world! [19:17:48] [Client thread/INFO] [Patcher]: Suceeded in transforming GraviSuite (3 recipe items) [19:17:48] [Client thread/INFO] [Patcher]: Suceeded in transforming BlockRelocatorPortal [19:17:48] [Client thread/INFO] [Patcher]: Suceeded in transforming ItemSimpleItems [19:17:48] [Client thread/INFO] [Patcher]: Suceeded in transforming ClientTickHandler [19:17:48] [Client thread/INFO] [Patcher]: Suceeded in transforming KeyboardClient [19:17:49] [Client thread/INFO] [OpenMods]: openperipheral.ApiSetup.installProviderAccess(ApiSetup.java:85): OPC API v. 3.4 provideded by OpenPeripheralCore, (ApiAccess source: jar:file:/C:/ftb/FTBInfinity/minecraft/mods/OpenPeripheralCore-1.7.10-1.3.jar!/openperipheral/api/ApiAccess.class) [19:17:50] [Client thread/INFO] [RunicDungeons]: There was supposed to be something witty here, I'm sorry. [19:17:51] [Client thread/INFO]: Reloading ResourceManager: Default, FMLFileResourcePack:Forge Mod Loader, FMLFileResourcePack:Minecraft Forge, FMLFileResourcePack:Not Enough Items, FMLFileResourcePack:Advanced Solar Panels, FMLFileResourcePack:AgriCraft, FMLFileResourcePack:Another One Bites The Dust, FMLFileResourcePack:Applied Energistics 2, FMLFileResourcePack:Avaritia, FMLFileResourcePack:BD Lib, FMLFileResourcePack:BiblioCraft, FMLFileResourcePack:BiblioWoods Biomes O'Plenty Edition, FMLFileResourcePack:BiblioWoods Forestry Edition, FMLFileResourcePack:BiblioWoods Natura Edition, FMLFileResourcePack:Big Reactors, FMLFileResourcePack:Botany, FMLFileResourcePack:Binnie Core, FMLFileResourcePack:Extra Bees, FMLFileResourcePack:Extra Trees, FMLFileResourcePack:Genetics, FMLFileResourcePack:Biomes O' Plenty, FMLFileResourcePack:Blood Magic: Alchemical Wizardry, FMLFileResourcePack:Botania, FMLFileResourcePack:Brandon's Core, FMLFileResourcePack:BC Builders, FMLFileResourcePack:BC Transport, FMLFileResourcePack:BC Energy, FMLFileResourcePack:BC Silicon, FMLFileResourcePack:BC Robotics, FMLFileResourcePack:BuildCraft, FMLFileResourcePack:BC Factory, FMLFileResourcePack:BuildCraft Compat, FMLFileResourcePack:Carpenter's Blocks, FMLFileResourcePack:Chisel, FMLFileResourcePack:CoFH Core, FMLFileResourcePack:ComputerCraft, FMLFileResourcePack:Custom Main Menu, FMLFileResourcePack:PTRModelLib, FMLFileResourcePack:Decocraft, FMLFileResourcePack:debug, FMLFileResourcePack:Dense Ores, FMLFileResourcePack:Draconic Evolution, FMLFileResourcePack:EnderCore, FMLFileResourcePack:Ender IO, FMLFileResourcePack:EnderStorage, FMLFileResourcePack:EnderTech, FMLFileResourcePack:Ender Zoo, FMLFileResourcePack:Extra Cells 2, FMLFileResourcePack:ExtraTiC, FMLFileResourcePack:Extra Utilities, FMLFileResourcePack:Fast Leaf Decay, FMLFileResourcePack:Forbidden Magic, FMLFileResourcePack:Forestry for Minecraft, FMLFileResourcePack:FTBLib, FMLFileResourcePack:FTB Tweaks, FMLFileResourcePack:FTBUtilities, FMLFileResourcePack:Funky Locomotion, FMLFileResourcePack:GenDustry, FMLFileResourcePack:Graviation Suite, FMLFileResourcePack:Guide-API, FMLFileResourcePack:Hats, FMLFileResourcePack:HatStand, FMLFileResourcePack:Headcrumbs, FMLFileResourcePack:Nuclear Control 2, FMLFileResourcePack:iChunUtil, FMLFileResourcePack:Immersive Engineering, FMLFileResourcePack:Immersive Integration, FMLFileResourcePack:IndustrialCraft 2, FMLFileResourcePack:INpureCore, FMLFileResourcePack:Inventory Tweaks, FMLFileResourcePack:Iron Chest, FMLFileResourcePack:JABBA, FMLFileResourcePack:JourneyMap, FMLFileResourcePack:Logistics Pipes, FMLFileResourcePack:Magic Bees, FMLFileResourcePack:Mantle, FMLFileResourcePack:MineFactory Reloaded, FMLFileResourcePack:MFR Compat: Applied Energistics, FMLFileResourcePack:MFR Compat: BuildCraft, FMLFileResourcePack:MFR Compat: Forestry, FMLFileResourcePack:MFR Compat: ForgeMicroblock, FMLFileResourcePack:MFR Compat: IC2, FMLFileResourcePack:MFR Compat ProjectRed, FMLFileResourcePack:MFR Compat: Railcraft, FMLFileResourcePack:MFR Compat: Thaumcraft, FMLFileResourcePack:MFR Compat: Thermal Expansion, FMLFileResourcePack:MFR Compat: Tinkers' Construct, FMLFileResourcePack:MFR Compat: TwilightForest, FMLFileResourcePack:MFR Compat: Vanilla, FMLFileResourcePack:MineTweaker 3, FMLFileResourcePack:Mod Tweaker 2, FMLFileResourcePack:Morpheus, FMLFileResourcePack:Mystcraft, FMLFileResourcePack:Natura, FMLFileResourcePack:NEI Addons, FMLFileResourcePack:NEI Addons: Developer Tools, FMLFileResourcePack:NEI Addons: Applied Energistics 2, FMLFileResourcePack:NEI Addons: Botany, FMLFileResourcePack:NEI Addons: Forestry, FMLFileResourcePack:NEI Addons: Crafting Tables, FMLFileResourcePack:NEI Addons: Ex Nihilo, FMLFileResourcePack:NEI Integration, FMLFileResourcePack:Nether Ores, FMLFileResourcePack:Not Enough Resources, FMLFileResourcePack:OpenBlocks, FMLFileResourcePack:OpenMods, FMLFileResourcePack:OpenPeripheralAddons, FMLFileResourcePack:OpenPeripheralCore, FMLFileResourcePack:OpenPeripheralIntegration, FMLFileResourcePack:Pam's HarvestCraft, FMLFileResourcePack:PortalGun, FMLFileResourcePack:ProjectRed Core, FMLFileResourcePack:ProjectRed Compatibility, FMLFileResourcePack:ProjectRed Integration, FMLFileResourcePack:ProjectRed Transmission, FMLFileResourcePack:ProjectRed Illumination, FMLFileResourcePack:ProjectRed Expansion, FMLFileResourcePack:ProjectRed Transportation, FMLFileResourcePack:ProjectRed Exploration, FMLFileResourcePack:Railcraft, FMLFileResourcePack:Redstone Arsenal, FMLFileResourcePack:Resource Loader, FMLFileResourcePack:RFTools, FMLFileResourcePack:Runic Dungeons, FMLFileResourcePack:Simply Jetpacks, FMLFileResourcePack:Solar Expansion, FMLFileResourcePack:Spring Boards, FMLFileResourcePack:Steve's Addons, FMLFileResourcePack:Steve's Carts 2, FMLFileResourcePack:Steve's Factory Manager, FMLFileResourcePack:Steve's Workshop, FMLFileResourcePack:Storage Drawers, FMLFileResourcePack:Storage Drawers: Biomes O' Plenty Pack, FMLFileResourcePack:Storage Drawers: Forestry Pack, FMLFileResourcePack:Storage Drawers: Misc Pack, FMLFileResourcePack:Storage Drawers: Natura Pack, FMLFileResourcePack:TC Inventory Scanning, FMLFileResourcePack:Tinkers' Construct, FMLFileResourcePack:Thaumcraft, FMLFileResourcePack:Thaumcraft NEI Plugin, FMLFileResourcePack:Thaumic Energistics, FMLFileResourcePack:Thaumic Exploration, FMLFileResourcePack:Thaumic Tinkerer, FMLFileResourcePack:Thermal Dynamics, FMLFileResourcePack:Thermal Expansion, FMLFileResourcePack:Thermal Foundation, FMLFileResourcePack:TiC Tooltips, FMLFileResourcePack:Tinkers' Mechworks, FMLFileResourcePack:Translocator, FMLFileResourcePack:The Twilight Forest, FMLFileResourcePack:Waila, FMLFileResourcePack:Waila Harvestability, FMLFileResourcePack:What Are We Looking At, FMLFileResourcePack:Witchery, FMLFileResourcePack:WR-CBE Core, FMLFileResourcePack:WR-CBE Addons, FMLFileResourcePack:WR-CBE Logic, FMLFileResourcePack:Baubles, FMLFileResourcePack:Forge Microblocks, FMLFileResourcePack:Forge Multipart, FMLFileResourcePack:Minecraft Multipart Plugin, FMLFileResourcePack:MCFrames, FMLFileResourcePack:ForgeRelocation, FMLFileResourcePack:RelocationFMP, FMLFileResourcePack:MrTJPCore [19:17:51] [Client thread/WARN]: ResourcePack: ignored non-lowercase namespace: alchemicalwizardryBooks in C:\ftb\FTBInfinity\minecraft\mods\BloodMagic-1.7.10-1.3.3-17.jar [19:17:51] [Client thread/WARN]: ResourcePack: ignored non-lowercase namespace: alchemicalwizardryBooks in C:\ftb\FTBInfinity\minecraft\mods\BloodMagic-1.7.10-1.3.3-17.jar [19:17:51] [Client thread/WARN]: ResourcePack: ignored non-lowercase namespace: alchemicalwizardryBooks in C:\ftb\FTBInfinity\minecraft\mods\BloodMagic-1.7.10-1.3.3-17.jar [19:17:51] [Client thread/WARN]: ResourcePack: ignored non-lowercase namespace: alchemicalwizardryBooks in C:\ftb\FTBInfinity\minecraft\mods\BloodMagic-1.7.10-1.3.3-17.jar [19:17:51] [Client thread/WARN]: ResourcePack: ignored non-lowercase namespace: alchemicalwizardryBooks in C:\ftb\FTBInfinity\minecraft\mods\BloodMagic-1.7.10-1.3.3-17.jar [19:17:51] [Client thread/WARN]: ResourcePack: ignored non-lowercase namespace: alchemicalwizardryBooks in C:\ftb\FTBInfinity\minecraft\mods\BloodMagic-1.7.10-1.3.3-17.jar [19:17:51] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Processing ObjectHolder annotations [19:17:51] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Found 438 ObjectHolder annotations [19:17:51] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Identifying ItemStackHolder annotations [19:17:51] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Found 0 ItemStackHolder annotations [19:17:51] [Client thread/INFO] [FML]: Configured a dormant chunk cache size of 0 [19:17:51] [Client thread/INFO] [FastCraft]: FastCraft 1.23 loaded. [19:17:52] [Thread-10/INFO] [FastCraft]: You are using the latest suitable version. [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [EnderCore]: Transforming Class [net.minecraft.enchantment.EnchantmentHelper], Method [func_77513_b] [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [EnderCore]: Transforming net.minecraft.enchantment.EnchantmentHelper Finished. [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:crops [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:seedAnalyzer [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:waterPad [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:waterPadFull [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:waterTank [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:waterChannel [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:waterChannelFull [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:channelValve [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:sprinkler [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:seedStorage [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:peripheral [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:fence [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:fenceGate [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:grate [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:cropPotato [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:seedPotato [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:cropCarrot [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:seedCarrot [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:cropSugarcane [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:seedSugarcane [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:cropDandelion [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:seedDandelion [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:cropPoppy [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:seedPoppy [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:cropOrchid [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:seedOrchid [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:cropAllium [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:seedAllium [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:cropTulipRed [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:seedTulipRed [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:cropTulipOrange [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:seedTulipOrange [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:cropTulipWhite [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:seedTulipWhite [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:cropTulipPink [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:seedTulipPink [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:cropDaisy [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:seedDaisy [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:cropCactus [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:seedCactus [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:cropShroomRed [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:seedShroomRed [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering tile.agricraft:cropShroomBrown [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:seedShroomBrown [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: Crops registered [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:cropsItem [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:journal [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:magnifyingGlass [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:debugger [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:trowel [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:handRake [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:clipper [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AgriCraft]: registering item.agricraft:clipping [19:17:52] [Client thread/INFO] [AE2:C]: Pre Initialization ( started ) [19:17:53] [Client thread/INFO] [AE2-CORE]: func_145839_a(Lnet/minecraft/nbt/NBTTagCompound;)V - Transformed [19:17:53] [Client thread/INFO] [AE2-CORE]: func_145841_b(Lnet/minecraft/nbt/NBTTagCompound;)V - Transformed [19:17:53] [Client thread/INFO] [AE2-CORE]: Allowing Interface ic2.api.energy.tile.IEnergySink from appeng/tile/powersink/IC2 because IC2 integration is enabled. [19:17:53] [Client thread/INFO] [AE2-CORE]: Removing Interface Reika.RotaryCraft.API.Power.AdvancedShaftPowerReceiver from appeng/tile/powersink/RotaryCraft because RotaryCraft integration is disabled. [19:17:53] [Client thread/INFO] [AE2-CORE]: Removing Interface Reika.RotaryCraft.API.Interfaces.Transducerable from appeng/tile/powersink/RotaryCraft because RotaryCraft integration is disabled. [19:17:53] [Client thread/INFO] [AE2-CORE]: Removing Method Tick_RotaryCraft from appeng/tile/powersink/RotaryCraft because RotaryCraft integration is disabled. [19:17:53] [Client thread/INFO] [AE2-CORE]: Updated appeng/tile/powersink/RotaryCraft [19:17:53] [Client thread/INFO] [AE2-CORE]: Allowing Interface cofh.api.energy.IEnergyReceiver from appeng/tile/powersink/RedstoneFlux because RF integration is enabled. [19:17:53] [Client thread/INFO] [AE2-CORE]: Removing Interface mekanism.api.energy.IStrictEnergyAcceptor from appeng/tile/powersink/MekJoules because Mekanism integration is disabled. 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[19:17:53] [Client thread/INFO] [AE2-CORE]: Allowing Interface cofh.api.energy.IEnergyReceiver from appeng/parts/p2p/PartP2PRFPower because RF integration is enabled. [19:17:53 |
, he said.
"Most of the other nations out there are willing to live with a nuclear-armed Iran" he said, citing France, Germany and the United Kingdom in particular.
Cheney was echoing his daughter's comments during the formal debate at Rockefeller University on Manhattan's East Side.
"If they believe the threat of military force is on the table that’s frankly the only thing I’ve seen that convinces them they’d better get serious about sanctions," Elizabeth Cheney, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, said of U.S. allies at the formal, Oxford-style debate, sponsored by the Rosenkranz Foundation.
"You negotiated for weak sanctions," she told Burns.
"No I didn’t," he replied, at one point noting that it seemed as if he and Ms. Cheney "live in alternate universes."
"We ought to have the courage to see it and the courage to admit it," Burns said, "What President Obama is trying to do is to create a new type of diplomacy," which he described as "tough-minded."
Cheney and Senor, he said, are "leaving [Obama] with one option -- and that is war."
Liz Cheney noted that she was "somewhere to the right of many people in the audience tonight, with one or two notable exceptions," indicating her father, but the former Vice President was in fact quite well-received on the hostile Manhattan terrain: He received a round of applause, and a lone hiss, when introduced, and he signed autographs after the event.Jump Point Subscribers receive Jump Point, Star Citizen’s official digital magazine. This monthly full-color publication includes exclusive behind-the-scenes articles and interviews into the development process of Star Citizen and Squadron 42. Subscribers can also access the entire collection of Jump Point back issues at any time. Yes Yes
First-Wave PTU Access Your subscription grants you first-wave access to Star Citizen’s Persistent Test Universe (PTU) where you’ll get to experience and help test patches and releases before they go live to all backers. Yes Yes
Ship of the Month This program gives Subscribers the chance to pilot a flyable ship every month, enjoying unlimited access until it is switched out for a different ship the following month. A great way to try out that ship you’ve had your eye on, before pledging for it. Yes Yes
Flair Subscribers receive an exclusive digital flair item, from hangar collectibles to in-game accouterment like special weapon skins, awarded monthly. Your subscription also allows access to the Flair Store, where previously issued pieces are available for purchase. Imperator-level Subscribers receive a special variant in addition to the standard flair item. 1x 2x
REC Stipend Subscribers are allotted a monthly stipend of REC (Rental Equipment Credits) which can be used in the Electronic Access store to rent ships or weapons. Centurion-level Subscribers receive 20,000 REC monthly, while Imperator-level Subscribers get 40,000. 20,000 REC 40,000 REC
Imperator Test Flight As an Imperator-level Subscriber, you’ll get one week to test fly newly flight-ready ships and variants with our live quarterly releases. No Yes
Subscriber's Den Meet like-minded Citizens and interact with CIG staff in our intimate subscriber-only chatroom and forum. Yes Yes
Early access to purchase event tickets Active Subscribers get VIP access to tickets for events produced by CIG, such as CitizenCon, giving them the opportunity to secure a spot before anyone else. Yes Yes
Exclusive Imperator Events Imperator-level Subscribers get the chance to attend several exclusive events throughout the year at our studios around the globe. Upcoming events will be announced in advance, through the monthly Subscriber newsletter with tickets available to Imperators on a first-come-first serve basis. No Yes
the vault The Vault contains collections of Star Citizen concept art and work-in-progress renderings, a rare look at images and designs that otherwise wouldn’t be seen. Yes Yes
Town Hall Every month, Subscribers can submit questions for our developers, some of which will be answered in our monthly Town Hall web series. Yes Yes
Merchandise Discounts and Exclusive Digital Sales As a Subscriber you’re eligible for discounted Star Citizen and Squadron 42 merchandise and exclusive limited ship pledges through the RSI store. Yes Yes
Discounted Annual Plans & Passes If you purchase an annual Centurion or Imperator plan or pass, you’ll receive the 12-month Subscription for the price of 11. Please note that this does not apply to monthly plans and passes. Yes YesNow that the Republicans’ cobbled-together healthcare plan the AHCA is kaput, Senator Bernie Sanders has returned with one his most popular campaign topics: Medicare-for-all.
Speaking on MSNBC on Friday, Senator Sanders indicated that he was soon to introduce legislation in order to achieve the long-held progressive goal of applying the government program of Medicare to all American citizens. Sanders has long argued that the best plan in American would be to create a single-payer system that could streamline healthcare in America and ensure that all Americans have access to comprehensive healthcare.
During the debate over the AHCA, we not only learned that Americans are not interested in losing Obamacare, but that they are more open than ever to a socialized medical system in America to match the rest of the modern world. With the monumental failure of the Obamacare replacement, the door is now wide open for a more left-leaning approach to be taken.
Senator Sanders saw this firsthand during a West Virginia town hall in coal country earlier this month when he was able to convince a room full of middle-Americans that healthcare should be a right of all citizens.
Speaking with MSNBC‘s Chris Hayes on Friday night, Senator Sanders addressed the real adversary in the fight for healthcare for all:
“We have got to have the guts to take on the insurance companies and the drug companies and move forward toward a ‘Medicare for all,’ single-payer program. And I’ll be introducing legislation shortly to do that.”
The reality is that progressives like Sanders recognize that Obamacare has many flaws. While it is certainly better than whatever Frankenstein legislation Paul Ryan attempted to cobble together, it is far from ideal.
If we can continue the momentum created by the AHCA and its debate, we could possibly achieve something monumental from the ashes of the Trump administration.Cats recovered in Merritt Island after an investigation on August 13. (Photo: Brevard County Sheriff's Office)
The Brevard County Sheriff's Office has taken a 43-year-old Merritt Island woman into custody after they found 23 cats being held in what they call "deplorable conditions" in a Merritt Island self-storage unit.
Amy Lynn Dvorak, 43, of Merritt Island, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of animal cruelty after an investigation found the cats in the unit at 115 Amsdell Road without food or proper air conditioning or ventilation. Feces and urine covered the unit.
"The Brevard County Sheriff's Office Animal Care Centers and other local rescue partners work closely with our citizens to promote and encourage proper care for pets in our community," said Sheriff Wayne Ivey in a release.
"With the many resources available in our area, there is no legitimate excuse for the hoarding of pets or maltreatment of animals that puts them at risk of suffering or death," Ivey added. "In this particular case, there was no air conditioning, ventilation or food for these helpless animals and that is 100 percent unacceptable to me, our team, and the community we serve."
Dvorak is being held at the Brevard County Jail on $57,500 bond.
Cats recovered in Merritt Island were held in "deplorable conditions" according to the Brevard County Sheriff's Office. (Photo: Brevard County Sheriff's Office)
Amy Lynn Dvorak, 43, of Merritt Island was charged with multiple counts of cruelty to animals. (Photo: Brevard County Sheriff's Office)
Read or Share this story: http://on.flatoday.com/1Tx4rRfNEW DELHI: HRD ministry’s ambitious plan of starting 50 education channels met with some serious questioning from the new HRD minister Smriti Irani on Thursday. Aware of allegations of a scam in the Rs 450 crore project under National Mission for Education through ICT, Irani raised questions about the proposed cost of each studio.When told that each studio would cost Rs 50 lakh, Irani said she has been a producer and the cost of a Bollywood film set with far superior facilities does not cross more than Rs 70 lakh. Already there are allegations of collusion between consultants for the project and ministry officials. There are allegations that the tender was awarded in a hurry despite the fact that there were only two bidders and one company had raised queries. Also, people involved with the project are asking the need to have 230 studios throughout the country despite the fact that many institutions already have studios. Minister has also been asking about implications of CAG audit on various projects and programmes of the ministry. In fact, one of the 60 points flagged by the minister includes seeking a note on CAG audit of various school programmes.Irani is also expected to take a decision on the location of second central university in Bihar. At the insistence of former chief minister Nitish Kumar, UPA II had agreed to give two central universities to the state at Patna and Motihari. However, inclusion of Motihari in the list of central universities was to be carried out through amendment in the Central Universities Act. In the changed political context of Bihar and Delhi, it remains to be seen what decision the new minister takes. She has been briefed in detail by ministry officials.HRD minister also received representation from her colleague Manoj Sinha, minister of state for railways, on the functioning of Banaras Hindu University vice-chancellor Lalji Singh.Thanks to the oh-so-revealing pages of the FCC, we already knew that ASUS had yet another multitouch-enabled Eee PC in the works, but there's just nothing quite like the satisfaction of seeing an official portal launched to celebrate the reality of being. The Eee PC T101MT is a swivel-screen netvertible that packs a 10.1-inch resistive multitouch display (1,024 x 600), Windows 7, up to 2GB of DDR2 memory, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, a 160GB or 320GB hard drive, 0.3 megapixel webcam and a 6.5 hour battery. You'll also get a VGA output, a trio of USB 2.0 sockets, Ethernet audio in / out, an SD / SDHC /card reader (nice!) 500GB of internet-accessible ASUS WebStorage and your choice of white or black. Per usual, there's nary of a mention of a price or release date just yet, but you can check out what fun awaits you in the demonstration video just past the break.Under fire from the grand secular alliance for his failure to bring back black money stashed abroad, senior Supreme Court lawyer and Rajya Sabha member Ram Jethmalani on Sunday said he had become a "victim of fraud" by playing into the hands of Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley.
Also Read: Jethmalani roots for BJP's defeat in Bihar Assembly polls
"Today I have come here to do 'penance' for what I did by promoting Narendra Modi as the leader of the country (before the Lok Sabha polls). I thought that God has sent him as his 'Aulia' (representative) for India's salvation...How I became the victim of fraud," Jethmalani said in Patna.
The veteran lawyer was in Patna to fight for the cause of army personnel's demand for "One Rank One Pension".
Also Read: Is the NDA govt's black money scheme a flop show?
Jethmalani said both the UPA and Modi-led government at the Centre did nothing to bring black money from foreign tax havens and held both P Chidambaram and Arun Jaitley responsible for the failure to disclose the names of persons holding the black money.
"Both P Chidambaram and Arun Jaitley should be first arrested and prosecuted if we really want to bring back black money. Jaitley...took recourse under the garb of Double Avoidance Tax Treaty (DATT)," he alleged.
The senior lawyer said German government had the names of 1,400 people who have stashed their money in tax havens abroad and the German government was ready to part with the information with the Indian government free of cost but with a rider that there should be a written request from the government.
"I wrote a two-line letter to BJP leaders and none of them signed the letter," he said, adding that as per a BJP task force committee, there are USD 1,500 billion, which is equivalent to Rs 90 lakh crore, are lying in tax havens.
Stating that the government has not been able to bring back a single dollar in the country, Jethmalani said had the government been successful in bring black money, it would not have been facing financial problem in acceding to the demands of ex-servicemen on OROP.
"Bihar should be the starting point...Defeat them...They have made Ram Jethmalani fool but the people will not be fooled in Bihar," Jethmalani observed.You can wring your hands all you want over whether Jonathan Papelbon served up the wrong pitch to Robert Andino or why Marco Scutaro hesitated just long enough to get gunned down at the plate or why David Ortiz stretched a pivotal single into a costly out or why supposed Gold Glover Carl Crawford couldn't make a shoestring running catch, but it won't change a thing. The Red Sox season wasn't squandered during one compelling night in late September, with all of baseball fixated on one of the most dramatic evenings in the game's long and storied annals.
Boston blew its chance at being "the best team ever" long before Andino delivered the final knockout blow to a staggering Red Sox team that has been punch-drunk for weeks now.
There are a number of glaring reasons the local nine holds the dubious distinction of choking up the biggest September lead in baseball history. The pitching wasn't nearly as good as advertised; in fact, at times, it was downright abysmal. When your staff finishes 28th in the majors in "quality starts," you've earned that distinction. Still, it's not that simple to place all the blame on the underachieving hurlers; during one stretch, after all, the Sox committed 23 errors in 21 games.
Decorated hitters such as Crawford struggled through "slumps" that slowly but surely morphed into "trends." Although the assembled talent was at first glance glittering, when the late-season malaise kicked in and it was time to roll up their Brooks Brothers sleeves and wade into the muck of an everyday slump, far too many of the big-name players turned up their noses and balked.
Dustin Pedroia, the Red Sox's best leader, kept on fighting and imploring his teammates to do the same. Greg Fiume/Getty Images
While the Rays were young, hungry and edgy, the Red Sox were arrogant, complacent and, worst of all, entitled.
They took their baseball gifts for granted, and when those gifts abandoned them, as they almost always do during a long baseball season, they were either too lazy or too cocksure to recognize what was required of them to maintain the consistency that is so vital in baseball.
So they complained about the absence of the designated hitter in interleague play, bemoaned injuries that robbed them of key players, even suggested their schedule was too grueling because they played too many televised night games (Adrian Gonzalez can lay claim to that gem).
Back in the good old days, the Red Sox famously dubbed the Yankees "the Evil Empire" because they were arrogant, complacent and, yes, entitled. When New York failed, it merely outspent everyone else to pluck the best players from free agency and rejigger its lineup.
Somewhere along the way, the Red Sox became what they once abhorred.
Theo Epstein overspent for John Lackey and Crawford because he could. Sox owner John Henry has deep, deep pockets. (Have you caught a glimpse of his new crib in what they call the "leafy" section of Brookline? Leafy, incidentally, is code for obscenely wealthy.)
On paper, the Red Sox looked invincible. We thought they had superior pitching, enough firepower to outslug any other team in baseball, and an infield that promised to be stingy with errors and strong up the middle. The Sox had multiple base stealers (Jacoby Ellsbury, Crawford, Dustin Pedroia).
One of their own pitchers, Josh Beckett, predicted they'd win 100 games.
Instead they imploded, losing 16 of their final 21 games. They lost five of seven to the lowly Baltimore Orioles, who, until they met up with the generous Sox in the final weeks, were on pace to lose 100 games.
People say we make too much of the value of good chemistry and camaraderie. They are wrong; it matters. When things get tough, teams with unified players step up. They rely on guys who believe in leadership and accountability -- and each other -- to turn things around.There is no dispute that income inequality has been on the rise in the United States for the past four decades. The share of total income earned by the top 1 percent of families was less than 10 percent in the late 1970s but now exceeds 20 percent as of the end of 2012. A large portion of this increase is due to an upsurge in the labor incomes earned by senior company executives and successful entrepreneurs. But is the rise in U.S. economic inequality purely a matter of rising labor compensation at the top, or did wealth inequality rise as well?
Before we answer that question (hint: the answer is a definitive yes, as we will demonstrate below) we need to define what we mean by wealth. Wealth is the stock of all the assets people own, including their homes, pension saving, and bank accounts, minus all debts. Wealth can be self-made out of work and saving, but it can also be inherited. Unfortunately, there is much less data available on wealth in the United States than there is on income. Income tax data exists since 1913—the first year the country collected federal income tax—but there is no comparable tax on wealth to provide information on the distribution of assets. Currently available measures of wealth inequality rely either on surveys (the Survey of Consumer Finances of the Federal Reserve Board), on estate tax return data, or on lists of wealthy individuals, such as the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans.
Download the pdf version of this brief for a complete list of sources
In our new working paper, “Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data,” we try to measure wealth in another way. We use comprehensive data on capital income—such as dividends, interest, rents, and business profits—that is reported on individual income tax returns since 1913. We then capitalize this income so that it matches the amount of wealth recorded in the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds, the national balance sheets that measure aggregate wealth of U.S. families. In this way we obtain annual estimates of U.S. wealth inequality stretching back a century.
Wealth inequality, it turns out, has followed a spectacular U-shape evolution over the past 100 years. From the Great Depression in the 1930s through the late 1970s there was a substantial democratization of wealth. The trend then inverted, with the share of total household wealth owned by the top 0.1 percent increasing to 22 percent in 2012 from 7 percent in the late 1970s. (See Figure 1.) The top 0.1 percent includes 160,000 families with total net assets of more than $20 million in 2012.
Figure 1
Figure 1 shows that wealth inequality has exploded in the United States over the past four decades. The share of wealth held by the top 0.1 percent of families is now almost as high as in the late 1920s, when “The Great Gatsby” defined an era that rested on the inherited fortunes of the robber barons of the Gilded Age.
In recent decades, only a tiny fraction of the population saw its wealth share grow. While the wealth share of the top 0.1 percent increased a lot in recent decades, that of the next 0.9 percent (families between the top 1 percent and the top 0.1 percent) did not. And the share of total wealth of the “merely rich”—families who fall in the top 10 percent but are not wealthy enough to be counted among the top 1 percent—actually decreased slightly over the past four decades. In other words, family fortunes of $20 million or more grew much faster than those of only a few millions.
The flip side of these trends at the top of the wealth ladder is the erosion of wealth among the middle class and the poor. There is a widespread public view across American society that a key structural change in the U.S. economy since the 1920s is the rise of middle-class wealth, in particular because of the development of pensions and the rise in home ownership rates. But our results show that while the share of wealth of the bottom 90 percent of families did gradually increase from 15 percent in the 1920s to a peak of 36 percent in the mid-1980, it then dramatically declined. By 2012, the bottom 90 percent collectively owns only 23 percent of total U.S. wealth, about as much as in 1940 (see Figure 2.)
Figure 2
The growing indebtedness of most Americans is the main reason behind the erosion of the wealth share of the bottom 90 percent of families. Many middle class families own homes and have pensions, but too many of these families also have much higher mortgages to repay and much higher consumer credit and student loans to service than before. For a time, rising indebtedness was compensated by the increase in the market value of the assets of middle-class families. The average wealth of bottom 90 percent of families jumped during the stock-market bubble of the late 1990s and the housing bubble of the early 2000s. But it then collapsed during and after the Great Recession of 2007-2009. (See Figure 3.)
Figure 3
Since the housing and financial crises of the late 2000s there has been no recovery in the wealth of the middle class and the poor. The average wealth of the bottom 90 percent of families is equal to $80,000 in 2012—the same level as in 1986. In contrast, the average wealth for the top 1 percent more than tripled between 1980 and 2012. In 2012, the wealth of the top 1 percent increased almost back to its peak level of 2007. The Great Recession looks only like a small bump along an upward trajectory.
How can we explain the growing disparity in American wealth? The answer is that the combination of higher income inequality alongside a growing disparity in the ability to save for most Americans is fuelling the explosion in wealth inequality. For the bottom 90 percent of families, real wage gains (after factoring in inflation) were very limited over the past three decades, but for their counterparts in the top 1 percent real wages grew fast. In addition, the saving rate of middle class and lower class families collapsed over the same period while it remained substantial at the top. Today, the top 1 percent families save about 35 percent of their income, while bottom 90 percent families save about zero.
The implications of rising wealth inequality and possible remedies
If income inequality stays high and if the saving rate of the bottom 90 percent of families remains low then wealth disparity will keep increasing. Ten or twenty years from now, all the gains in wealth democratization achieved during the New Deal and the post-war decades could be lost. While the rich would be extremely rich, ordinary families would own next to nothing, with debts almost as high as their assets. Paris School of Economics professor Thomas Piketty warns that inherited wealth could become the defining line between the haves and the have-nots in the 21st century. This provocative prediction hit a nerve in the United States this year when Piketty’s book “Capital in the 21st Century” became a national best seller because it outlined a direct threat to the cherished American ideals of meritocracy and opportunity.
What should be done to avoid this dystopian future? We need policies that reduce the concentration of wealth, prevent the transformation of self-made wealth into inherited fortunes, and encourage savings among the middle class. First, current preferential tax rates on capital income compared to wage income are hard to defend in light of the rise of wealth inequality and the very high savings rate of the wealthy. Second, estate taxation is the most direct tool to prevent self-made fortunes from becoming inherited wealth—the least justifiable form of inequality in the American meritocratic ideal. Progressive estate and income taxation were the key tools that reduced the concentration of wealth after the Great Depression. The same proven tools are needed again today.
There are a number of specific policy reforms needed to rebuild middle class wealth. A combination of prudent financial regulation to rein in predatory lending, incentives to help people save—nudges have been shown to be very effective in the case of 401(k) pensions—and more generally steps to boost the wages of the bottom 90 percent of workers are needed so that ordinary families can afford to save.
One final reform also needs to be on the policymaking agenda: the collection of better data on wealth in the United States. Despite our best efforts to build wealth inequality data, we want to stress that the United States is lagging behind in terms of the quality of its wealth and saving data. It would be relatively easy for the U.S. Treasury to collect more information—in particular balances on 401(k) and bank accounts—on top of what it already collects to administer the federal income tax. This information could help enforce the collection of current taxes more effectively and would be invaluable for obtaining more precise estimates of the joint distributions of income, wealth, saving, and consumption. Such information is needed to illuminate the public debate on economic inequality. It is also required to evaluate and implement alternative forms of taxation, such as progressive wealth or consumption taxes, in order to achieve broad-based and sustainable economic growth.
Emmanuel Saez is a professor of economics and director of the Center for Equitable Growth at the University of California-Berkeley. Gabriel Zucman is an assistant professor of economics at the London School of Economics.A preliminary report Wednesday from the Veterans Affairs Department’s inspector general confirmed that at least 1,700 veterans were kept off of waiting lists at the Phoenix Health Care System, leading more lawmakers on Capitol Hill to call for Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to step down.
“While our work is not complete, we have substantiated that significant delays in access to care negatively impacted the quality of care at [the Phoenix] medical facility,” acting Inspector General Robert Griffin wrote in the new report.
And the issues there are not unique. “We are finding that inappropriate scheduling practices are a systemic problem nationwide,” he wrote.
Using a sample of 226 veterans at the Phoenix facilities, Griffin’s team found that veterans waited 115 days on average before receiving their first primary care appointment, far more than the 14 days recommended by the Veterans Affairs Department. Phoenix had reported its average wait was 24 days. Of those same veterans, 85 percent of them waited more than 14 days on average to receive care, while Phoenix officials reported that just 43 percent of veterans waited that long.
The Inspector General’s Office found that schedulers were pressured by their superiors to alter waiting times, which are factored into staff members’ bonuses and salary raises. In some cases, schedulers would change a veteran’s requested appointment date to the next date the facility had available, resulting in a zero-day wait time.
In addition to the waiting-list delays, Griffin said that his office received “numerous allegations daily of mismanagement, inappropriate hiring decisions, sexual harassment, and bullying behavior by mid- and senior-level managers” at the Phoenix Health Care System.
In the wake of the report, Sen. John McCain and Rep. Jeff Miller, the top Republicans on the Senate Armed Services and House Veterans’ Affairs committees, both issued statements calling on Shinseki to resign. Shortly after, Sen. Mark Udall became the first Democrat in the Senate to join the call.
Several dozen members of Congress have already called for Shinseki’s resignation, though so far, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy and Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn are the only members of leadership to join them. President Obama has not asked for Shinseki to step down either, but left the door open during a speech last week. A senior administration official said that Shinseki’s continued tenure as head of the department remains up in the air, as the investigation continues.
Obama was briefed on the report Wednesday by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and found the report “extremely troubling,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said. “[Shinseki] has said that VA will fully and aggressively implement the recommendations of the IG. The President agrees with that action and reaffirms that the VA needs to do more to improve veterans’ access to care,” Carney said in a statement. “Our nation’s veterans have served our country with honor and courage and they deserve to know they will have the care and support they deserve.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether Obama supports Shinseki’s continued tenure as head of the department, even as the calls on the Hill grew louder.
The inspector general’s report did not include the results of the investigation into whether any of the waiting-list issues resulted in deaths, as has been reported by several media outlets. That will be included in the office’s final report which is due out in June.
In the interim, Griffin reported that his office has deployed “rapid response teams” that are visiting VA facilities without warning staff in order to investigate issues nationwide. So far, he wrote, they have visited or scheduled visits at 42 facilities across the country.
Griffin’s team also sent a series of recommendations to Shinseki, focusing in particular on getting the 1,700 veterans who have been waiting for care into a VA facility as quickly as possible.
This post was updated on Wednesday at 4 p.m. to include President Obama’s comments and additional calls for Shinseki’s resignation.SETI in the Anthropocene
Have we, as some have argued, entered a new ‘age of humanity,’ the so-called Anthropocene? The notion is controversial in many quarters, but it addresses the growing concern about our human influence on the Earth and the nature of planetary change. David Grinspoon’s new book Earth in Human Hands (Grand Central Publishing, 2016) has much to say about the Anthropocene, but as anyone who has read the work of this canny scientist knows, he’s not one to let facile assumptions get by unquestioned.
For if the activity of humans is now emerging as an agent of geological change, then we are discussing our civilization in the same terms we talk about planetary forces like tectonic movement and the carbon cycle. This makes us major players whose effects we can begin to chart in terms of the effects of our technology on Earth’s living systems. If the Anthropocene is happening, it presents us not only with danger but the prospect of a long-term future. And its implications take in not just our movement into space but our search for other civilizations.
Hence Grinspoon’s view that while we are leaving an unmistakable footprint on our planet’s living substrate, this is not something to be deplored as much as understood and put to good use, the theory being that living things have always shaped the world around them, in ways as profound as the Great Oxygenation Event of 2.5 billion years ago. Earth in Human Hands is rich in discussion of what it would be like to enter what Grinspoon calls the ‘mature Anthropocene,’ in which humans acting wisely and with long-term horizons learn to use technology to repair past damage and introduce a new era of planetary stability.
In this view, our current dilemma is that we are achieving global impact without any sense of global control. The analysis is filled with Grinspoon’s experience as an astrobiologist and it draws together themes that are at the heart of how we consider our own future and how we look at other civilizations. For make no mistake, when we examine SETI, we’re forced to address questions like the lifespan of a technological civilization. If such societies persist, how do they do it, and equally of interest, what sort of signature would they leave? Stanislaw Lem comes to mind, and Grinspoon quotes him from his Summa Technologiae:
We need to overcome the habit of considering outcomes of human activity as more imperfect than those of nature’s activity — understandable as such a habit may be at the current stage of development — if we are to talk about what is going to happen in a faraway future.
Are we not ourselves a part of the nature we study, and rather than deploring the fact, should we not be considering how to make our own contribution to the mindfulness that intelligent life brings to the universe? You may pick up a bit of Sagan in these themes, particularly the Sagan (and Shklovskii) of the 1966 masterwork Intelligent Life in the Universe. The connection is borne out by Grinspoon’s relationship with Sagan, who worked with the author’s father at Harvard and shaped his boyhood and early career. No wonder Sagan and Shklovskii’s influence on SETI play such a vital and entertaining role in his book.
A Third Route for SETI
A confluence of events marks the beginning of SETI, with Frank Drake’s early efforts at Project Ozma following swiftly after the famous “Searching for Interstellar Communications” paper by Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison. But I think you could say that the discipline put down its formative roots at two conferences, the first being the one Drake hosted at Green Bank in 1961, the second the First All-Union Conference on Extraterrestrial Civilizations and Interstellar Communication, which was held in 1964 at the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory in Soviet Armenia. Between the two we see a foundational SETI defined.
Frank Drake’s famous equation emerged from Green Bank, a conference with only 11 attendees that took SETI out of the realm of theory and into observational science. At Byurakan, Iosif Shklovskii criticized the Cocconi and Morrison paper for being too restrictive — the authors, Shklovskii argued, assumed that extraterrestrial civilizations would be on approximately the same level as ourselves. Shklovskii believed that any civilizations we detected would be far more advanced technologically than ourselves, for “We are only infants as far as science and technology are concerned,” and technology’s growth is rapid.
Grinspoon’s treatment of SETI is relaxed and knowledgeable, but it is the weaving of the anthropocene theme into SETI’s subsequent development that gives these chapters punch. For Nikolai Kardashev, then a young student of Shklovskii’s, was also at Byurakan to make the case for his three types of technological civilization, based on what he saw as a predictable and steady increase in the use of energy. Thus the categories most Centauri Dreams readers have come to be familiar with:
Type I: A civilization that can use all the energy resources of its own planet.
Type II: A civilization using all the energy resources available from its star. This is a civilization that has mastered its own stellar system and travels readily in |
in” to an establishment. Business owners can use the settings in FourSquare to offer deals to first time, repeat customers, as well as offering a special offer to “The Mayor”, or the user who has checked in the most of all users. Just recently, they added a weekly leaderboard between friends to see who can check in the most in one week.
Similar to geocaching, Munzee (derived from the German word for coin), is an app where users attempt to find geotagged stickers well-hidden in public areas. Started in 2011, the game caught on in Germany, and quickly gained a cult following among the geocaching community. When a user scans a Munzee QR code, they “capture” the location and its data is added to the players profile. Munzee’s are located outdoors or indoors, in over 188 countries, and on every continent, including Antarctica.
Ingress is a GPS-based reality game released in 2014, where users try to find, capture, and hold on to portals located near culturally important locations in a city (churches, theatres, historic buildings, etc) in real time. Once captured, a portal can be augmented with a variety of add-ons (like weapons and shields) in order to prevent an opposing team from capturing it easily. When multiple portals are captured, they can be linked to create polygons, which define and further expand a team’s territory. Ingress is owned by Niantic Labs (formerly a Google subsidiary), and has more than 12 million downloads across the globe.
The Go Game is a real-life scavenger hunt / corporate team-building game played by multiple teams simultaneously in a city. Founded in 2005, Go Game participant teams are given clues to meet costumed actors stationed in various parts of a city. After successfully participating in a challenge or puzzle issued by the actors, the actors then give teams smartphone codes that unlock other missions. Using their phones and problem solving skills, teams scramble around a city collecting codes and completing tasks within a predetermined time frame, for prizes and glory.
Zombies, Run! debuted in 2012, and quickly gained a large following among runners looking for a way to make their runs more interesting. Zombies, Run! is played by running circuits and courses around your city, while avoiding or outrunning zombies as they appear on the map. During the missions, you can collect powerups, weapons, and supplies in order to rebuild your town. With 200 missions, and over 1 million players, Zombies, Run! is becoming a popular way to have fun while getting in shape.
Currently, Father.io is in a closed Beta, but looks to be a very promising geospatial first-person shooter game. Using a lasertag-like device attached to your phone’s camera, you run around an area with friends, locating enemies through an augmented reality heads-up display. When an enemy appears, a quick click sends a laser pulse through the attachment, disabling the enemy. Be careful, enemies can pop up anywhere at anytime, making it difficult to know who could be after you.
Although not a game in-and-of itself, Battlemap gives paintball & airsoft games a more “video game”-like quality. Utilizing satellite imagery, first person cameras, and team chat, players can mount their mobile phones on their airsoft weapons or on their arm in order to track enemies and devise strategies to capture the flag more effectively. Players can collect perks, like radar jamming, making it harder for opposing teams to find them. The app is free for iOS, with an Android version coming soon.
Geospatial mobile games are slowly becoming ubiquitous, and as GPS units become smaller and cheaper, these type of apps will become much more prevalent, offering us many interesting new ways to engage and enjoy the world around us.House Republicans are demanding an explanation from President Obama for the “morally unconscionable” decision to toss war funding into the pool of automatic budget cuts facing the Pentagon.
In a sharply worded letter sent to the White House on Monday, the Republican heads of the House Defense, Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees lambasted Obama for reneging on promises to exempt war funding from pending budget cuts.
"We were assured that sequestration would not apply to the troops on the frontline," wrote House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), head of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
"To impose arbitrary and automatic cuts to our warfighters, who are putting their lives on the line for our country, would be morally unconscionable and would break faith with them and their families," they wrote.
The letter could be the opening salvo in a congressional effort to fence off war funding from looming cuts to defense spending.
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House Republican aides could not be reached immediately for comment regarding future legislative plans to shield wartime funding from budget cuts.
In November, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta all but guaranteed funding for the war in Afghanistan would remain untouched by the $500 billion in defense cuts set to begin in January.
But in May, officials from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) concluded that wartime funds budgeted under the Pentagon's overseas contingency operations account would be fair game under sequestration.
That means the $88 billion DOD requested for operations in Afghanistan would be slashed by 10 to 15 percent in fiscal 2013, along with the rest of the Pentagon's other spending accounts.
House lawmakers want to know why the White House and Pentagon interpreted the issue of war funding so differently, and how the Obama administration decided to subject war funds to budget cuts just as American forces prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014.
DOD was saddled with the $500 billion in automatic cuts under the sequestration plan after a bipartisan supercommittee, created as part of the White House's debt restructuring deal last year, failed to trim $1.2 trillion from the federal ledger.
In the letter, McKeon, Rogers and Ros-Lehtinen pointed out the sequestration plan did not explicitly address how supplemental war funds would be tied to Pentagon budget cuts.
"If there is flexibility in the law, we urge you stand on the side of the troops [and] do not apply sequester to [wartime] activities," they wrote.
"We believe that we can agree that placing the burden of sequestration on the backs of deployed, active-duty soldiers is not the preferred solution.”
Members of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s new defense sequestration task force last week argued that including war funds under sequestration would be a political disaster for Democrats and the White House.
The task force, led by former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and former National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones, predicted the move would be so politically unpalatable that Congress would have no choice but to block it
"It will not be there, I guarantee you," task force member and former Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Arnold Punaro said on Tuesday regarding cuts to Afghan war funding.
Punaro predicted legislation to protect war funds would likely be introduced as an amendment to a continuing budget resolution, if Congress fails to get the fiscal 2013 defense spending bill to the White House by September.
Lawmakers could also introduce standalone legislation on the House or Senate floor designed to rope off DOD dollars for Afghanistan, he said.
Another alternative would be a proposal tailored specifically to protect funds for combat operations and repairing damaged vehicles and equipment used in Afghanistan.
A bipartisan group of roughly 30 senators, meeting behind closed doors on Capitol Hill, is already hashing out alternative sequestration options. Members of the Domenici-Jones group have been in consultation with those lawmakers as the talks progress, Punaro said.Former CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien, now CEO of Starfish Media Group and a correspondent for Al Jazeera America, is our Mainstream Media Scream for taking up Baltimore City Councilman Carl Stokes' charge that "thug," like the reference to looters by the city's mayor, is code for the N-word.
Discussing the issue on Sunday's "Reliable Sources," she said:
"Listen, I think what the Baltimore city councilman, Carl Stokes, was trying to tell Erin Burnett is that thug is a proxy, it is a word we use instead of the N-word. And I think that's really true. I can't think of a situation where there's ever been a headline or someone has called a white young person who's in the middle of a violent protest, demonstration, whatever, a 'thug.' We use it all the time when we're talking about people in the inner city."
Brent Baker, vice president of research at the Media Research Center, explains our pick: "So much for calls for open and honest dialogue about crime and race. Journalists like O'Brien, and she's not the only one, want to disallow accurate words from being used to describe criminals, thus limiting the discussion by suggesting anyone who using the term 'thug' is a racist."
Rating: Four out of five screams.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com.In my first article in my series, I wrote about the Astro Pi competition, an opportunity for UK school students to have their coded experiments run in space. We're getting closer and closer to the launch date of December 15, when British European Space Agency (ESA) Astronaut Tim Peake will embark on his six-month mission, Principia. He'll be conducting scientific experiments and engaging with young people in educational outreach activities. As part of this, he's taking up two Raspberry Pi computers in purpose-built flight cases, each with camera modules and sensor boards attached. These will be running Python programs written by the Astro Pi competition winners.
Courtesy of the ESA. Used with permission.
The flight case
The Raspberry Pis must be mounted using a Bogen arm on the space station, like the ones used to dock crew laptops. They also must be certified as completely safe for the Soyuz rocket, which will take it to the ISS, and then for continued use in space. The Raspberry Pi team has been working closely with the ESA and the UK Space Agency to get the flight safety certificate.
Courtesy of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Courtesy of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. CC BY-SA 4.0.
In addition to lots of testing, our work included building a bespoke case made of aerospace-grade aluminum designed with thermal considerations (convection doesn't occur in space) and practicality in mind, and the ability for the board's sensors to work effectively in the atmosphere. Because the case is expensive to manufacture, it won't be available to buy, but we plan to release the 3D print files from the prototype so people can make their own. One school even built a model out of Lego.
We've built a Lego version of the @astro_pi flight case to make sweaty-astronaut testing as realistic as possible. pic.twitter.com/pYETedeWgn — Richard Hayler ☀ (@rdhayler) July 9, 2015
The hardware
The flight cases will each contain a Raspberry Pi, a Sense HAT, a real-time clock, and a camera module. The Sense HAT is an add-on board for the Pi created especially for the Astro Pi mission by the Foundation's engineering team. It packs an 8x8 full-color LED display; a mini joystick; a set of sensors for temperature, humidity, and pressure; an accelerometer; a gyroscope; and a magnetometer.
The Sense HAT is now available to buy, and it's bound to be used in a number of amazing projects and experiments here on Earth.You can buy from the Raspberry Pi Swag Store in the UK, from Adafruit in the US, or from any other Pi accessory retailer around the world.
Sense HAT software
The Raspberry Pi Foundation provides a Python programming interface to the Sense HAT that comes bundled with the latest Raspbian image based on Debian Jessie. The interface provides easy access to the LED display and the sensors, enabling users to build their own applications and projects around the hardware. In just a few lines you can show the current temperature sensor value on the display:
from sense_hat import SenseHat
sense = SenseHat()
temperature = sense.temperature
sense.show_message("Temperature is %d" % temperature)
A similar example takes the humidity value and displays a visualization of the humidity percentage by filling the LED grid with green pixels accordingly:
green = (0, 255, 0)
white = (255, 255, 255)
while True:
humidity = sense.humidity
humidity_value = 64 * humidity / 100
print(humidity)
pixels = [green if i < humidity_value else white for i in range(64)]
sense.set_pixels(pixels)
When you breathe on the board, you'll see the number of green pixels grow, then slowly drop back down. This gets more interesting when you place the board inside a sealed sandwich bag and blow air into it using a straw. With some huffing and puffing, you should be able to get it to reach 100%!
.@JarJarGeek tries my humidity test with the Sense HAT. Managed to get it to 100% by putting it in a sandwich bag. pic.twitter.com/qfUZGTXdYw — Ben Nuttall (@ben_nuttall) September 12, 2015
Build up your own image of color tuples in a 64-length list and pass that directly to the Sense HAT to display the image:
X = (255, 0, 0)
O = (255, 255, 255)
question_mark = [
O, O, O, X, X, O, O, O,
O, O, X, O, O, X, O, O,
O, O, O, O, O, X, O, O,
O, O, O, O, X, O, O, O,
O, O, O, X, O, O, O, O,
O, O, O, X, O, O, O, O,
O, O, O, O, O, O, O, O,
O, O, O, X, O, O, O, O
]
sense.set_pixels(question_mark)
You can provide a list of such images to animate:
animation = [image_1, image_2, image_3, image_4]
while True:
for image in animation:
sense.set_pixels(image)
sleep(0.5)
...like this video of a set of retro game characters displayed on the Sense HAT:
You can even load 8x8 pixel image files into the library:
sense.load_image("space_invader.png")
Use PyGame to capture joystick events, which are mapped to keyboard keys:
if event.key == pygame.K_DOWN:
sense.set_pixels(down_image)
elif event.key == pygame.K_UP:
sense.set_pixels(up_image)
elif event.key == pygame.K_LEFT:
sense.set_pixels(left_image)
elif event.key == pygame.K_RIGHT:
sense.set_pixels(right_image)
elif event.key == pygame.K_RETURN:
sense.set_pixels(enter_image)
Make your Sense HAT show jokes:
jokes = [
"What happens to a frog's car when it breaks down? It gets toad away",
"Why was six scared of seven? Because seven eight nine",
]
joke = random.choice(jokes)
sense.show_message(joke)
Or, if you're so-inclined, geeky jokes from pyjokes:
joke = pyjokes.get_joke()
sense.show_message(joke)
Use the accelerometer to make a Magic 8 Ball:
replies = [
"Signs point to yes",
"Without a doubt",
"Don't count on it",
"It is decidedly so",
]
while True:
x, y, z = sense.accelerometer.values()
if x > 2 or y > 2 or z > 2:
reply = random.choice(replies)
sense.show_message()
else:
sense.clear()
Learn about the Minecraft API and how to use it to turn the Sense HAT display into a map of your Minecraft world:
Courtesy of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Try these examples and more:
Raspberry Pi
column
This article is part of Ben Nuttall's Raspberry Pi column, where he shares news and stories from the world of tiny computing.Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The EU Withdrawal Bill will be debated again in Parliament on Tuesday
A cross-party group of pro-EU MPs says the promise of a "meaningful vote" for Parliament on any Brexit deal should be enshrined in law.
Tory former attorney-general Dominic Grieve will table such an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on EU Relations supports the move, urging backbenchers to put "the national interest" above party politics.
The amendment will be debated in the House of Commons on Tuesday.
In a joint statement, senior figures from the parliamentary group - co-chaired by leading Remain-supporting MPs Chuka Umunna, from Labour, and the Conservative Anna Soubry - told the Observer: "It has been said that in the EU referendum last year, the British people voted to 'take back control' of our laws. For many, that meant a powerful reassertion of parliamentary sovereignty.
"Members of all parties have already provided valuable scrutiny... but little of that will matter unless we can have a truly meaningful vote on the withdrawal agreement the government negotiates with the European Union."
They added: "We understand the pressures colleagues face to vote 'the right way'. [But] let us stand up for the sovereignty of Parliament."
'Take it or leave it' vote
On Friday, Theresa May agreed a deal with EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on three key aspects of Brexit: The so-called "divorce bill", the rights of EU citizens in the UK and British citizens abroad, and the Irish border.
If EU leaders agree to it at a European Council summit on Thursday, the next phase of negotiations can begin - discussing a transition deal and future trade.
Brexit Secretary David Davis told the Commons in November that MPs will be allowed a "take it or leave it" vote on any final deal agreed between the two sides.
However, that verbal commitment was not enough for Mr Grieve to withdraw his amendment, asking for the vote to be written into the bill.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Brexit: What still needs to be worked out?
Separately, former Brexit minister David Jones has suggested the UK's "divorce bill" could be much higher than figures reported on Friday.
Downing Street sources said the bill to leave the EU would amount to between £35bn and £39bn.
But Mr Jones, who has criticised Mrs May's deal, said the UK could end up paying a "monstrous" exit fee of up to £100bn.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he said the deal document had no "precise figure", but it did have "a set of highly technical mechanisms we would have to follow" to work out the cost.
"And those mechanisms could land us with a bill, on some estimates, of as much as £100bn - a figure EU sources were touting earlier this year," added Mr Jones.
The cabinet is expected to meet on 19 December to discuss its "end state" plans for Brexit.
This is two days before Parliament's two-week Christmas recess.
BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said some ministers who voted to leave will "push for bespoke arrangements" for the UK after it leaves, and are "prepared to resist any blanket acceptance of EU regulations".Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, released a list of potential Supreme Court nominees on Wednesday as part of an effort to quell concerns that he would not select conservative jurists.
The unusual move comes as Mr. Trump is looking to unify the Republican Party behind him and win over critics who remain skeptical about his candidacy. While some Republicans who oppose Mr. Trump have considered supporting Hillary Clinton or sitting out the election, he has regularly reminded them that the future of the Supreme Court is at stake.
After the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February, critics of Mr. Trump expressed concern about whether he had the judgment to fill vacancies on the court. He had joked about appointing his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a federal appeals court judge in Philadelphia, before suggesting that he would look for someone in the mold of Justice Scalia and later promising to furnish some prospective candidates.
Mr. Trump said in a statement that his shortlist was “representative of the kind of constitutional principles I value and, as president, I plan to use this list as a guide to nominate our next United States Supreme Court justices.” The Trump campaign did not share how it settled on the names, but Mr. Trump has previously said that he was seeking guidance from conservative groups such as the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation.The hulking vehicle, nicknamed "the Beast" for its supposed robustness in the face of potential attacks, juddered to a halt on the motorway between Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport and Jerusalem.
An Israeli government official said the car may have broke down after it was mistakenly filled with diesel fuel rather than petrol. There was also a suggestion it had run out of fuel, he said.
The Secret Service said it did not yet know what had caused the breakdown, and the driver of a tow-truck called to remove the car said he did not know if a fuel mix-up was behind the incident.
The sleek black limo had been flown in specially from the US for Mr Obama's visit.
Fortunately for the president, the breakdown happened two hours before his plane, Air Force One, touched down on Israeli soil, sparing him the embarrassment of a possible incident after his arrival in the Holy Land.
Mr Obama travelled from the airport to Jerusalem by helicopter as scheduled.
The car, which was intended to transport him around Jerusalem, was being replaced by a substitute limousine being driven in from Jordan, which Mr Obama will visit on Friday.
Moti Matmon, owner of a local tow-truck company, said the US Consulate in Jerusalem called him at around 10am local time to ask him to recover the stricken vehicle.
"They told me that this was Obama's car," he told The Daily Telegraph.
"They didn't say what had happened to it. They just said it had got stuck. Only the mechanic was there when I arrived. The driver had left in another car. The whole thing was very funny."
Mr Matmon said he transported the limo to a garage in Jerusalem, where it is now under repair.
Mr Obama meets schoolchildren with Shimon Peres Picture: Reuters
US President Barack Obama (C), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) and President Shimon Peres (L) listen to the national anthem at Israel's Ben Gurion airport Picture: AFP/Getty
He said he had "no idea" whether diesel fuel had caused the limo to break down, adding that towing and repairs costs could only be established after an assessment of the damage.
But Mr Obama would not be given a discount, he said.
"We experienced mechanical trouble with one of the cars," said Edwin Donovan, a spokesman for the Secret Service. "We don't know the cause."
The Secret Service brings multiple vehicles on presidential trips in preparation for such events, he said.
"The Beast", which can seat seven passengers, owes its nickname to the Secret Service.
Most of its specifications are classified for security reasons but they include a special night vision system concealed in a secret location. It is sealed against a biochemical attack. A blood bank of the president's blood type is stowed in the boot.
It has run into trouble before. During a visit to Dublin in 2011, it got stuck on a ramp outside the US embassy.I'm interpreting that as "the Internet browser links with GX2 and sndcore, and you can't use them at the same time as the browser." If that's the case, then shouldn't we be able to release the libraries? For instance, at the start of almost every userspace (when I say userspace, I'm referring to 5.5.x browserhax) homebrew out there there's a few lines of code involving IM_ methods (IM_Open, IM_Close and IM_SetDeviceState) that, as far as I know, kill the browser/restart the system? (no documentation, kinda guessing based off comments in the libwiiu examples) If that's not what it's doing, sorry. I'm sure we could come up with code to kill the browser properly anyway.
Back on topic, if we've killed the browser, then it's not using those libraries anymore. If we can get the handles it had allocated (probably still in RAM somewhere) and release them (or just reuse them, whatever) we should, theoretically, get proper lib access.
Of course, to do that, we need to know when and where those handles are allocated. And that is where RPC comes in.
I'll be messing around with my WiiU and I'll try to get some info out of it, but I'd appreciate it if you guys have a poke around too. It'd be really useful.
(I'm also thinking of maybe moving this discussion to a new thread (we've kinda gotten off the original topic on this one). Opinions? Or should we just keep rambling here?)
Click to expand...HEBRON, Ky. – OneJet, an upstart airline, is launching service from the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport starting this summer, the newest addition to CVG's carrier mix. But its growth in the local market will hinge largely on support from the regional business community.
The Boston-based air transportation network provider will serve one city, Pittsburgh, starting Aug. 15, with one daily flight Monday through Friday. Flights will arrive at CVG mid-morning and depart to Pittsburgh in the afternoon. Ticket sales start July 18.
OneJet will become CVG’s ninth air carrier to operate with scheduled passenger service. Pittsburgh – a market recently cut from Delta's repertoire – will become the airport's 54th nonstop market.
Delta ceased service from CVG to Pittsburgh in October – along with Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Richmond, Virginia – a move that many aviation experts agreed could open the door for a regional carrier like OneJet, which operates similarly to an Ultimate Air and largely targets the corporate customer.
“Pittsburgh is a very important business market to companies in the Tri-State region, and we’re proud that we will once again be providing nonstop service between our two cities," Candace McGraw, CVG CEO, said.
OneJet's main focus is nonstop travel between small and mid-size markets. But unlike Ultimate, which flies out of airfields like Lunken, and at CVG, the airport's fixed-based operator, which is Delta Private Jets, OneJet utilizes main terminals in the cities it serves.
McGraw said OneJet will utilize concourse A at CVG, which also includes Allegiant, Frontier, United and American. OneJet flies a seven-seater Hawker 400 light jet aircraft, which is equipped with an all-leather interior, high-speed Internet and first-class style seating. Fares have not been set, but entry-level prices in other markets generally run $300 one way.
"We look forward to working with the OneJet team to make this service a success and also develop additional markets for potential OneJet expansion,” McGraw added.
But Matt Maguire, OneJet chief executive officer, told WCPO their future growth here will depend on the support of the business community. They've had big buy in Pittsburgh, the state of Pennsylvania and other partners, and its relationship with PNC Bank was key in its landing at CVG.
"We really were looking at markets that made sense for our corporate clients out of Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati was a key market for PNC," Maguire said.
"We need to see from Cincinnati what we've seen here in Pittsburgh, which is engagement with the local Fortunate 500s and corporate travelers," he added. "There are many other markets there (from CVG) that would make sense for us."
Delta's choice to cease routes between the two Ohio River sister cities was a "tremendous" advantage," he said.
"We only enter markets where we'll have the only nonstop service," Maguire said. "So as Delta has pulled back – and frankly, I think for their business model, that made sense for them – it created an opportunity to service our corporate clients.
"If you look at markets that are attractive to us – markets where there's no nonstop service, (routes) within 500-800 miles, and cities where there's strong corporate business travel – Cincinnati certainly ticks all those boxes, so this was a great opportunity for us to satisfy our commitment to Pittsburgh and one of our largest corporate clients, but at the same time, get our toe in the water with the CVG community," he said.Thousands of Australians have vowed to maintain their holiday plans in Bali if Indonesia does not change its stance on the fate of the Bali nine.
Using the hashtag #SeeYaInKuta angry holidaymakers took to Twitter with threats to go ahead with end of year sporting trips, bucks and hens celebrations, and schoolies events just as planned.
“Call this sh*t off, or my culturally insensitive holiday in August stays on” one regular Bali reveller Tweeted.
“There are plenty of other places that we can go. But we didn’t consider any of them” another Tweet said.
Another man posted a photo of himself wearing a Bintang t-shirt and holding a plane ticket, with the caption ‘Your choice’.
A Balinese stallholder responded to the campaign, saying, “These Australians will pay for this. But probably only about 10% of the asking price”.
The Indonesian Government is yet to respond.
For more breaking stories, follow The Shovel on Facebook and Twitter or sign up for email updates at the bottom of this page.Free speech is always and everywhere under attack in the world, and as depressing as it is to have to keep pointing that out, I think it’s vital to highlight it when it happens so that this human right is never taken for granted. Unfortunately, these past few weeks have offered a surfeit of examples.
First, there’s India, whose government has quietly issued new rules allowing for the censorship of any internet content deemed “blasphemous”, “hateful” or “disparaging”. Apparently, all it takes is for someone to file a complaint. There’s no mechanism of appeal, and websites created or maintained in other countries aren’t exempted. Considering that India is beset with both Muslim and Hindu mobs that have shown themselves ready to riot over the slightest provocation, it’s not hard to guess what kind of websites will be among the first targets of fundamentalist complaints. Speech which “outrages religious feelings” is already illegal in India, and journalists and publishers have been arrested and charged under this law for speaking their minds, but this attempt to censor the entire Internet is a new and frightening extreme even if it’s certain to fail in practice.
From India to England, where a man has been sentenced to 70 days in jail for burning a Qur’an. The local police labeled this a “hate crime”, and the judge explained: “People are entitled to protest in this country… but [not] in such a way as it will inflame”. Since it “inflames” me to see a nonviolent act of protest punished with imprisonment, regardless of whether or not it was done with racist intent, am I entitled to demand that this judge and these police be sent to jail as well?
Meanwhile, in Italy, the director Nanni Moretti produced a satirical film called Habemus Papam (“We Have a Pope”), which depicts a panic-stricken incompetent thrust into the papacy who seeks psychiatric help to cope with the pressure. The shrieking denunciations and fatwa envy expressed by Catholic hard-liners were to be expected, but what’s more noteworthy is that a Catholic bigot named Bruno Volpe promptly filed a lawsuit against the producers under the Lateran Pact, a treaty ratified by Mussolini’s government that protects the “prestige of the pope”. Yes, let that sink in: Right-wing Catholics are openly using a law passed by fascists to attack free speech!
Madrid’s local government… has launched legal proceedings against the group Ateos en Lucha [great name! —Ebonmuse] insisting it is ‘ridiculing religion’ and ‘glorifying terrorism’.
And for the European trifecta, there’s Spain, where a Madrid court has banned an atheist procession that had been scheduled to coincide with Catholic marches on Easter weekend. The “State Association of Christian Lawyers” (nowa pro-theocratic group if ever I heard of one) filed complaints which spurred the government to investigate and, astonishingly, fileagainst the atheists, just for seeking permission to march:
Apparently, the official position of the Spanish government is that Roman Catholics own certain dates and all nonbelievers are required to stay indoors and keep quiet. I always thought Spain was a secular country. What on earth is going on there?Anti-Virus Pioneer John McAfee Enters Presidential Race With 'Cyber Party'
Enlarge this image toggle caption Alan Diaz/AP Alan Diaz/AP
Voters looking to support an eccentric millionaire for president now have more options. John McAfee, who pioneered anti-virus software but most recently made headlines by evading Belizean authorities in 2012, announced a third-party White House bid this week.
McAfee is creating his own party: the Cyber Party. He told CNN he'll focus his bid on online privacy and domestic surveillance.
"We are losing privacy at an alarming rate — we have none left," McAfee told the network. "We've given up so much for the illusion of security and our government is simply dysfunctional. The government can spy on people using their mobile phones while they're with their wives and husbands."
McAfee knows firsthand about the amount of information we unwittingly share online. When he ran from Belizean officials who wanted to question him about the murder of a neighbor, reporters traveling with McAfee accidentally exposed his exact location by including metadata in a photograph they posted online.
Although McAfee was never a suspect in the murder — just a person of interest — he was eventually deported to the United States after illegally entering Guatemala while on the lam. McAfee had ended up in Belize after selling his anti-virus company, and then losing a significant amount of wealth in the most recent recession. As NPR reported in 2012:
McAfee's lifestyle in Belize was active and eccentric. His island home was known as a party house, with many women living there, most believed to be prostitutes from the mainland. And he had seven large dogs protecting the property. Faull, his murdered neighbor, had complained about the dogs and the constant traffic on the small road between their homes.
In the CNN interview, McAfee, who was arrested on charges of driving under the influence in Tennessee last month, said he's ready and willing to discuss his "checkered background."
McAfee filed paperwork with the FEC earlier this week. His campaign has also launched a website, though the page currently contains no information other than a quote attributed to George Washington: "Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism."Here's a sweet little student project from ITP: a clock that counts up to a hundred years and falls apart:
Showing 'Time in Six Parts,' the clock "rotates once every second. The following pulley rotates once every 5 seconds (1:5 ratio). The next rotates once every 60 seconds or 1 minute. Then 5 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day, 1 month, 1 year, and 1 decade. The decade wheel carries the load of the large arc. The large arc rotates once every century. The final ratio between the 60-RPM motor and the large arc is approximately 1:31.6 billion. Each wheel is marked with a black nut to highlight a position that could be tracked over time. Along the arc, 100 lines mark the divisions of each passing year. When the clock finally reaches the end of a 100-year cycle, the arc falls off its track onto the floor."
The 3.16 Billion Cycles Clock, with the time in six part series, is perhaps an attempt to present time in a prospective like never seen earlier. If with this the designer intended to take time beyond our consideration and explore its new realms, he has by far succeeded in his effort, but still the clock remains routed to the core, by living every second till eternity (we aren't living an age to see a 100 years pass).The most passionately anti-Obama Republican politicians and activists consider themselves the truest and purest of conservatives, and often unleash their scorn and fury on others who also call themselves conservative but differ on strategy and tactics.
But in the realm of philosophy, “conservatism” from Thomas Hobbes onward is a worldview dedicated to order and tradition and the proposition that disorder is dangerous and deadly.
Thus, it is the opposite of “conservative” to embrace chaos instead of order. It is the opposite of “conservative” to embrace crisis rather than accept unpleasant realities.
And yet, over the past week, that is exactly what many conservatives have done. They have violated fundamental conservative precepts.
In so doing, they have turned on other conservatives — people who agree with them on substance — and accused them of impurity and corruption for refusing to march their party and their movement over a political cliff.
It wasn’t House Speaker John Boehner who was responsible for a bill raising taxes on individuals and small businesses who earned $400,000 a year or more. That was the doing of President Obama and the Democrats, who had the stronger hand to play.
Boehner agrees with his fellow conservatives that the Obama approach is the wrong one. So does Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. But unless they found some kind of common ground to stand on with Democrats, taxes were automatically going to go up on everyone.
They were in a thankless position, and they did their thankless job — and for it they got, you guessed it, no thanks. “Am I in some kind of nightmare, or what?” Boehner said on the House floor as the tax bill was being voted on. Those are not the words of a happy man.
And yet you’d think, from the conduct and rhetoric of many conservatives in the House and outside the House and Senate, that Boehner and McConnell had “caved” willingly.
No, they caved because they had no choice.
What they did was what leaders do — or rather, what leaders of those who are in a losing position do. The best they could.
The problem is that conservatives seem to think there were other choices, other ways, other possibilities — when all those choices, ways and possibilities had been exhausted.
And so many of them are literally embracing chaos. Though they oppose raising taxes, by voting against the tax bill on Tuesday night they effectively voted to raise taxes on 98 percent of Americans.
(To be fair, it’s not just righties who are acting out: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, for one, went way over the edge this week, freaking out at a potential two-week delay in passage of the Sandy relief bills.)
Then came talk that Boehner should be fired |
loads or the generators. Network analysis does not need a complete circuit. In that respect, network analysis is simpler than circuit analysis. I’ll elaborate.
Power Transmission Lines
At this basic level, consider power transmission and power distribution to be the same thing. The electrical parameters of a power line are distributed, with series R per mile, series L per mile, and capacitance C to ground per mile as shown below. The diagram is simplified in that only one of the three phases is shown.
For our purposes, R is so small that we can neglect it. R can be used to calculate real power losses in the transmission. In real life, losses are only about 2% so we can ignore R while studying basics.
Capacitance to ground is a major consideration in ultra-high-voltage lines that run for long distances, and for underground or underwater cables, but for lower voltages and shorter distances, we can neglect C also.
That leaves only the inductance L. Since the frequency is nearly constant 60 (or 50) hertz, it is more useful to write it as the inductive impedance ##X=j\omega L##, where ##\omega##=377 radians/second at 60 hertz (or 314 at 50 hertz).
Finally, we don’t explicitly show the ground connection in the graphic. What we are left with is just X ; it can’t get much simpler than that.
If I say that this is the most complicated circuit you will ever need to understand the basics of the power grid, you will perhaps understand when I say that network analysis is simpler than elementary circuit analysis.
Power and VAR flows
Given the complex voltages ##\bar V_A## and ##\bar V_B##, we can use Ohm’s law to compute the complex current ##\bar I_{AB}##, and the complex power at each end ##P_A+jQ_A## and ##P_B+jQ_B##. The results are complicated expressions that I won’t show, but the following real approximate expressions suffice.
##P_A=\frac{V_A\cdot V_B}{X}\sin{\theta}##, where ##\theta## is the phase angle difference between ##\bar V_A## and ##\bar V_B##.
Do not confuse ##\theta## with the angle ##\phi## between voltage and current discussed in Part 1. ##Q=\frac{V_A \cdot (V_A−V_B)}{X}cos(theta)## or approxumately ##Q \propto (V_A-V_B)##
That leads to the mantra that power engineers learn to chant over and over like “Hare Krishna”.
Real power flow is proportional to the angle difference between voltages at adjacent nodes.
flow is proportional to the difference between voltages at adjacent nodes. VAR flow is proportional to the magnitude difference between voltages at adjacent nodes.
Those principles apply equally to networks with 2 nodes as to networks with 200,000 nodes. If you memorize those two, you are 99% of the way home to understanding the entire power grid.
Now we can generalize. A power grid is a network made up of nodes like A and B, branches that connect the nodes, sources (generators) and sinks (loads). We analyzed just one branch above, but we can repeat that for any branch in an arbitrarily large network. So, no matter how large the network, you only need to know how to analyze one branch at a time. Utility planners use software to routinely analyze networks with 250,000 or more nodes
.
VARs and Voltage Control
If VAR flow depends on voltage magnitude differences, then VARs must be intimately involved with fulfilling grid requirement #4, keeping all node voltages within the range 90%-110%. We call that voltage control.
Suppose we connected a load at node B, that has an inductance the same value as the transmission line’s X. What would happen? (The load probably has R too but we don’t need to consider that.) It doesn’t take much math to see that we have two equal Xs in series connected to ground, the voltage at B is 50% of ##V_A##. That would cause a lot of VARs to flow from A to B. It would also violate the 90% – 110% rule. So, what are some possible remedies to fix low voltage?
We could change the transmission line to reduce X. But if X is too small, then we get into trouble if there is a short circuit with B connected to ground. So there’s a lower limit on X. We could add a capacitance in series with X. That leads to the same short circuit problem. It also creates an LC oscillator, and those oscillations might cause their own problems. We can increase the voltage at A, but not more than 110%. That would send even more VARs toward B. How do we increase ##V_A##? If there is a power plant at A, we could instruct them to raise the terminal voltage, or (equivalently) to generate more VARs to ship to the grid. We could install a transformer between A and B and adjust the turns ratio to increase ##V_B## relative to ##V_A##. But if the customer then disconnects the load at B; ##V_B## might go too high. Special transformers (called TCUL for Tap Changing Under Load) can change their turns ratio dynamically based on remote commands. We could connect a capacitance C to ground at node B. That would put the C in parallel with the load’s X and cancel the load X. This is called reactive shunt compensation. That’s OK unless the load is turned off, leaving only the compensation C without the load. That could cause ##V_B## to go too high.
Shunt compensation comes in capacitive, inductive, or electronic forms capable of both plus and minus Q A so-called synchronous condenser can also be used. It is merely a generator that runs with zero P but plus or minus Q.
All these compensations must deal with changing loads such that ##V_B## stays in the 90% – 110% range. We could force the customer to reduce his load demand by shutting off all or part of his load because he is causing voltage problems. We call that “load shedding” and we do it only as a last resort, since shutting off customers without their permission is highly unpopular.
Capacitive loads are rare but not unheard of. The capacitance of power transmission lines themselves become dominant for very high voltage long-distance overhead lines, or for underground or underwater cables. Capacitances to ground cause high voltages. To remedy high voltage, all the above apply, but in the other direction.
Now, raise your horizon. Think not just of nodes A and B, but of entire regions. The above remedies can be applied equally to entire regions with many external connections and thousands of nodes. If for example, if the entire London Metropolitan Area in England trended toward low voltages, then the grid operator would take action to send more VARs into that region from every direction.
Voltage control costs utilities hundreds of millions of dollars. But keeping voltage 90% – 110% is a utility’s obligation and not something they can explicitly charge customers for. Instead, utilities often attempt to discourage excessive VAR demand by charging punitive fees for power factors that are too low. Power factor can be measured locally by the customer. Charging for power factor rather than Q avoids discussion of that imaginary stuff that many customers believe does not really exist.
Real Power Control
Now, consider this line of logic for a generator at node A.
The phase angle ##\theta## between two node voltages is proportional to the time integral of the frequency difference between those nodes, and the power flow between those nodes is proportional to ##\theta##. The frequency of a generator is directly proportional to its speed in RPM. More speed, more kinetic energy. So on an incremental linearized basis, speed is proportional to the integral of the net power on the shaft. Net being the sum of mechanical power in, minus friction losses, minus electrical power out.
To achieve a steady state, the rate of change of speed and the rate of change of angle must both be zero. That means that the electr ical speed (i.e. RPM/N, where N=number of pole pairs) of every generator on the grid must be identical. (We therefore call it a synchronous grid.) In a non-steady transient state, we integrate power mismatch once to get frequency, then integrate frequency to get angle, then feed power as a function of angle it back with a minus sign. That is a description of a classical second-order harmonic oscillator. Indeed, generators on power grids typically perform like lightly damped oscillators.
The good news is that every generator can measure the local frequency. It is directly
proportional to RPM. That suggests a very simple and completely distributed way to regulate power on the whole grid. We simply apply James Watt’s 1788 invention, the flyball governor, to each generator. It varies mechanical power in response to speed changes. Then we tune the gain of these governors, to be the same in percent, for every generator. Thereafter, if we add load to the grid, the frequency will start to drop. The speed governors will open the throttles to make more power, with each generator inherently taking up its proportional share of the load until mechanical power (less losses) and electrical power are exactly balanced once again.
I think it’s very cool. Using centuries old technology, we can achieve an exquisitely sensitive dynamic balance between total generation produced (minus losses) and total load consumed, all distributed over an arbitrarily large geographic area. In the same stroke, we have satisfied grid requirements #2 and #3. Hats off to the engineers of yesteryear.
We stopped using flyballs in the 70s. A modern electronic implementation of a speed governor can be done with a single operational amplifier. It could hardly be simpler. This robust distributed scheme kept all the US’ grids operating without a single regional blackout from about 1889 until November 9, 1965 (the date of The Great Northeast Blackout). Even today despite all our computers, the speed governor is the primary regulator of power grids. It is inherently distributed. It does not need remote communications of any kind. It is not digital. It is very difficult to attack via remote means.
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PF members sophiecentaur, and Jim Hardy contributed to this article.Pos No Driver Car Laps Time/Retired PTS 1 5 Sebastian Vettel VET Ferrari 70 1:39:46.713 25 2 7 Kimi Räikkönen RAI Ferrari 70 +0.908 s 18 3 77 Valtteri Bottas BOT Mercedes 70 +12.462 s 15 4 44 Lewis Hamilton HAM Mercedes 70 +12.885 s 12 5 33 Max Verstappen VER Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer 70 +13.276 s 10 6 14 Fernando Alonso ALO McLaren Honda 70 +71.223 s 8 7 55 Carlos Sainz SAI Toro Rosso 69 +1 lap 6 8 11 Sergio Perez PER Force India Mercedes 69 +1 lap 4 9 31 Esteban Ocon OCO Force India Mercedes 69 +1 lap 2 10 2 Stoffel Vandoorne VAN McLaren Honda 69 +1 lap 1 11 26 Daniil Kvyat KVY Toro Rosso 69 +1 lap 0 12 30 Jolyon Palmer PAL Renault 69 +1 lap 0 13 20 Kevin Magnussen MAG Haas Ferrari 69 +1 lap 0 14 18 Lance Stroll STR Williams Mercedes 69 +1 lap 0 15 94 Pascal Wehrlein WEH Sauber Ferrari 68 +2 laps 0 16 9 Marcus Ericsson ERI Sauber Ferrari 68 +2 laps 0 17 27 Nico Hulkenberg HUL Renault 67 DNF 0 NC 40 Paul di Resta DIR Williams Mercedes 60 DNF 0 NC 8 Romain Grosjean GRO Haas Ferrari 20 DNF 0 NC 3 Daniel Ricciardo RIC Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer 0 DNF 0
Note - Magnussen had 5 seconds added to his race time for forcing another driver off the track.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
April 16, 2017, 10:26 PM GMT / Updated April 17, 2017, 12:02 AM GMT By Avalon Zoppo
The centuries-old remains of five archbishops of Canterbury were uncovered underneath a London museum by a construction site manager in what historians are calling an "incredible and astonishing" find.
The Garden Museum, which is housed in a church next to the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lambeth Palace, has been closed for two years as construction crews refurbish the building to make room for additional exhibits.
Karl Patten, the site manager for Rooff LTD, had no idea that he would make a major historical discovery when he took on the job. While lifting 3,300-pound stones one day in 2015, contractors came across a concrete block that lay atop a flight of stairs leading to a tomb.
"We got a camera at the end of a stick and discovered numerous coffins, and one of them had a gold crown on top of it," Patten said in a video posted to the museum's website.
The vault contained 20 coffins, one of which was identified as that of Archbishop of Canterbury Richard Bancroft, who led the committee that produced the King James translation of the Bible in 1611.
Three other identified coffins belonged to John Bettesworth, Dean of the Arches (that is, judge on the ecclesiastical court) for the archbishop of Canterbury from 1710 to 1751; John Moore, the archbishop of Canterbury from 1783 to 1805; and Moore's wife, Catherine.
Museum Director Christopher Woodward said that when he got the call from Patten that day, he was certain that something had gone wrong.
"Every archaeologist in London has looked at this building. But nobody told us to expect to find anything," Woodward said in the video. "I came in thinking, 'This sounds like bad news.' And wow, it's the crown of an archbishop gleaming in the dark."
The church has a long history, having been built in the 11th century by Edward the Confessor's sister across from Westminster Abbey, Woodward said. In the 1960s, the congregation moved and the church was set to be demolished, but a group of volunteers rescued the building and dedicated it as a shrine to a gardener from the 17th century, John Tradescant.
Wesley Kerr, chairman of the Heritage Lottery Fun, which is funding the project, described the discovery as "one of the most incredible things [he's] seen."
"This is really astonishing," Patten said. "To know that possibly the person that commissioned the King James Bible is buried is the most incredible discovery and greatly adds to the texture of this project."ESPN is reporting that the Dallas Cowboys will release Marcus Spears.
The Cowboys will designate Spears a post-June 1 cut, which means they will spread out the cap hit over the next two years. He will count $700,000 against the cap this year and $1.4 million against the cap in 2014.
The move gives the Cowboys an additional $2 million in cap space. They now have enough space they could sign a low cost free agent, although there won't be anything happening soon since the money saved would not be available until June 1.
Spears, who played defensive end under the 3-4, was seen as never living up to his first round selection in 2005. In 2012, he only started six of the fifteen games he played in. He is also likely not seen as a good fit for Monte Kiffin's 4-3 scheme, and offers the team a chance to go with younger players on the defensive line like Sean Lissemore and Tyrone Crawford, who were taking some of his snaps during last season. The team also still has Jason Hatcher.
Spears confirmed his release in a tweet:No, that isn’t how it works.
Yes, Frozen was popular but you know what Disney did? They oversaturated the market with Frozen merchandise and now, it doesn’t sell like it used too. You also think that kids are a hivemind and that they all love Frozen? Well kids are like adults. They form their own ideas and opinions like everyone else. I work at a store and we sell Frozen stuff. No one has asked for Frozen merchandise in at least six months. I get people asking for Steven Universe, Rey from Stars, Pokemon and more.
Yeah kids loved Frozen but some of them didn’t and some of them moved on. As of now, we only have a few Frozen items on our floor because the rest of them didn’t sell. At least 85% of our Frozen stuff is back at our warehouse. I see little girls look at some of the Frozen merch we have but their parents usually say, “No, you have enough Frozen.”
You may think only tumblr people are tired of Frozen but I’m going to have to argue that. If people were still crazy about Frozen, then why is Frozen merch still sitting on the shelves? Even Target is having trouble moving their Frozen stuff. Every time I go, it’s on sale and still no one seems to touch it.
What I’m getting at is that Disney over marketed Frozen to death and now, instead of marketing their newer films, they’re digging themselves a deeper hole. Audiences have moved on, including kids. This is extremely poor marketing on Disney’s choiceSpecial Counsel Robert Mueller, the former FBI director investigating possible connections between Russian officials and President Donald Trump’s campaign team, is now reportedly looking into a scandalous dossier containing explosive, unverified allegations regarding Trump and his associates.
CNN and NBC News reported Thursday that Mueller’s investigators have spoken to Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the dossier. A separate report by Reuters said Mueller’s team had taken over the FBI’s inquiries into the dossier as part of the special counsel’s investigation into whether Trump associates had colluded with Russian officials to influence the 2016 election.
The document, which Trump was informed about shortly before his inauguration by then-FBI Director James Comey, alleges compromising details about the president and his ties to Russia, including claims that Trump associates did indeed collude with Russians.
It also alleges that Russian officials are sitting on damaging information about the president, including accusations that Trump hired “a number of prostitutes to perform a ‘golden showers’ (urination) show in front of him” while staying in a hotel suite in Moscow that was under surveillance by Russian intelligence.
The dossier’s claims have not been substantiated, and Trump has vehemently denied the allegations, calling them “totally made-up stuff.”
According to the CNN report, U.S. intelligence officials took the claims alleged in the document more seriously than previously indicated.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has also attempted to contact Steele about the dossier, committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, the committee has hit a wall,” Burr said. “The committee cannot really decide the credibility of the dossier without understanding who paid for it, who are your sources and subsources.”According to a release of the 5 day Tropical Weather Outlook released at 8:00 AM this morning by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration’s National Hurricane Center, meteorologists are predicting a 60 percent chance of the formation of a tropical cyclone within five days that could threaten Florida’s Gulf Coast Monday or Tuesday of next week.
A low pressure area is expected to form over the Yucatan or the adjacent waters by late this weekend. This low could develop into a tropical cyclone as it subsequently moves across the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Peninsula early next week. Regardless of development, locally heavy rains and flooding are possible over portions of the Yucatan Peninsula, western Cuba and the Florida Peninsula during the next several days.
If such a storm forms, the trajectory currently shows the storm heading eastward over the Florida Peninsula or Eastern Carribean toward the Atlantic. This is a storm that Pasco County and New Port Richey residents should carefully monitor over the coming week. NewsPortRichey will publish any major updates on the storm. Concerned residents who need help with preparation for such a storm can seek additional information from Pasco County Emergency Management, and a comprehensive guide they publish called the “Disaster Planning Guide”.
Officials often recommend that residents be prepared with food, gas, supplies, and medications for at least the first 72 hours following a storm, and have a reserve of clean drinking water to last at least seven days.
Update
The City of New Port Richey has made sandbags available for residents for this potential storm. Sand and sandbags will be available this Friday through Sunday at 6420 Pine Hill Road from 8 AM – 5 PM. Residents must bring their own shovel.
Pasco County has now also opened sand bag locations for Pasco County residents at the following locations:
West Pasco Government Center, 7356 State Street, New Port Richey (self-serve)
J.W. Mitchell Park, 4025 Little Road, New Port Richey (self-serve)
Veterans Memorial Park, 14333 Hicks Road, Hudson (self-serve)
C-Barn, 30906 Warder Road, San Antonio (self-serve)
Land O’Lakes Rec Center, 3032 Collier Parkway, Land O’Lakes (self-serve)
Fire Station #2, 6907 Dairy Road, Zephyrhills (self-serve)
Hurricane evacuation zones for the County and City are also available here, with five zones for evacuation (A, B, C, D, and E) that correspond to expected storm tidal heights. Residents in Level A zones are expected to evacuate first, with additional areas expected to evacuate as predictions for storm strength might increase. Officials recommend that residents know their evacuation routes and locations in advance, and also know the locations of shelters they plan to utilize in the event of an evacuation. Residents planning to use shelters should note that not all shelters will accept pets, and that other arrangements for pets should be made, including planning to evacuate to shelters that do accept pets, or leaving the area entirely.
The Pasco County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) has been undergoing renovations since last year and is not expected to be completed until August 2016. Pasco County issued a Press Release at 12:00 PM Friday indicating that Pasco EOC Director Kevin Guthrie asked for renovations to be moved up. “The decision was made Wednesday to go ahead and finish as much as we can,” Guthrie said, “It was remarkable to see… staff furnish and make it operational so quickly.” Emergency Management staff said they will closely monitor the weather system currently in the Gulf of Mexico.Hillary Rodham Clinton charged $200,000 to speak at a Boys and Girls Club charity event last year and then donated 100 percent of her earnings back into her family’s own $2 billion foundation, according to a recent Politico report.
The Democratic presidential candidate’s $200,000 speaking fee was the largest paid by the Boys and Girls Club of Long Beach to any speaker and was among the least profitable, according to sources familiar with club finances, Politico reported.
Sources also complained that Mrs. Clinton gave her speech and left without visiting any of the club’s facilities or meeting with the children. Her speech was also closed to the press, Politico reported.
By contrast, Condoleezza Rice, who spoke at the same event five years earlier, spent the morning before her speech touring a club facility and talking with its children, Politico reported. Her speech was open to the press.
“With Hillary, it was more businesslike,” a volunteer at the event told Politico. “She did acknowledge what we do for the community, but it felt like a little bit of hypocrisy because her speaking fee was higher than anyone we’ve ever had, and she didn’t donate anything back.”
Ms. Rice collected a $60,000 speaking fee for her event and then donated almost all of it back to the club, sources told Politico. Her appearance raised nearly $258,000 after expenses, compared to Mrs. Clinton’s $106,000, Politico reported.
Mrs. Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, was the club’s 2007 featured speaker. Mr. Clinton charged the group $150,000 and reported the earnings as personal income, Politico reported.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.The crew at the TEAM1040 has changed, starting with the guy on the right.
(Photo by Morten Rand-Hendriksen vis Flickr)
Reports began filtering down yesterday that the Team1040 and long-time on-air host David Pratt permanently broke off contract negotiations, meaning Pratt is effectively gone from the Vancouver radio station.
With the station stalwart gone, Team1040 will certainly be in a position to shake up or rotate its on-air line-up.
As a rotation of hosts passed through their airwaves this summer, one thing became clear – a shake-up is long overdue.
First, if the rumours are true about the negotiations between Team1040 and Pratt, then I applaud the station for walking away. It’s been rumoured that Pratt was asking for close to 500K per year on a new contract. Sure, the station drew good ratings – better than any other sports format station in any other major Canadian city. However, the station has no competition in its format in Vancouver and their flagship team just went on a long run to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final. Those are both recipes for great ratings. Couple that with horrendous traffic day after day in rush hour (so people are stuck in their cars, listening to the radio) and you have a ratings bonanza. This says nothing about the quality of the programming on the station or particular shows.
Over the past year, Pratt became increasingly bent on cramming his politics down his listeners’ throats. When the Stanley Cup riot hit, Pratt again used it to hop on his soapbox and stay there. I don’t care what side of the political fence you’re on, a steady diet of acerbic banter on bike lanes and city hall has absolutely nothing to do with the Canucks, Lions or Whitecaps. It just doesn’t. Pratt’s Rant overtook the entire time slot and was became less and less about actual sports. The Team1040 is a sports radio station, after all. I, for one, tuned out permanently from 2-6. And did so vocally. I know many of my Twitter fraternity did likewise. I don’t know if it was enough to make an impact on the station’s decision to keep Mr. Pratt signed. I suspect it was nothing more than a mere whisper in the station’s ear.
Let’s not forget though. From an on-air perspective, Dave Pratt MADE that station. For many years, he was a reason to tune in. Famously and constantly battling with Brian Burke (and an infamous conversation with Burke’s wife and former TV host Jennifer), a talent for pressing matters with difficult guests and asking tough questions and challenging answers when he didn’t like what was said. These were all hallmarks of what made Pratt great for Vancouver sports radio. When Dave Pratt was on, he was ON and it was great listening. Unfortunately it’s been a while since he was ‘on’, and he chose instead to beat his political drum, while he grew increasingly sloppy and lazy with his sports reporting and knowledge. He was complacent with sports and ever ardent about his political views on the city. As listeners tuned out, he drew up his own fate.
It won’t simply be enough for Mr. TEAM to slot in a replacement host for Dave Pratt. His was a big, bombastic personality that could command the airwaves when firing on all cylinders. But the station now has an opportunity to revamp its lineup and bring in some new, fresh blood. I’m no radio expert. I’m no expert in ratings or how to garner ratings in this market.
I like listening to sports talk radio. I like sports radio hosts who can discuss sports in a knowledgeable and entertaining manner. The introduction of Jason Botchford, Matt Sekeres and Paul Chapman has been great. They all bring a sports acumen coupled with a reporter’s zeal and a edgy, biting side to their interviewing. I like Barry MacDonald’s often nostalgic view of the sports world and his rapport with almost every one with whom he talks. I like Blake Price a lot. He is opinionated, knowledgeable and plugged in and he’s not afraid getting into heated debates.
Here are a few suggestions I have for possible on-air personalities:
The Kurtenbloggers. I would love to see Halford and Brough get a permanent spot on the airwaves. They’re entertaining, they’re irreverant, they’re knowledgeable and they have plenty of resources at their disposal. And if they’re busy, the TEAM should give our friends as Pass It To Bulis a call. And if Harrison and Daniel are too righteous and pedantic to take on the a baseless job of being sports talk radio hosts, then the Team can phone Canucks Army.
**note – We at CanucksArmy do not actually believe that the guys at Pass It to Bulis to be pious pricks. In fact, they’re the best.**
**note – We at CanucksArmy do not actually believe that the guys at Pass It to Bulis to be pious pricks. In fact, they’re the best.** Ex-NHLers. Ray Ferraro has unfortunately moved on to a prime spot with the TSN panel, replacing Pierre McGuire as their #1 analyst. Ferraro was great radio. Knowledgeable and prickly with an insider’s view of what it means to be an athlete. Could they convince Jeremy Roenick to move to Vancouver? Lots of meals at the Keg! Or maybe Mr. Team can convince Paul Bissonnette to retire and join full-time. Ok, I kid. Biznasty’s got a good thing going. But you get the idea.
Women. The demographics of the TEAM’s listeners has broadened. Let’s get some ladies on the radio, talking sports! There are plenty of female sports reporters and sports anchors, yet a frightening absence of women in sports radio. It’s time for that to change.
TEAM1040 does not have long to get everything set. The NHL regular season starts in 4 weeks and the roster of on-air hosts will need to be set in short order. The TEAM has a great stable of talent already. It’s just a matter of getting the right talent in the right spot.
So long as the Moj is nowhere near my airwaves.
What do YOU think? Who should The TEAM 1040 consider for on-air talent? Tell us here!Jack Thompson reads '63 Not Out'
Jack Thompson is an icon of Australian cinema, having featured in such classics as The Man From Snowy River and Breaker Morant (among many others, including Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones).
When he was asked by cricket.com.au to read our own Adam Burnett's poetic tribute to Phillip Hughes, '63 not out', Mr Thompson said he would be honoured to.
The heartfelt reading, now produced with images and video by Adam Goldfinch, was recorded in early December at Rec Studios in Sydney.
Cricket Australia and cricket.com.au would like to thank Mr Thompson (pictured below during the reading) for his contribution to our ongoing tribute to Phillip Hughes, who may be gone but will never be forgotten.
It’s a tragedy of circumstance that’s left our game in tatters, A happening that makes us ask just how much cricket matters. A young man lost so suddenly without a rhyme or reason, How does one accept that Phillip Hughes has played his final season?
But with the grief and sadness there’s also cause for celebration, For a life that scaled lofty heights and charmed this sports-mad nation. For a gift that burned so brightly, that was raw and hard to tame, For that cheeky grin, ubiquitous with mention of his name.
From early doors they pinned him as a legend in the making, Macksville locals soon lost count of records he was breaking. The whispers grew, the rumours flew, the tales did the rounds, Of a cacky-handed run machine whose talent knew no bounds,
A homespun style, an eagle eye, a focus few could rival, The simple traits that paved the way for this country boy’s arrival. Because despite the rural passion that defined him til his last, For Phillip Hughes the path was clear, his cricket die was cast.
To Sydney with a bullet he flew straight down the Pacific, Within in a blink, while still a teen, his numbers were prolific. Here was a kid, a prodigy, who had to make his mark, The youngest man in baggy blue since a certain Michael Clarke.
The youngest gun to make a ton in a final of the Shield, A bush technique honed on the land found gaps in any field. And as the hundreds piled up, we knew greater things awaited, Sure enough, to Africa, where a champion was created.
The story now is folklore in the history of the game, With a pair of tons in Durban, Phillip Hughes had made his name. Cutting, slicing, arrowing, he took South Africa apart, He was 20, he was brilliant, he was playing from the heart.
But what goes up, it must come down, a fact each player knows, With the glory and the triumphs come the failures and the lows. Four times he lost his place in his beloved Test match side, Four times he vowed to fight again, and he wouldn’t be denied.
Until that fateful day when he would play his final innings, A knock that promised greater things, suggested new beginnings. We were clueless to the scale as the accident unfurled, Had no idea this tragedy would rock the cricket world.
But in our darkest moments we cling to things that make life brighter, And the sport has been united by the memory of a fighter. And while the flashy blade and diamond studs could well have fooled a few, There was never any argument, he was country through and through.
Because beyond the adulation, past the thrill of Test match battle, There remained a constant yearning, for his home, for Angus cattle. For the undivided love he knew from father and from mother, For that familial connection to one’s sister and their brother.
So raise a glass for Phillip Hughes, put out your bat with pride, Let’s salute a little character who took life’s hurdles in his stride. The nation mourns, the cricket stops, but never be in doubt, That somewhere far above us, he’s still sixty-three not out.This is it. The final six teams in my preseason power rankings. Like just about everyone else, I have the Cubs as the best team in baseball entering spring training. My top six teams also all made the playoffs last year... which, well, that doesn’t seem right. Something will go wrong. Sounds like a follow-up column: Why my predictions are wrong.
With Zack Greinke gone, Yasiel Puig's production could help drive -- or drop -- the Dodgers. Getty Images
6. Los Angeles Dodgers
Big offseason moves: Lost RHP Zack Greinke in free agency; signed Japanese RHP Kenta Maeda; LHP Brett Anderson accepted club’s qualifying offer; re-signed 2B Howie Kendrick and 2B Chase Utley; signed LHP Scott Kazmir; signed RHP Joe Blanton; in three-team trade, acquired RHP Frankie Montas, OF Trayce Thompson and 2B Micah Johnson from the White Sox for 2B Jose Peraza, OF Scott Schebler and IF Brandon Dixon; SS Jimmy Rollins remains a free agent.
Most intriguing player: Maeda is a slightly-built right-hander who turns 28 in April. A big star in Japan with a 2.39 career ERA, he posted a 2.09 ERA in 2015, striking out 175 in 206.1 innings for Hiroshima with just five home runs allowed. While Maeda was durable in Japan, rarely missing a start, irregularities in his medical exam meant he had to sign an incentive-laden deal that has a base value of just $25 million over eight seasons; he can earn an extra $10 million-plus per season based on starts and innings. How good is he? The Steamer projection system forecasts a 3.55 ERA/2.7 WAR over 178 innings.
I'm just the messenger: It’s a long laundry list. Yasmani Grandal is recovering from shoulder surgery that led to him hitting.162 in the second half. Justin Turner is expected to be ready for spring training after microfracture surgery on his left knee. Enrique Hernandez had offseason shoulder surgery. The Dodgers are hopeful Hyun-Jin Ryu will be ready for Opening Day after missing all of 2015 with a shoulder injury. Then there’s Yasiel Puig, who played just 79 games in 2015, and Brett Anderson, healthy in 2015 but injury-prone throughout his career.
Where I could be wrong: Well, if Clayton Kershaw goes down... aside from that, there are legitimate concerns about the offense. What will Puig’s production be at this point in his career? Was Joc Pederson's second-half slump just a blip or a young player unable to make adjustments? What about the late slide of Adrian Gonzalez, who turns 34 in May? He hit.238/.316/.371 the final two months. The Dodgers have depth and versatility, but rookie shortstop Corey Seager may have to be a key cog in the middle of the lineup, and that’s a lot to ask of a 22-year-old, even one rated as the No. 1 prospect in the game.
The final word: With an estimated $242 million payroll, the largest in the game, the Dodgers really have only one big star. Oh, Seager is going to be one, Puig still has the potential to play like one and Gonzalez used to be one, but this is a team built on the depth of its 40-man roster. There are more young players coming as well, like pitchers Julio Urias and Jose De Leon. This won’t be a transition year under new manager Dave Roberts. The Dodgers will be expected to win the division. The loss of Greinke obviously hurt, but I think that depth wins out and the Dodgers edge the Giants for the NL West title.
Prediction: 91-71
5. Toronto Blue Jays
Big offseason moves: Re-signed RHP Marco Estrada; lost LHP David Price in free agency; signed LHP J.A. Happ; acquired RHP Drew Storen from the Nationals for OF Ben Revere; acquired RHP Jesse Chavez from the A’s for RHP Liam Hendriks; lost C Dioner Navarro, RHP Mark Lowe and IF Cliff Pennington in free agency; LHP Mark Buehrle retired.
Most intriguing player: AL MVP Josh |
Agar to bring about tea.
In the final session, Warner and Usman Khawaja opened the batting and Bird – having switched sides to stay on the bowling team – picked up the wicket of Warner in his first over, edged behind to Handscomb with the gloves on.
Khawaja was joined by Mitch Marsh and that pair batted out the session until stumps, facing spin from Lyon, Maxwell and Swepson's leg-breaks.Please consider donating to Behind the Black, by giving either a one-time contribution or a regular subscription, as outlined in the tip jar to the right or below. Your support will allow me to continue covering science and culture as I have for the past twenty years, independent and free from any outside influence.
Link here.
I could quote almost every line. Greenfield successfully says what I have been thinking and noting (but not very successfully) for the past several months, that today’s American colleges have become oppressive places, run by violent leftist and racist mobs, and that this vision provides us a peek into the future of America. As he concludes:
Colleges have always been the training ground for the leaders of tomorrow. The blueprints for a new society begin there. If you wanted to know what leftist ideas would be going mainstream in a decade, you went to a fashionable college. The leftist idea that is going mainstream [today] is a totalitarian state.
… Imagine what tomorrow’s leaders would be like if they all got an education in North Korea. That’s the crisis we face today. The leaders of tomorrow are coming of age in the totalitarian campus states of today. When one of those polls emerge showing that 7 out of 10 college students want to ban offensive speech, it’s not a generational phenomenon so much as it is environmental indoctrination.
The left’s experiment in college totalitarianism has normalized an environment in which free speech and individual rights don’t exist, in which truth and facts were invented by imperialists, and in which a single cultural misstep can have shattering consequences for anyone who isn’t part of the right identity clique.
Today’s campus is unsafe for America. Taxpayers have invested enormous amounts of money into funding an educational system that rejects everything that makes our society work. If that does not change, then our society will be destroyed by the consequences.
The battle over freedom on campus is the battle for freedom in America. [emphasis mine]
If we do not cease funding this vicious oppressive culture, it will come back soon and bite us, and bite us hard.
Update: Said by a California professor: “College campuses are not free speech areas.” He said this as he and his students, under his instruction, were attempting to wipe out chalked opinions (placed on the sidewalk with the school’s approval) he did not likeHow do we go deeper into this community?
I have, for most of my life, been someone trying to organize community, bringing people together, and building connections. For a lot of that time, I put emphasis on showing up for one another: presence is key I would say.
I got a monumental lesson in presence twelve years ago. When my step-father committed suicide in 2003, those who were the most helpful during that crisis, were the people who showed up. Those who came and sat with us. Brought the ministry of cookies and casseroles. They offered no grand theories. No trite explanations. What they offered were silent bodies, sitting in prayerful support. Like a silent cloud of witnesses visible to the naked eye. It was here that I learned how presence is the roots and the ligaments of community. It was faithful presence that got us through that dark night.
How do I go deeper into community?
As important as presence is on its own it does not make for the depth of community we seek. If I am unable to surrender myself in such a way that I can offer or receive a gift, then my presence alone is little more than a Cicada’s exuvia.
I purport depth of being when I am unable to offer the gift of a word of kindness, a gentle hug, a silent prayer, a hand-written card. I impersonate community when I am unwilling to receive the gift of another in all their mispronounced, hierarchical, and experiential wanderings.
And what about my own gifts? If I stand and offer vocal ministry will you finally see that my faltering words are unclear and half-baked?
If I write words out for the world to see what will the world see in me? Will you allow me the space to grow; a space that can only come through speaking and revising within a circle of trust?
If I risk a gift will it be abandoned under the tree?
Will it be dashed upon the rocks of misunderstanding and disapproval?
Surrender is the unfavorable brother of community. We want “community” on our terms. I will write the contract for negotiation, thank you very much.
If I am to be in community with others, I must learn how to surrender in the way I receive the gifts that are offered even, and especially, when it is not the gift I requested. If I am to become an integral part of the threads that are woven into this people, I surrender the gifts I have to offer. No matter how feeble they are bound to be.
But I do not just surrender when I venture to contribute my piece. I surrender when I put extend my hands and heart in receptivity. Community invites me to surrender my misgivings, biases and expectations towards that which is offered. Community is where I practice “listening with empathy.” Can I receive you the way a mother receives a newborn child? Can I hear you as I want to be heard?
How do I go deeper?
Both presence and surrender move us closer to the kind of gift that we can be to one another in community: a people who bless and not curse. In our world there is so much emphasis on taking. Every time a video on youtube rolls, someone is wanting to take a piece of our time and resources. So often in meetings and churches, someone wants something from you. Contributing and supporting is after all how we sustain these fledgling and historical communities. But if I want to go deeper, I need to the emphasis away from taking to blessing.
A community that blesses one another is a community that recognizes the gifts that are already present, that have already taken place. To bless a birth, a death, a new found love, and other failures and successes is a way in which we can say, “I see you.” “I recognize and honor your life in all its beautiful and frail complexities.” To bless is to allow the other to stand independently of the group, to see them as an individual not to be “taken” or “controlled” as though the goal of friendship is to turn others into our likeness, but instead to bless and honor for who and where they are. This alone could take us a long way toward stitching together the fragments that have separated us.
I can move deeper into this community not by practicing presence alone, but by practicing surrender both the giving and receiving of gifts and blessing those whose lives are different from mine and yet whose story I share in.
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Lately, Paul Elio's dream of building the next Tesla seems like it's getting a lot closer to reality.
Since he launched Elio Motors in 2008 with the improbable idea of mass-producing a two-seat, three-wheel vehicle that gets 84 miles to the gallon and retails for $6,800, Elio -- a former auto engineer -- has been trying to raise the $300 million he estimates he needs to actually build it.
Elio had already raised $70 million toward his goal by the middle of last month when he began asking the masses to take advantage of just-enacted federal investment rules allowing them to invest in private companies -- like startups -- using crowdfunding site StartEngine.
So on Monday, when StartEngine reported that nearly 6,000 people had expressed interest in giving the company $25 million within the last month, Elio's crowdfunding campaign looked like a runaway funding success story.
But as Elio and StartEngine realized, the amount of the crowd's actual investment might be inflated -- dramatically -- by pranksters.
"We had $3.6 million of reservations that we didn't think were legitimate," said Elio, noting that one blogger, who went by the name Superman, reserved $500,000 of company stock. "It looks like another $1 million creeped in today."
How much of the now $22.4 million ponied up by investors is real? Elio doesn't know. Worse, he might not know for months as he waits for the Securities and Exchange Commission to vet the company's paperwork and formally approve sales of shares in the private company.
As one of the first startups to take advantage of the federal investment rules that went into effect in June, Elio's experience puts it on the leading (and bleeding) edge of crowdfunding, where the rules of the game are in flux and timelines are unpredictable. When they're not phantoms or pseudonymous pranksters, the new class of investors have little experience -- yet many of the investments available to them require a lot of it.
Even so, interest in investing in startups via crowdfunding appears to be surging, at least according to early anecdotes from crowdfunding sites. What's still unclear is whether this type of crowdfunding will give Americans a chance at a windfall investment they would have otherwise been excluded from or whether it will leave them owning shares of a worthless company that experienced investors would never have touched in the first place.
Crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, GoFundMe and RocketHub abound online, offering budding entrepreneurs ways to fund their projects via the crowd rather than Silicon Valley's moneyed guard of venture capitalists. Kickstarter, for example, says that 89,012 projects have collected about $1.8 billion from the digital crowd using its platform.
But those sites allow donations, not investments. Less common among crowdfunding sites are those that offer ownership; and those that do have been restricted to offering ownership to all but the richest 3.5 percent of American households who are rich enough qualify as accredited investors. (To be one of those, you need to either make at least $200,000 or have assets beyond a house that are worth more than $1 million.)
That situation changed on June 19 with a new rule change, Regulation A+, effectively allowing 118.7 million American families to begin the process of buying shares in private companies like startups.
It's unclear today how many crowdfunding sites have opened investments to the masses. For now though, two of the biggest players aren't changing course. Kickstarter has maintained that it has no plans to offer equity, while Indiegogo has hinted only that it might consider it.
And while the giants of crowdfunding are watching how the new rules play out, smaller sites are still testing the waters. Los Angeles-based StartEngine, which was founded by former Activision co-founder Howard Marks in 2011 as a tech accelerator, has expanded the number of companies that average investors can buy into from just Elio Motors to three other startups.
StartEngine's CEO, Ron Miller, says he can't validate each individual investor at this point, making it difficult to know how much of the investments users have pledged is real. However, he says StartEngine is "in the middle of screening" for investment pledges above $20,000.
Like StartEngine, SeedInvest also opened up its investments to the masses last month when it began allowing them to reserve interest in buying into WayBetter, a startup that runs a health website called DietBet. Within 48 hours of opening WayBetter to the crowd, the New York-based crowdfunder reported that 3,171 people pledged to invest $9.3 million into the company.
"As soon as WayBetter tested the waters, we were flooded with other companies that were interested," said SeedInvest co-founder and CEO Ryan Feit. He said he's already looking at making other startups available for mass investment sometime this year.
Buyer beware
But Feit also warns that investing in startups isn't for everyone. And there's one major reason: buying shares will be a lot easier than selling them.
In theory, if you buy shares of Elio or any other startup that's raising capital using an online crowdfunding site, you can also sell them. But in practice, that's not how it works out. Unlike stock exchanges that lets investors buy and sell shares in public companies, there's no comparable option for investors of private companies, even ones that use crowdfunding sites to sell shares.
So how do you sell your shares? That's the question that has legal experts concerned investors might get stuck owning pieces of a company they may no longer want.
In other words, the estimated 6,000 people who expressed interest on StartEngine in buying $22.4 million of Elio Motors might not be able to sell their stake -- or at least anytime soon.
But even if Nancy Pfund could sell shares, she probably won't be buying into Elio Motors or any other auto startups for that matter. The founder and managing partner of DBL Partners says she's tracked several automobile startups in the decade since her venture capital firm made an early investment in Tesla. But she says the large upfront costs and regulatory hurdles doom most Tesla-wannabes, pointing to startups such as Fisker Automotive and BetterPlace, which both flopped when it came to disrupting the auto industry.
"Never say never," said Pfund when asked if she'd invest in another automobile upstart. "But in some ways the time has passed."
Obviously, Elio doesn't see things the same way.
The would-be Elon Musk discounts the challenges his startup still faces, including an obvious one: completing an engine, much less one capable of getting 86 miles per gallon. Four of Elio's first prototypes have borrowed engines from other cars. Elio says its partner, auto engineering company IAV, has built an engine that it will debut in its fifth prototype. When will that be? The company will only say, "Soon."
For now, Elio is riding high.
"I haven't slept this well since 2007," he said. "Obviously, there's a lot of hard work left, but I think the hardest work is behind us."
F-U-N-D-E-D is a regular column looking -- and sometimes laughing -- at what Silicon Valley has backed in the last week.
Updated at 1:43 PM: Adds clarifying comments from company on status of Elio engine.Alicia asks: Why is Friday the 13th unlucky?
Being wary of Friday the 13th is much more than a quaint superstition observed by a few uneducated people in distant, unreachable towns and hamlets. In the United States alone, it is estimated that between 17 and 21 million people dread that date to the extent that it can be officially classified as a phobia.
So why is Friday the 13th considered such an “evil” day?
The origins aren’t perfectly clear, but we do know that both Friday and, separately, the number 13 have long been considered unlucky and it was around the late 19th century that the first documented instances started popping up of people putting the two together to form the unluckiest day of all.
To start with, the most popular theory as to why Friday is considered unlucky or an evil day is thought to spring from Christianity. By tradition, Friday is considered the day that Eve gave Adam the “apple” and they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden- of course, “Friday” wouldn’t have been around yet. (Note: The notion that it was an apple is a second century invention and contrary to what is stated in Genesis.)
Also by tradition, Adam and Eve were purported to have died on the then nonexistent “Friday”. The Temple of Solomon was said to have been destroyed on Friday. And Jesus was traditionally considered to have been crucified on a Friday, the day we refer to now as Good Friday. That said, there are several references in somewhat recent history of Good Friday being considered the one exception to Fridays being bad luck. Such as this reference from 1857:
Notwithstanding the prejudice against sailing on a Friday… most of the pleasure-boats… make their first voyage for the season on Good Friday.
Others theorize that Friday being unlucky predated Christianity. The name “Friday” was chosen in honor of the Norse goddess Frigg, who was the multitalented goddess of love, beauty, wisdom, war, death, and magic. Teutonic people are thought to have considered the day extremely unlucky, especially for weddings, due in part to the lovely goddess the day was named for. Later, the Christian church attempted to demonize the goddess, so that may or may not be a contributing factor as well.
Whatever the case, despite these quite old origin theories, well documented instances of the notion that Friday was popularly considered unlucky among the masses don’t seem to have popped up until around the mid-17th century. Within the next two centuries after that, the idea continued to spread and by the 19th century was nearly ubiquitous in certain cultures.
As for the unluckiness of the number 13, as with Friday, there are numerous possibilities for the origin, the most popular of which also stems from Christianity. It is considered incredibly bad luck to have 13 people sitting at a table for dinner, which supposedly is due to the fact that Judas Iscariot was by tradition the 13th person to be seated to dine at the Last Supper.
However, the Hindus also believed that it was bad luck for 13 people to gather together for any purpose at the same time.
Far away in northern Europe, the Vikings of ancient times told a very similar story. According to the old Norse myth, 12 gods were feasting at the banquet hall at Valhalla, when Loki, the god of Mischief, showed up uninvited. This, of course, brought the count of gods up to the dreaded number of 13. Loki then encouraged Hod, the blind god of winter and darkness, to murder Balder the Good with a spear of mistletoe, throwing all of Valhalla into mourning, and once again providing another example of a story in history that congregating with 13 for dinner is a bad idea.
So why all these separate religions having such a similar tradition of demonizing the number 13? There are those that theorize the number 13 may have been purposely denigrated by the founders of the patriarchal religions to eradicate the influence of the Mother Goddess. In goddess worshipping cultures, the number 13 was often revered, as it represented the number of lunar and menstrual cycles that occur annually. It is believed by those who adhere to this theory that as the 12-month solar calendar came into use over the 13-month lunar calendar, the number 13 itself became suspect.
It should be noted, though, that not all cultures in the ancient world recoiled at the number 13. The Ancient Egyptians believed life was a spiritual journey that unfolded in stages. They believed that 12 of those stages occurred in this life, but last, the 13th, was a joyous transformative ascension to an eternal afterlife. So the number 13 represented death to the Egyptians, but not death as in decay and fear, but as acknowledgement of a glorious eternal life. Of course, it’s always possible the association with death from Egyptian tradition later morphed into death in an unlucky sense later by cultures influenced by Egypt.
As with the notion of Friday being unlucky, “13” being popularly considered unlucky really seemed to gain steam around the 17th-18th centuries, and by the 19th century in the Western world was likewise extremely widespread in several different cultures.
So when did Friday and the number 13 join forces like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of bad luck to terrorize the masses? You’ll often read that it’s when the Knights Templar were arrested on Friday, October 13, 1307. However, that origin story is a modern notion with no basis in any documented history.
Others point to the last day of King Harold II’s reign on Friday, October 13, 1066. William of Normandy gave him the opportunity to relinquish his crown, which he refused. The next day William took it by force at the Battle of Hastings, causing Harold’s demise. Again, it is a modern idea that this is where the first “Friday the 13th is the ultimate unlucky day” notion came about.
It perhaps isn’t surprising, given that both Friday and “13” as unlucky didn’t reach their zenith in popularity until the 19th century, that it wasn’t until around the mid to late 19th century that the two were put together as the ultimate unlucky day.
One of the earliest references of this comes from a club formed by William Fowler. Fowler set out to prove that these sorts of superstitions are baseless. He thus formed a club known as “The Thirteen Club” in which club members would meet in groups of 13 to dine, with their first ever get together occurring, of course, on the unluckiest day of the week- Friday the 13th in January of 1881.
To thumb their noses even further at the fates, they had club members walk under a ladder before sitting down to a table in room 13 of the building they were in. They also made sure there was plenty of spilled salt on the table before they dined.
A slightly earlier documented reference comes from 1869, in the biography of Gioachino Rossini where the author, Henry Sutherland Edwards notes:
He [Rossini] was surrounded to the last by admiring friends; and if it be true that, like so many Italians, he regarded Fridays as an unlucky day and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that one Friday 13th of November he died.
(Interestingly, traditionally in Italy, Friday the 13th was not considered unlucky, with 13 being often considered a lucky number there until extremely recently when Western European and American influence started to change that. For Italians, classically, 17 was the unlucky number and thus Friday the 17th became the Italian version of Friday the 13th. Nevertheless, Henry Sutherland Edwards was British so, though he was writing about an Italian composer, applied his own superstition to Gioachino Rossini.)
The notion of Friday the 13th being the unluckiest of the unlucky picked up steam from around this point and once we get into the early 20th century, there are numerous documented instances of people referencing it in this way, such as the 1907 novel by stockbroker Thomas W. Lawson called Friday the Thirteenth, which told of a stockbroker’s efforts to destroy the market on that ominous date.
So, aside from the popular “Friday the 13th” film franchise, what makes the Friday the 13th superstition stick so stubbornly in our collective consciousness? Psychologists point to the fact that if anything negative happens on that specific date, people make a permanent association between the event and the date in their minds, conveniently forgetting all those times Friday the 13th has passed uneventfully. In short, it is a classic example of confirmation bias.
If you liked this article, you might also enjoy our new popular podcast, The BrainFood Show (iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, Feed), as well as:
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The Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics in 2008 attempted to prove that Friday the 13th was no different than any other day. They ended up demonstrating the opposite. From their results, they found Friday the 13th is actually a slightly safer day to drive than other days, at least using two years’ worth of data from 2006-2008 in the Netherlands. In that span, there were an average of 7,500 traffic accidents on days that were both Friday and the 13th of the month. On Fridays that didn’t line up with the 13th, there were only an average of 7,800 accidents each day. Their theory is simply that, due to the phobia, less people drive on Friday the 13th and people are more careful when they have to. They also found similar trends with reported fires and crimes, with less happening on Fridays that coincide with the 13th day of the month.
In many nations where Spanish influence is prevalent, rather than Friday the 13th being unlucky, it is Tuesday the 13th that holds that honor.
Expand for ReferencesNEW DELHI, India — As 2014 approaches, the Obama administration is busy trying to keep its promise of extracting most US troops from Afghanistan.
So far, the United States looks set to bungle the negotiations, ceding ground to the Taliban to facilitate a quick exit.
That could push hostilities into a new phase, in which neighboring adversaries India and Pakistan would vie for influence over the mountainous, landlocked nation.
In a worst-case scenario, experts say, if the US were to truly botch the delicate deal-making, the rivalry between the two South Asian nuclear powers could fuel ongoing violence — or even devolve into a proxy war.
From New Delhi’s perspective, the options are hardly appealing. India could increase its involvement in Afghanistan and risk getting sucked into a bloody quagmire, or watch its fragile neighbor become a vassal state of Pakistan.
India and Pakistan’s jostling in Kabul dates back to the Cold War and before.
When war broke out after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, India and Pakistan supported rival anti-communist factions. India sided with rebels opposed to Islamic extremism; Pakistan backed the group that eventually became the Taliban.
Since the Bush administration’s 2001 invasion, however, the US has pressured India to limit its Afghanistan role, to prevent Pakistan from withdrawing support for the war and cutting vital US supply lines.
With the US now ready to bring its soldiers home, India and Pakistan are again wrangling for control. Both foresee disaster if the other were to gain the upper hand.
Islamabad fears that India would use Afghanistan to aid insurgents in Pakistan’s nearby Baluchistan province, where rebellion has simmered since the 1970s. Pakistan also regards control over Kabul as vital to its military doctrine of “strategic depth” — under which Afghanistan would serve as a refuge where its leaders could lead a counterattack in the event of an Indian invasion.
For its part, India fears that resurgent Islamic militancy in Afghanistan will stoke violence in Indian-administered Kashmir, by providing a safe haven and training ground for militants like Lashkar-e-Taiba, perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
So far, India looks to be losing the struggle.
New Delhi has earmarked nearly $2 billion for infrastructure projects and humanitarian initiatives in Afghanistan since the US invasion. The most recent survey on the subject, a 2009 BBC/ABC News/ARD poll, found that 74 percent of Afghans hold favorable opinions toward India and only 8 percent feel the same about Pakistan. Yet Pakistan's proxies seem poised to take over.
Meanwhile, India is loath to bolster its economic engagement with boots on the ground.
“We have to be very cautious because we don't want to begin to bear the burden of supporting the new Afghan government against the combination of the Taliban and Pakistan by offering security support,” former Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal told GlobalPost. “Their needs will keep increasing.”
Consistent with that thinking, earlier this month New Delhi formally rejected Afghan President Hamid Karzai's request for weapons to help his regime fight the Taliban. Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid obliquely parroted a refrain commonly spoken by US officials: “It is a fragile area, there are stakeholders, there are other people. We don't want to become part of the problem."
Or part of the solution, others contend.
“India's decision not to make weaponry available to Karzai is fundamentally foolish and cowardly,” Indiana University professor Sumit Ganguly told GlobalPost. “Instead of whining about being cut out [of planning for Afghanistan's future], the Indians should act.”
Meanwhile, Pakistan has a head start in the latent battle for Afghanistan.
Already, Pakistan’s Taliban allies control most of Afghanistan's southern countryside. President Karzai — who is perhaps more friendly toward New Delhi than he is toward Washington — faces a likely defeat in national elections next year.
The Obama administration has perhaps unwittingly helped Islamabad as well. By signaling its openness to negotiate with the Taliban in June and leaking the possibility of a complete withdrawal of US troops — the so-called “zero option” — earlier this month, America has further bolstered Pakistan's hopes of regaining control over the war-torn country.
“The Taliban are rubbing their hands with glee, as are the Pakistanis, as are the folks in Rawalpindi [Pakistan's military headquarters],” Indian University’s Ganguly argues. He adds that talk of the “zero option” encourages these forces to simply wait America out.
In June, US Secretary of State John Kerry had to do some fast talking to reassure Karzai and leaders in New Delhi after the Taliban opened an office in Qatar under the name “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" — the title it used before its ouster by US-led forces in 2001.
The so-called red lines Kerry proposed for negotiating with the Taliban included renouncing violence and severing ties with Al Qaeda. But the impression left with observers in New Delhi, Kabul and Islamabad was that the US was looking for a deal to get out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible. And when, in July, The New York Times reported that President Barack Obama was now seriously contemplating a rapid and dramatic withdrawal that would leave no US troops at all in Afghanistan after 2014, some began to wonder if Washington was willing to make that deal regardless the cost.
“It's a source of concern to us about the degree to which US would be willing to buy Pakistan support for a post-2014 structure in Afghanistan,” former Indian Foreign Secretary Sibal said.
Even if the US leaves a few thousand soldiers in Afghanistan, it will be difficult for anyone to cobble together the country's various feuding ethnicities to form a government next year. But if Washington affords Pakistani General Ashfaq Kayani a crucial role in the current peace negotiations and allows the Taliban to enter the fray, rehabilitated as a political party, Indians fear that Islamabad's influence will increase dramatically.
“In that fluid situation [if] you introduce a highly organized, externally supported body like the Taliban, what is the time span during which the Taliban, backed by Pakistan, would keep increasing their hold over Afghanistan?” Sibal said.
Worse still, that might leave Afghanistan looking a lot like it did before Sept. 11, 2001.Former Seahawks and Packers coach Mike Holmgren is interested in the San Francisco 49ers head coaching job, reports Robert Klemko of The MMQB.
The 49ers are 4–11 this season, the first under coach Jim Tomsula. Tomsula faced a round of questions about his job status Monday, saying “everybody understands” the NFL is a “volatile” business.
Holmgren last worked in the NFL from 2010–12, serving as the president of the Cleveland Browns. Prior to his stint in Cleveland, Holmgren was the head coach of the Seahawks for 10 seasons.
In Seattle, Holmgren compiled a record of 86–74, leading the team to the playoffs six times. Holmgren’s Seahawks lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XL. He was also the general manager during his first four seasons with the Seahawks.
• Report: Browns expected to fire general manager Ray Farmer
Holmgren also served as head coach of the Green Bay Packers, leading the team to back-to-back Super Bowls in 1996 and 1997, winning the first. Holmgren has posted a winning record in 14 of his 17 seasons as a coach, including every year he was in Green Bay.
Holmgren has a history with the 49ers, working for the team from 1986–1991 as the quarterbacks coach and then offensive coordinator under Bill Walsh and George Seifert.
San Francisco closes out its season next week against the St. Louis Rams.New archaeological evidence has revealed that China’s first emperor Qin Shihuang, the creator of the world famous Terracotta Army, was on an obsessively dedicated quest to find an elixir of life that would provide the key to immortality. An elixir of life is something that has long been sought after and dreamed about, and H. Rider Haggard brilliantly described the subject in 1886 in his Victorian novel She.
Haggard gave his novel’s protagonist Ayesha, or She Who Must Be Obeyed, the opportunity to bathe in the fire of life and fulfill her ambition to have eternal youth and win the man she loved. This set about a series of disastrous consequences in which she was doomed to live virtually alone in the African caves of Kor amidst a lost civilization of people for thousands of years before the man she waited for would return to her.
China’s first emperor appears to have firmly believed that there was an elixir of life available and his search for immortality led him to search the entirety of China for this elixir, according to France 24. The many journeys he sent his people on were recorded for posterity 2,000 years ago and preserved on flat pieces of wood which were held together by string, and the BBC has reported that these pieces of wood were first discovered in 2002 resting inside the bottom of a well waiting patiently to be found so their story could be told.
How China’s first emperor searched for elixir of life https://t.co/MUFE3TIGy1 — BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) December 25, 2017
Despite issuing his executive order decreeing that his people must find him an elixir to give him unending life, Qin Shihuang’s search was in vain as various governments across China all reported back that try as they might, they were just not able to find anything to prolong their emperor’s life.
Even the region of Langya, which had initially hoped that a special herb taken “from an auspicious local mountain” could lead to life eternal, were forced to report back to Shihuang that they had been mistaken in their estimation of this herb.
The Xinhua news agency reported that among the 36,000 pieces of wood documenting the quest for an elixir was also a message from the region of Duxiang in which they had to break the news to China’s emperor that while they too had failed to find him an elixir, they were still hopeful that if they continued their search perhaps something may eventually be found.
China’s first emperor eventually succumbed to death at the tender age of 49 in 210 BC, and while his search for an elixir of life proved elusive in the end, his creation of 8,000 terracotta soldiers designed to protect him in the afterlife has still managed to make him immortal in a certain sense.Premier Kathleen Wynne announced Monday a plan to study basic income in Ontario, in a three-year pilot project based in Hamilton, Lindsay and Thunder Bay.
The province will explore the effectiveness of providing a basic income — no matter what — to people who are currently living on low incomes, "whether they are working or not," Wynne said.
Wynne said the pilot will provide the basic income to 4,000 households chosen from applicants invited "randomly" by the province in the coming weeks.
A single person could receive up to about $17,000 a year, minus half of any income he or she earns. A couple could receive up to $24,000 per year. People with disabilities could receive up to $6,000 more per year.
"People are anxious about their jobs; they're anxious about their futures," she said. "They're worried about the soaring costs of renting or buying a place to live."
People are especially concerned for those who don't start out wealthy, she said.
"Many people are concerned about what the world is promising for their kids," she said. "It's a world of global competition, reduced benefits, more and more part-time employment."
We need to address the concerns of those who worry about falling behind, even as they work so hard to get ahead. - Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne
The premier said the three-year project will start with people making "just under $17,000 a year, but even that amount may make a real difference to someone who is striving to reach for a better life.
"We have chosen these communities intentionally because they are the right size and they have the right mix of population," Wynne said.
"We need to address the concerns of those who worry about falling behind, even as they work so hard to get ahead."
The amount is not "extravagant," she said, but it sends a message:
"It says to them, 'Government is with you; the people of Ontario are with you,'" she said.
4,000 households to be studied
Joining Wynne were Minister of Community and Social Services Helena Jaczek and Chris Ballard, the minister responsible for the province's poverty reduction strategy.
Jaczek said that people in the program will be randomly contacted from each region's low-income population and invited to apply.
The program will cost $50 million a year for each of the three years and 4,000 households will participate. That will include 1,000 people from the Hamilton, Brantford and Brant regions.
People who receive medical and dental benefits from the province under other welfare programs would not have to give those up.
The ministers have been spearheading the province's effort to experiment with basic income. The strategy for reducing poverty involves "a system of automatic transfers for those beneath an income threshold," according to a discussion paper on the topic commissioned by Wynne and the ministers last summer.
The province has said it will launch the pilot project providing money to low-income households with no strings attached.
'There's so much poverty'
Elizabeth McGuire, who chairs the Campaign for Adequate Welfare and Disability in Hamilton, said after the speech she was "blown away" and pleased the program would launch in Hamilton.
"Because there's so much poverty here in the city. And we have so many neighbourhoods which are so clearly defined but are yet so economically depressed because of the loss of manufacturing," she said. "There's no solution other than basic income, but I didn't believe the government was hearing us."
She said Wynne's announcement was the government doing "the right thing."
Deirdre Pike, who works as a senior social planner at the Social Planning and Research Council, echoed that.
"We have people in Hamilton, 7,000 of them, waking up today, they earn about $7,000 a year — I bet a lot of them will be applying to get $17,000 a year and see how that will change their lives," she said.
'Working poor... stand to benefit the most'
Academics who study basic income said the pilot gives a chance to see how the idea plays in a changed economy.
"I think really it's the working poor who stand to benefit the most from this kind of a program, the people who are out there trying to get a job, trying and possibly working part time, working a series of part-time jobs, who can use this program to gain the kind |
say. The earthquakes have been growing in strength, too. After a long period of magnitude 3 tremors, a magnitude 4 quake was detected last week.
"It is definitely showing signs of restlessness," said Einarsson, a professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland.
Teams of seismologists and geologists at the university are tracking the spike in seismic activity and working with disaster officials to prepare communities near Katla like Vik, a small town of some 300 people that is flanked by black sand beaches.
Civil defense authorities have been holding regular meetings with scientists. Disaster officials have also drafted an evacuation plan and set aside temporary housing, but many fear they may have less than an hour to evacuate once the volcano erupts.
Iceland sits on a large volcanic hot spot in the Atlantic's mid-oceanic ridge. Eruptions, common throughout Iceland's history, are often triggered by seismic activity when the Earth's plates move and magma from deep underground pushes its way to the surface.
The longer pressure builds up, the more catastrophic an eruption can be. Records show that Katla usually has a large eruption twice a century. Since its last eruption was almost exactly 93 years ago, it is long overdue for another, seismologists say.
Icelanders are getting nervous as they mark the anniversary of Katla's last blast.
"We've been getting calls recently from people concerned that Katla is about to erupt because it erupted … in 1918 on Oct. 12," said Einar Kjartansson, a geophysicist at the Icelandic Meteorological Office.
"As scientists we don't see that much of a correlation in the date but there is most definitely increased activity. The question is whether it calms down after this or whether there is an eruption."
The eruption of Laki in 1783 was one of Iceland's deadliest. It freed poisonous gases that turned into smog and floated across the jet stream, killing thousands of people with toxic fumes in the British Isles alone.
As sulfur dioxide was pumped into the atmosphere, crop production fell across western Europe because of the smog. Famine spread. And the sun reportedly turned a blood-red hue — a phenomenon painted by many artists of the time. Temperatures in Europe were about 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) below average.
The winter of 1784 was also reportedly one of the longest and coldest on record in North America, with the Mississippi River freezing in New Orleans. Scientists believe volcanic ash floating over the Atlantic was a factor.
"Volcanoes can be quite beautiful, but they can also obviously be quite destructive," Einarsson says.
Of Iceland's more than 22 volcanoes, seven are active and four are particularly active — including Katla and Hekla.
Although it doesn't pose the same flood risk as Katla because it's not situated beneath an icecap, Hekla is one of Iceland's most active volcanoes and sits in the path of most international flight patterns. During the Middle Ages, Icelanders called Hekla the "Gateway to Hell," believing that souls were dragged into the fire below.
Like Katla, Hekla is also overdue for a large eruption and could produce a disruptive and dangerous ash cloud that, in addition to disrupting air travel, could lower overall temperatures across continents by blocking out sunlight for days or weeks.
The capital Reykjavik also sits on a plate boundary but it hasn't seen any eruptions for some 800 years.
Still, one of the plates is showing an uplift, or expansion of the crust, which could mean either that a volcano could be nearing an eruption or there is an increase of geothermal activity. Much of Iceland's infrastructure was built during a lull in volcanic activity.
"One of these days that situation will change and we will definitely see more eruptions close to Reykjavik," Einarsson says.
After the Eyjafjallajokul eruption, Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson warned European officials that they should be prepared for future eruptions, and urged the aviation industry to develop engines that are less sensitive to ash and a better warning system to gauge the threat posed by volcanic ash.
The aviation industry says there is little that airlines can do to prepare for a future ash cloud because decisions on closing air space rest with national regulators.
"The issue is what the regulators will allow us to do, and that's down to the precise circumstances of any future eruption," said David Henderson, spokesman for the Brussels-based Association of European Airlines.
But he said that, despite the fragile state of the airline industry at a time of economic crisis, a new ash cloud would be unlikely to cause any airlines to go under. Still, Katla's eruption could prove significantly larger than last year's, producing a larger ash cloud.
"It would take a closure greater than last May's to put people out of business," he said. "Everything depends on the magnitude of the eruption."
There are no plans to change engines or any other parts of the airframe because all such components are susceptible to damage from volcanic ash.
Any major eruption could also upset Iceland's precarious economic situation.
This island nation of some 300,000 is only just starting to recover from the collapse of its economy in 2008, when a massive speculative bubble that built up in the banking sector came crashing down in a foretaste of the global financial meltdown that was to ensue.
Meanwhile, many Icelanders remain nonchalant about warnings of a major volcanic eruption. Some are even hopeful that they'll get to see one of the awe-inspiring spectacles.
And Icelanders know that volcanoes are tied closely to their livelihood, at most times more friend than enemy. Without them, Iceland would be stripped of its cheap and valuable energy source — geothermal power, which comes from heated water beneath the earth.
Even Iceland's most famous person, singer-songwriter Bjork, has drawn from Iceland's volatile geology for her new album, "Biophilia."
"For me, to connect nature to music is a very effortless and natural connection" Bjork, 44, told The Associated Press.
Thorir Kjartansson, who manages a souvenir and wool shop in Vik — a town close to the flood path of Katla — says he's been waiting for a large eruption since he was a teenager. His father, who witnessed the 1918 eruption, used to warn him before he set out in his car to look north toward Katla's glacier cap.
Residents say they only had about 20 minutes from that eruption to escape its raging flood waters.
"We've been waiting for it for a long time, and we know that it will come one day," he said. "Until then, there's no point in worrying about it."The Cerulean Order and Crimson Legion fight for the most basic of ideologies in their battle to stop evil: the Crimson Legion extols the freedoms of formlessness and independent thinking, and the Cerulean Order believes in the strength of order and discipline to create a collective purpose. And while the scale they are weighed on often results in conflict, their balance tips on the pivot of a shared goal: to create a better world.
Over the past two weeks the Blade & Soul Twitter account has been taken over by each faction, vying for the membership of anyone willing to hear them. This, however, is a call to everyone to create propaganda-style posters to recruit new members to the factions—and for big prizes.
The best poster for each faction will win a prize in both the US and EU regions; four prize packages to be given out total. The contest is limited to one entry per-person, and winning posters will be chosen based on their creativity, originality, and best representation and interpretation of the theme. Entries should follow a portrait aspect ratio (3:4), with a preference for a print-quality 300dpi resolution.
Each winner will receive:
1x Blade & Soul T-shirt
1x Blade & Soul Master Founder’s Pack
Be sure to check out our Twitter account for recent statements from both factions, our factions article on the Blade & Soul website, and Warring Factions page.
All entries must be received by 11:59 PM PDT on September 7, 2015, by submitting them here. You can read the rules here for further exclusions and requirements.Bought this pre-owned online. Game came without the regular case and had been resurfaced so many times the game did not even play. Took the game to my local Bestbuy and the store MGR even said he could not believe they even sent me that game. I was at the store for 45 mins trying to get even thing all worked out. They ordered me another copy and yet the same thing. some cheap plastic case that was now crushed and broken. Game was scrached also. It played so I am not wasting my time or money going through all of this again. I spend alot of money at Best Buy but this left such a bad taste in my mouth in Quality and customer service I doubt I will come back for a while. very upset money spending customer. TL
Read moreIn your choice of Black or White BlackBerry has put unlocked GSM Z10 devices on sale outright for just $199. What a freakin’ steal. While other contenders are bringing budget devices like the Moto G (which lacks LTE and only has a 5MP camera) this Z10 while cheap to own, is not a cheap device. It sports 2GB of ram, a fabulous 8MP shooter (full 1080p) and 356 screen PPI (which makes the iPhone 5s look a bit dull coming in at only 326 (and a smaller screen at that)) and of course LTE ready, because really who wants to wait for a webpage to load. This is a fabulous treat for anyone looking to pick up an amazing device at a bargain price. Think quick this deal only lasts until Dec 2. I’ll repost ShopBlackBerry below for those looking for more details on this awesome holiday deal!
Get $200 off an unlocked BlackBerry Z10*
(your choice of Black or White)
Enter code BFEMAILZ10 at checkout
Offer ends December 2, 2013, or while supplies last. Quantities are limited. Offer is not transferable. Orders placed under this offer must use the original offer recipients email address.
*Only compatible with GSM carriers, including AT&T and T-Mobile
–Get Yours @ ShopBlackBerry–Alex Hales, Chris Rushworth, Tom Curran and Jonny Bairstow have all made significant impacts in 2015
This summer, BBC Sport has again broadcast live commentary on every day's play of every match in the county season.
It has been a summer that has seen Yorkshire retain the County Championship, their Roses rivals Lancashire lift the T20 Blast trophy for the first time and Gloucestershire roll back the years to their glory days of just over a decade ago by winning a thrilling One-Day Cup final.
We asked BBC local radio commentators to nominate players for the 2015 county Team of the Season.
Kent batsman Sam Northeast, Warwickshire pair Rikki Clarke and Jeetan Patel and Derbyshire paceman Mark Footitt were among those unlucky to miss out, but here is the final XI.
Let us know your choices for Team of the Season using the form on this page, or via Twitter, using #bbccricket.
1. Alex Hales (Nottinghamshire)
Competition Runs, average Catches Championship 892, 49.56 (3x100, HS 236)* 2* One-Day Cup 401, 44.56 (1x100, HS 103) 5 T20 Blast 283, 31.44 (HS 86no) 3
"After making his name as a prodigious white-ball biffer, Alex Hales' determination to prove himself in the first-class arena has delivered rich dividends in 2015.
"Three scores over 180, including a career-best 236 against champions Yorkshire, have taken the 26-year-old beyond 1,000 runs in first-class cricket for the second season in a row, a staggering about-turn after a miserable 2013 which saw him dropped to the seconds with an average of just 13.
"His dedication to improve his all-round game has now been rewarded with a call-up to England's Test squad for the first time.
"On his day, there are few better players to watch and it's heartening to find both the international selectors and the county broadcasters arriving on the same page at the same time."
By BBC Radio Nottingham's Dave Bracegirdle
2. Michael Klinger (Gloucestershire)
Competition Runs, average Catches Championship 468, 46.80 (2x100, HS 103)* 5* One-Day Cup 531, 106.20 (3x100, HS 137no) 6 T20 Blast 654, 81.75 (3x100, HS 126no) 1
"Michael Klinger has not only scored big runs in all formats, but his leadership as he moves forward a highly promising group has been superb.
"His strength at the crease centres around an ability to read the match situation and to adapt accordingly.
"He can play the audacious shots when necessary, but he likes nothing better than to build an innings and bat all day.
"And what an attitude - he commuted back from Western Australia to play in the One-Day Cup semi-final against Yorkshire when he needn't have done so and scored yet another match-winning century."
By BBC Radio Gloucestershire's Bob Hunt
3. Ashwell Prince (Lancashire)
Competition Runs, average Catches Championship 1,427, 67.95 (5x100, HS 261)* 13* One-Day Cup 236, 39.33 (1x100, HS 102) 6 T20 Blast 455, 30.33 (HS 78) 12
"Ashwell Prince is a fierce competitor, a wonderful batsman and has played a significant role in helping Lancashire clinch promotion in the County Championship and win the T20 Blast trophy.
"To be the country's leading run-scorer in his final season as a cricketer speaks volumes for his skill, drive and determination to succeed even at the very end of his career.
"This season, Prince has shown all of his international class, which saw him capped 119 times across all formats by South Africa, with fight and flair in equal measure.
"His contribution has been as strong and as significant as in any of his previous five seasons at Old Trafford."
By BBC Radio Lancashire's Scott Read
4. James Hildreth (Somerset)
Competition Runs, average Catches Championship 1,272, 53.00 (2x100, HS 220no)* 7* One-Day Cup 217, 43.40 (HS 85no) 3 T20 Blast 226, 25.11 (HS 51) 3
"James Hildreth is never less than a joy to watch - fluency personified, always looking to pierce the field or find the gaps with those steel-wired wrists and natural sense of timing.
"But this season it has been the volume of his runs as much as the style of them which has rightly earned him his place in this list.
"With the rest of the Somerset middle-order desperately short of runs, there have been times when he's seemed like the boy on the burning deck, with disaster all around.
"The only thing that divides opinion in Somerset is his beard, but after a season like this one, we'll forgive him even that."
By BBC Somerset's Anthony Gibson
5. Luke Wright (Sussex)
Competition Runs, average Catches Championship 1,187, 49.46 (2x100, HS 226no)* 11* One-Day Cup 226, 45.20 (HS 72) 1 T20 Blast 564, 51.27 (1x100, 111no) 6
"Cricket fans across the globe will know about Luke Wright's record in white-ball cricket, be it in the IPL, the Big Bash or during his 100-plus appearances for England.
"Less well-known is that Wright also has a good record in red-ball cricket, in which he averages over 40.
"This season he has scored over 1,000 Championship runs for the first time, including a career-best 226, an innings in which he took 23 balls to get off the mark."
By BBC Sussex's Adrian Harms
6. Jonny Bairstow (Yorkshire)
Competition Runs, average Catches, stumpings Championship 1,071, 107.10 (5x100, HS 219no)* 23* One-Day Cup 53, 26.50 (HS 34) 1 T20 Blast 320, 32.00 (HS 92) 9, 1
"This has been a memorable season for Jonny Bairstow, who raced to 1,000 runs in the first-class game, averaging over 100.
"At one stage of the season he had contributed 25% of Yorkshire's overall runs, and when called up by England for the one-day decider against New Zealand at Durham, he produced a match-winning innings.
"Yorkshire coach Jason Gillespie has had this to say about Bairstow: 'To use the phrase 'form of his life' is suitable to describe the season for JB.
"'He has come on really well as a wicketkeeper and with a series of stunning performances with the bat he has played a great part in helping us to back-to-back titles. He has proved this year that he is a special talent.'"
By BBC Radio Leeds' Dave Callaghan
7. Zafar Ansari (Surrey)
Competition Runs, average Wickets, average Catches Championship 771, 36.71 (1x100, HS 106)* 44, 30.98 (BB 6-30)* 8* One-Day Cup 216, 54.00 (HS 66 no) 10, 25.30 (BB 3-58) 3 T20 Blast 201, 40.20 (HS 67no) 8, 25.60 (BB 3-17) 6
"Zafar Ansari's inclusion in the England Test squad for the winter series against Pakistan was richly deserved, although a thumb injury has cast doubt on his involvement.
"In taking more than 40 wickets with his left-arm spin, Ansari has bowled with great skill and control and has worked really well in tandem with Gareth Batty.
"With the bat, Ansari has scored more than 700 Championship runs at the top of the order, but he also averaged more than 40 in the T20 Blast.
"His bowling and batting were also a key component in Surrey's journey to Lord's for the One-Day Cup final, which sadly he missed because of his injury."
By BBC London 94.9's Mark Church
8. James Harris (Middlesex)
Competition Wickets, average Runs, average Catches Championship 69, 24.55 (BB 9-34)* 455, 25.28 (HS 73)* 3* One-Day Cup 9, 24.22 (BB 4-38) 66, 22.00 (HS 32) 1 T20 Blast 6, 31.33 (BB 3-39) 7, 3.50 (HS 6) 0
"The Middlesex pace bowler skittled Durham almost single-handedly at Lord's early in May, in a display which in one half-hour saw five wickets fall for just nine runs.
"Starting with a bang, Harris has been relentless all season, second only to Chris Rushworth in the total wickets tally in Division One, and his recent five-for against champions Yorkshire gave further evidence that he can mix with the best of them.
"It's a far cry from last year when he found himself unable to feature regularly in the Championship side, and was sent back on loan to his old club Glamorgan to get overs under his belt.
"At only 25, and with the ability to score crucial lower-order runs, if Harris continues to mature at the rate he currently is, further honours may well follow."
By BBC Sport's Isabelle Westbury
9. Tom Curran (Surrey)
Competition Wickets, average Runs, average Catches Championship 66, 23.91 (BB 7-20)* 284, 18.93 (HS 60)* 3* One-Day Cup 15, 31.27 (BB 4-65) 124, 24.80 (HS 44) 1 T20 Blast 14, 28.71 (BB 4-35) 90, 15.00 (HS 41) 7
"Tom Curran has been outstanding for Surrey this season. With more than 60 Championship wickets at an average of just 24, he has led the attack and delivered for the team on a consistent basis.
"At times he has simply destroyed top-order batsmen with his pace and movement, and with the white ball he has also shown tremendous skill and a very cool head for one so young.
"With the bat he has made valuable runs in all forms of the game and has shown he is a genuine all-rounder.
"Curran has only missed one game this season when he was rested for a T20 match and has bowled nearly 500 overs in Championship cricket. He qualifies for England at the end of October, so how he was not included in the Lions T20 squad for the winter is quite beyond me."
By BBC London 94.9's Mark Church
10. Jack Brooks (Yorkshire)
Competition Wickets, average Catches Championship 59, 23.49 (BB 5-35)* 4* One-Day Cup 3, 32.00 (BB 3-40) 0
"This Rambo bandanaman, headhunted by Yorkshire in 2012, is a dead-cert consistent wicket-taker in first-class cricket and shows real class with the new ball.
"His pace is not in vogue with the England selectors, but his full-length attacking attitude and nagging accuracy should not be underestimated.
"After 68 Championship wickets last season, Brooks has also proved he is no one-season wonder and will again be a key figure as Yorkshire target a third successive title in 2016."
By BBC Sport's Isabelle Duncan
11. Chris Rushworth (Durham)
Competition Wickets, average Catches Championship 83, 20.61 (BB 6-39) 6 One-Day Cup 9, 36.89 (BB 4-41) 2 T20 Blast 8, 30.12 (BB 2-13) 3
"Despite being overlooked for England at any level this season, Chris Rushworth has carried on regardless, doing what he does best, which is taking wickets.
"He goes from strength to strength year on year and has again bowled more overs than anyone else in the country - having done the same last year as well.
"He's difficult for batsmen to get away because of the way he moves the ball around. And those who think he only gets his wickets at home - think again.
"Of his 83 Championship wickets, 41 were taken at Chester-le-Street and 42 away. Those northern wickets, eh?"
By BBC Newcastle's Martin Emmerson
*Statistics correct prior to final round of County Championship fixturesThere has been speculation about Iceland star Sigurdsson throughout the close season, with serious interest in the player from more than one rival club.
With the new Premier League campaign now just over a week away, Clement feels Sigurdsson’s situation must be resolved one way or another.
Should Sigurdsson depart, the Swans will look to reinvest the transfer fee received.
If the former Spurs man stays, Clement will be quite happy with the players already at his disposal.
“Our transfers are on hold pending the situation with Gylfi,” the Swans manager explained.
“If the situation is that he moves on, the funds will be available to reinvest and strengthen our squad.
“We have targets identified, but not just one, we have to have multiple targets.”
Clement insists Sigurdsson could yet be part of his squad when the 2017-18 season begins at Southampton despite the uncertainty over his position.
Sigurdsson has played in only one pre-season game to date, and will not be involved in this Saturday’s home fixture with Sampdoria.
But he has trained well and could therefore feature at St Mary’s on the opening day.
“Gylfi continues to be a Swansea City player,” Clement added.
“He is training very hard with the rest of the group and his dedication is second to none. He has even stayed out after training today to do extra in front of goal.
“He will not feature for us against Sampdoria on Saturday. I believe the talks are still going on and hopefully we will get some news in the next couple of days.
“A decision would be the best for all parties involved. We have a new season coming up and we want to start well.
“Everyone knows what happened last year. When you don’t get off to a good start, you put yourself under pressure. We don’t want that to happen, we want to start well and everyone wants to know what squad you are going to have going into the new season.
“It does not have to involve selling, but a quick conclusion to this situation would be best for everyone.”A man once crowned Britain's Best Dad has been given a conditional discharge for attacking his wife.
Keith Preddie threw a washing frame and a plastic step at Emma Preddie during a row about Christmas shopping, before pinning her to the floor.
Croydon magistrates ordered Preddie, 44, who admitted one count of assault, to pay £100 compensation to his wife.
The Michael Jackson impersonator, from Stanger Road, South Norwood, was named Britain's Best Dad by GMTV in 2010.
'It's no good crying'
Croydon Magistrates' Court heard the couple's 12-year-old daughter was woken by the violence, on 18 December last year.
Preddie cried throughout the 10-minute hearing at the south London court, at one point burying his face into his chest.
As he was given a conditional discharge he burst into tears once more.
District judge Alan Baldwin told him: "It's no good crying. You have got to face up to this.
"A man of your background should have known better."
I consider it a momentary lapse in an otherwise unblemished life Judge Alan Baldwin
The court heard Preddie had no previous convictions and had done voluntary work to help pensioners.
He was supported in court by numerous members of the public.
Judge Baldwin said: "I have read the references and you are clearly a man of positive good character who has done a lot of good things and continue to do so.
"You have shown a great deal of remorse and understanding of what took place and taken steps to deal with it.
"I consider it a momentary lapse in an otherwise unblemished life."
Describing the assault, prosecutor Nicholas Earl-Quarcoo said Preddie pinned his wife down on the sofa by both arms.
Mr Earl-Quarcoo said after learning police were on their way, Preddie "said he knew he had been in the wrong and would accept the consequences of his actions".
Preddie, who once appeared on Channel 4's Come Dine With Me, was also ordered to pay £85 in costs and a £15 victim surcharge.In late March 1995, the USA's Yellowstone National Park received a special delivery. Fourteen grey wolves, flown in two months earlier from the Canadian Rockies, were released into the park. Neighbouring Idaho received fifteen wolves. Wolves howling in the snow, not heard in these forests since their extermination 60 years before, trumpeted their return.
Scientists had intended to reintroduce and conserve grey wolves in their original habitats. They did not foresee that the wolves, with blood on their teeth and claws, would restore leaves to the trees.
In fact, it seems the return of the wolves has had remarkable consequences for the entire Yellowstone ecosystem. The story illustrates how the presence or absence of a top predator can utterly reshape an ecosystem.
In Yellowstone, the wolves quickly reclaimed their spot as top predator. Ecologist William Ripple of Oregon State University has been studying the wolves since their return. He found that, within a decade of their release, the wolves had cut the number of elk – their main prey – by half. The surviving elks avoided the wolves' core range and stayed on the periphery. Woody trees like aspen and willow, which had been chewed and trimmed by zealous elks, now grew tall and lush.
Wolves suppress coyote and release foxes, because foxes are small and do not compete with wolves
The wolves' rivals, such as coyotes, also suffered their wrath. "Coyotes are very scared of wolves," says Ripple, who has seen the wolves' aggression towards coyotes in Yellowstone. "Wolves will chase coyotes, kill them, and even consume them sometimes. Wolves do not like coyotes at all."
In the Lamar River Valley in Yellowstone, coyote densities dropped almost 40% after the wolf reintroduction. In neighbouring Grand Teton National Park, coyote densities fell by 30% in the presence of wolves. Pronghorn fawns, which coyotes prey on, survived better where there were more wolves and fewer coyotes.
Ripple and Thomas Newsome, an ecologist at Deakin University, found that across North America, coyotes retreated where wolves roamed. In turn red foxes, the prey and competitor of coyotes, increased. Ripple and Newsome derived their findings from fur harvest records from eight provinces and states.
"We found on a large geographic scale that wolves suppress coyote and release foxes, because foxes are small and do not compete with wolves," says Ripple. "So, foxes benefited from wolves suppressing coyotes."
In most ecosystems, every species eats and is eaten by various others. You can picture this as a ladder. The top predator claims the highest rung; mesopredators, which are smaller predators that are eaten by the top predator, sit one rung lower; and so on to plants on the bottom rung.
In Australia, we have lost thirty mammal species over the last 200 years
This means that top predators put a cap on the numbers of mesopredators. If top predators dwindle or disappear, the cap is lifted, and mesopredator numbers should surge. This idea is called the "mesopredator release hypothesis".
Mesopredators, released in the absence of top predators, can potentially claim dominance. If that happens, species down the ladder have to contend with an unbridled mesopredator.
In the decades after grey wolves were hunted out of the USA, coyote numbers rose while wild rabbit and hare numbers plummeted. From coast to coast, snowshoe hares, white-tailed jackrabbits, black-tailed jackrabbits and pygmy rabbits were added to species-of-concern lists. Some were wiped out locally. Evidence suggests that coyotes caused the rabbit and hare's demise.
When the released mesopredator is an invasive species, the consequences can be drastic.
"In Australia, we have lost thirty mammal species over the last 200 years," says Newsome. "That's half of the world mammal extinctions in Australia alone." Such extinction rates greatly exceed past records.
When dingoes started attacking sheep, people fought back
Europeans reached Australia in the 1600s, bringing the tides of change that eventually swept aside the continent's biodiversity. Humans and their livestock now dominate the wetter, richer environments of Australia, while introduced herbivores like camels and goats graze the arid parts. As their foods shrunk and competition spiked, native animals faltered.
However, for many of the extinct animals the final blow might likely have come from two invasive predators: the red fox and domestic cat. A 2006 study suggested that predation by foxes and feral cats was a key force driving many native rodents, marsupials and birds into decline or extinction.
Despite their deadly impact, foxes and cats are not the top predators in Australia. They are mesopredators, weighing only 6kg and 4kg on average respectively. Larger marsupial predators once reigned over Australia, but they are just bones and dirt now. Today, a canine, the dingo sits atop the ladder in mainland Australia.
Looking much like a dog, the dingo weighs about 20kg. It too was brought into Australia by humans, 3,500-5,000 years ago, and used to live across most of mainland Australia. But when dingoes started attacking sheep, people fought back.
Dingoes were trapped, shot and poisoned in and around sheep farms. Australians were so keen to exclude dingoes that they built a wire fence 5,500km long and up to 2m high. The Dingo Barrier Fence, completed in 1946, keeps dingoes out of the sheep pastures of south-east Australia. South of the fence remains an almost dingo-free sheep haven.
In the presence of dingoes you can have fewer foxes and maybe fewer cats
However, it turns out the Dingo Barrier Fence affects more than dingoes.
In a 2011 study, scientists compared sites on either sides of the fence and found more small mammals on the dingo side. There were also fewer foxes on the dingo side. What's more, when scientists began to relate the distributions of dingoes, foxes and small animals, they found a consistent pattern elsewhere beyond the vicinity of the fence. Where dingoes live, there were fewer foxes and more small animals like greater bilbies, dusky hopping mice, rock wallabies, painted dragons and malleefowl.
Since dingoes and foxes compete for many of the same prey, it is easy to imagine the bigger dingoes dominating foxes through brute force. Like wolves limiting coyotes in North America, dingoes in Australia seem to suppress foxes. However, the evidence is less clear as to whether dingoes suppress the feral cats that are Australia's other major mesopredator.
The success of the grey wolf reintroduction into the Yellowstone ecosystem, and the positive response of the ecosystem to the return of its top predator, has prompted some scientists to consider reintroducing dingoes to their original habitats.
Of 30 extinct mammal species in Australia, "at least 20 are attributed to the predation of red foxes and feral cats in the absence of dingoes," says Newsome. Because studies have suggested that "in the presence of dingoes you can have fewer foxes and maybe fewer cats, and you have higher survival of native mammals, I think this is something we should explore further and pursue as a conservation tool."
However, the return of a top predator could also wreak havoc.
The top predator might have a severe impact on mesopredators, or on prey that are close to extinction. The story of wild dogs, and their struggle in the wake of the reintroductions of lions to parts of Africa, highlights the dire consequences.
Wild dogs are Africa's most endangered large carnivores. A 2012 census put the population at fewer than 1,400 adults. On average, one and three out of every ten wild dog adults and pups are killed by lions, respectively. Lions are death manifest for wild dogs.
Savé Valley Conservancy may end up trading wild dogs for lions
A study published in December 2016 detailed the conflict between wild dogs and lions in the Savé Valley Conservancy, Zimbabwe.
The conservancy received three lions in 1995, and had fewer than ten by 1999. Another ten were released in 2005, and the population had exceeded 100 by the late 2000s. Meanwhile, wild dogs recolonised the conservancy in the early 1990s and their numbers peaked in 2004. To understand the impact of lions on wild dogs, scientists examined how wild dog numbers and den sites changed between the periods 1996-1999 and 2010-2013, when lion numbers were low and high, respectively.
The growing lion pride knocked the wild dogs off their stride. The lions took to hunting in impala-rich areas, so to avoid them wild dogs shifted their dens to rugged areas with fewer impalas. Even so, their pack sizes shrunk by one-third and pup numbers halved. At least 30% and 70% of wild dog adults' and pups' deaths, respectively, were caused by lions in 2010-2013; there were no such casualties in 1996-1999.
The issue may be that wild dogs huddle near their dens for three months to raise newborns, making them easy pickings for lions. Wild dogs breed only once a year, and lions kill more pups than the dogs can produce. In effect, Savé Valley Conservancy may end up trading wild dogs for lions.
In Australia, reintroducing dingoes might also plunge some endangered animals into the same plight as wild dogs.
Wild greater bilbies in central Australia are often eaten by foxes and cats, and evidence suggests that dingoes can relieve bilbies by controlling foxes, says ecologist Euan Ritchie of Deakin University. But in particularly small bilby populations, "putting dingoes [in] could just tip them over the edge."
Similar concerns have been raised over dingo predation on the critically endangered northern hairy-nosed wombat. "There are surely areas in Australia where you wouldn't rush to put dingoes back, because that could contribute to extinction of critically endangered animals," says Ritchie.
On top of that, there is the conflict between sheep and dingoes. "Dingoes and sheep don't mix," says Peter Fleming, a pest researcher at Australia's Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre. The issue is that dingoes kill more sheep than they eat. "If you have dingoes with your sheep, they will continue to kill your sheep until your sheep's all gone or the dingoes die."
Socio-economic issues aside, scientists are yet to agree on the impact of dingoes on mesopredators.
Some scientists, like Fleming, insist that only experiments can confirm whether a mesopredator release will happen. For that, dingoes should either be added into or removed from multiple sites, and mesopredators monitored over time and compared against sites without dingo treatments. These experiments must be done across different ecosystems to reflect Australia's diverse environments.
We weren't dealing with negative press about buffoons trying to reintroduce dingoes to kill all the sheep
"I'm quite happy to accept whatever evidence it is, as long as it's causative rather than just correlative," says Fleming. "You should not make decisions based just on correlative evidence."
Other scientists, like Ritchie and Newsome, see compelling evidence in various studies showing that fewer dingoes correlate with more red foxes. Although correlational studies cannot pinpoint underlying processes like experiments can, they capture patterns across large swaths of land and |
for NSA/FBI. Will they defend this shameful practice?"
—Edward Snowden
"If true," he continued, "this would demonstrate the failure of U.S. government reforms to curb NSA's tendency to try and indiscriminately vacuum up the world's data. The NSA has clearly not changed its spots."
And Patrick Toomey, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said the order issued "appears to be unprecedented and unconstitutional."
"The government appears to have compelled Yahoo to conduct precisely the type of general, suspicion-less search that the Fourth Amendment was intended to prohibit," he said in a press statement.
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"It is deeply disappointing that Yahoo declined to challenge this sweeping surveillance order, because customers are counting on technology companies to stand up to novel spying demands in court," Toomey continued. "If this surveillance was conducted under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, this story reinforces the urgent need for Congress to reform the law to prevent dragnet surveillance and require increased transparency."
Outcry was swift on social media:
I wonder how the candidates feel about Yahoo spying on every single customer's emails for NSA/FBI. Will they defend this shameful practice? — Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 4, 2016
With a single article by @josephmenn, Yahoo's transparency report is instantly turned into a sick joke. https://t.co/xeUqSEyBEG pic.twitter.com/h9IQzIhXel — Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) October 4, 2016
No doubt that other telecom providers were asked to search emails like #Yahoo. Some resisted, like Qwest did in 2000 when NSA sought help. — Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) October 4, 2016
This shouldn't be acceptable, but it should be expected at this point - Yahoo Secretly Scanned Emails For NSA/FBI https://t.co/AFi4m0AH1u — Gregg Housh (@GreggHoush) October 4, 2016
Funny, doesn't look like Yahoo's transparency report indicated how EVERY SINGLE EMAIL was searched for the NSA. https://t.co/COAJ28sOzF — Kevin Bankston (@KevinBankston) October 4, 2016
The Fourth Amendment implications are staggering. Yahoo as agent of government scans all email, devoid of probable cause, particularity, etc pic.twitter.com/kx510PHH9n — Andrew Crocker (@agcrocker) October 4, 2016
And Mike Masnick noted at TechDirt that the news "comes out less than a week after the NY Times had a big report on how Mayer de-prioritized security, despite having built up a great team of computer security experts called 'The Paranoids'."
"Mayer apparently downplayed or blocked their efforts," Masnick wrote, "leading many to go elsewhere."
He continued:
Now, there are still a number of open questions about this: chief among them if others, such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Twitter were similarly compelled to create similar software. [...] It seems clear that Yahoo either didn't think it could win a legal fight over this (certainly a possibility), or that it just didn't want to. At the very least, this seems like yet another example of totally secretive rulemaking by the US government on what surveillance capabilities are legal, without any public review or adversarial process designed to make sure that civil liberties are protected. I know that many of the more paranoid folks out there think that the NSA already had deals with the big companies to scan all content, but they weren't supposed to, and as far as we knew they did not as of a few years ago. But if that changed last year, that's a big, big deal, and much more information needs to become public on this.
"This is a clear sign that people can trust neither their government nor their service providers to respect their privacy," added Elsayed-Ali. "Free speech online, and in society in general, cannot thrive in a world where governments can pry into our private lives at will."Advertisement
An incredible labyrinth of forgotten Second World War tunnels built beneath the White Cliffs of Dover will reopen to the public today for the first time in 40 years.
The Fan Bay Deep Shelter was carved out of chalk in just 100 days in the 1940s as part of Dover’s connected gun battery armaments aimed at foiling Nazi shipping movements in the Channel.
After remaining bricked up for more than 40 years, it will open to the public today following an 18-month project and 3,000 man hours of restoration work.
Scroll down for video
National Trust Project Manager Jon Barker (left) and volunteer Gordon Wise wear head torches to inspect the underground tunnels at Dover
Built in 1940, the tunnels were home to gun battery teams operating on the coastline during the Second World War. Pictured is Mr Wise - one of hundreds of volunteers who helped restore the tunnels
Located 75ft below the coastline, Mr Wise explores the tunnels as the National Trust prepares to open them to the public today
Lying 75ft below the Kent coastline, the 3,500 sq ft of interconnecting tunnels, which are reinforced with iron girders and metal sheeting, accommodated four officers and up to 185 men during the war.
The shelter - which was personally inspected by Winston Churchill in 1941 - was decommissioned in the 1950s before being filled in with rubble and soil and abandoned during the 1970s.
Officials at the National Trust say the tunnels are a 'time capsule', giving fascinating insights into war-time life, with graffiti-covered walls, discarded ammunition and even a pools coupon found in the depths.
Following their rediscovery, 100 tonnes of rubble and soil were removed by hand in a project involving more than 50 National Trust volunteers, archaeologists, mine consultants, engineers and a geologist.
Jon Barker, visitor experience manager at the White Cliffs, said: 'This rediscovered piece of the country’s Second World War heritage is a truly remarkable find.
'There has been no public access to the tunnels for over 40 years and so they remain much as they were when they were abandoned. We’ve carried out extensive conservation work to preserve both the natural decay and authentic atmosphere of the space.'
Following their rediscovery, 100 tonnes of rubble and soil were removed by hand in a project involving more than 50 National Trust volunteers
There has been no public access to the tunnels for more than 40 years, but starting tomorrow, they will be reopened for tours
The shelter was carved out of the chalk by Royal Engineers from the 172nd Tunnelling Company in 1940. Pictured is graffiti dated January 20, 1941
The shelter was carved out of the chalk by Royal Engineers from the 172nd Tunnelling Company and had a hospital, secure store and five large chambers providing bomb-proof accommodation.
And behind the heavy security doors and the 125 steps descending to the tunnels lie poignant reminders of the tunnel’s war-time history.
Etched into the chalk inside the tunnels is a large amount of graffiti, including names of military personnel, coarse inscriptions and an intricate 3D face of a young man, possibly a portrait.
Some of the inscriptions are accompanied by the regiment of soldiers, most notably from the Royal Engineers - 1941 is the most popular date which features alongside the signatures.
Written in chalk on a steel shuttering alongside where a bunk bed once stood is the phrase 'Russia bleeds whilst Britain Blancos' - a popular slogan adopted by disaffected soldiers referring to Blanco, a substance they used to clean and colour their equipment.
Other finds included pieces of wire twisted into home-made hooks by soldiers to hang their uniforms, and a Unity Pools football coupon dated February 20, 1943, recording 14 football matches.
One of the first discoveries made by volunteers when they entered the tunnels was of a needle and thread, believed to be khaki wool, tucked into the tunnel wall.
Pictured is graffiti found etched into the walls inside the tunnels. Pieces of writing, inscriptions and items offer a rare glimpse into wartime Britain
Pictured is one of two First World War sound mirrors which are also located at the site. Sound mirrors gave advanced notice of approaching enemy aircraft but became obsolete with the invention of radar in the 1930s
Bullets, including British.303 cartridges and American 30 calibre ammunition rounds, were also found throughout the tunnels, often tucked into small gaps in metal sheeting.
Two rare First World War sound mirrors also form part of the site.
Regarded as one of the first early warning devices invented in Britain, sound mirrors gave advanced notice of approaching enemy aircraft but became obsolete with the invention of radar technology in the 1930s.
White Cliffs volunteer Gordon Wise said: 'Seeing the tunnels in their raw state when they were first discovered, handling artefacts and giving tours is like standing in the footsteps of history.
'To be part of the digging team, mirroring the work the Royal Engineers originally took to excavate the shelter, was very special. I can’t wait to see what visitors make of Fan Bay Deep Shelter.'
The tunnels - once manned by troops from the 203rd Coast Battery, Royal Artillery, later becoming the 540th Coast Regiment - lie beneath land bought by the National Trust in 2012 following a £1.2million public appeal.
Guides will lead hard hat and torch-lit tours deep below the White Cliffs of Dover, telling people the story of the tunnels’ creation, use and abandonment in the 1970s.
The National Trust is asking for help in identifying the men from the 172nd Tunnelling Company, the 203rd Coast Battery and 540th Coast Regiment, Royal Artillery and asking anyone with information to contact the White Cliffs.Christian Assemblies International: Former members detail abuse handed out by CAI leader Scott Williams
Updated
A four-year investigation by the ABC has uncovered shocking claims of abuse and torment in relation to NSW-based registered charity and religious group Christian Assemblies International (CAI).
Four Corners has revealed that self-styled religious guru Pastor Scott Williams was using his warped brand of evangelical Pentecostalism to run a clandestine homosexual sex ring while allegedly misusing vast amounts of member donations for personal use.
Courageous former members broke their silence and told of their torment living inside the group, which they said is not a Christian church but a horrendous cult run by one man.
The ex-members have remained in the shadows until now out of fear and shame. They detailed shocking acts of abuse ranging from spiritual abuse, financial abuse, verbal and physical abuse, and the sexual abuse of adult men.
They said bizarre sexual rituals were carried out in secret by Williams, who described himself as "The Anointed One" with the Lord's authorisation to sidestep biblical commands against homosexuality and sexually train his male members into submission and obedience.
Four Corners approached Williams, whose full name is Anthony Scott Williams, and senior people in the church. All declined requests for interviews and refused to answer the program's questions.
He made himself rich. He has groomed people, particularly men and boys... for his own pleasure. The Pentecostal church which he represents is just... a facade which he has built to build his own kingdom. Former member Gunther Frantz
The CAI is one of more than 60,000 registered charities in Australia and Four Corners can reveal it has been investigated by multiple authorities around the world.
But until now, the Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission (ACNC) had no idea of the systemic abuse and allegations of corruption regarding the CAI, despite other authorities in Australia being alerted and informed of possibly illegal acts several years ago.
ACNC head Susan Pascoe has pledged to take immediate action.
"This is clearly one that we've been alerted to by the media, and in that instance we would certainly be investigating," she said.
"If there was evidence that this was not acting in a charitable way or causing serious harm, then the charity can be deregistered."
It is a pledge that should strike fear into the current leadership of the CAI, of which Williams is still a director.
Origins of Christian Assemblies International
The CAI headquarters may be in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, but the organisation began in the small German town of Feldafing in the late 1970s.
Former members say they were recruited by Williams as teenagers and young adults, with many still at school. They say they were brainwashed into believing Williams was The Anointed One, filled with the Holy Spirit and gifted with the divine power of healing.
Williams was working in Feldafing as a pool attendant at a military school for young men.
Steve Forkin was converted when he was 17. He told Four Corners Williams paid special attention to young males.
"He was an Australian obviously and I'd never met anyone from Australia at that point in my life," Mr Forkin said.
"He was very charismatic. He was very friendly. He was very outgoing, quite fun-loving, to be honest. Initially he presented himself as a missionary who'd come to Germany with a calling from God to start a church there.
"He's very, very eloquent when it comes to knowledge of the Bible as such, and of course the flipside of that coin is that in Bavaria kids have no concept of the Bible and very little concept of religion per se, so really he could have told us anything and we would have believed it."
Once introduced to Williams, usually through a church meeting or a weekend barbecue, Mr Forkin says Williams began to brainwash people.
"At that stage his message was that the world was going to come to an end very soon and that we didn't have much time and we needed to convert as many people as possible before the return of Jesus," he said.
His beautiful saying was always, 'I'm gonna convert the German nation, this time to do a better deed instead of what Hitler did, a bad deed'. Former member Gunther Frantz
"Also his message was very much predominating around that Russia would invade Germany, a third world war would break out, and he brought up all sorts of scriptures from the Old Testament to prove his prophetic statements."
Gunther Frantz, Williams's first convert in Germany, says he was 12 when he began to be indoctrinated. He says Williams brainwashed him into doing almost anything.
"He had such power over people," Mr Frantz said.
"His beautiful saying was always, 'I'm gonna convert the German nation, this time to do a better deed instead of what Hitler did - a bad deed'."
Williams's core beliefs included a strict literal adherence to the Bible and a highly conservative lifestyle.
Upon baptism, members would often speak in tongues. As part of their membership, they were expected to donate 10 per cent of their gross income to the CAI in addition to many different offerings every year.
Members recall bizarre homosexual rituals
Four Corners spoke to more than a dozen men around the world who all claim they were pressured and led to perform sex acts against their will by Williams.
Warping biblical scripture to carry out perverse sexual acts, Williams began to hold regular men's nights. During these nights, the males attending would be asked to undress and participate in mass massage sessions.
Former members told Four Corners that Williams would often be in the centre of the group receiving massages and caresses from a male member of the church.
Mr Frantz says he was often present and forced to take part by Williams.
"I think the biggest one I ever remember was 80 males in rooms covered only in naked bodies, and everybody giving massages," he said.
"And Scott always had his personal private room with one or two at the end of any of those sessions. And then at two o'clock he sends everybody out of the room and out of everywhere else and he usually picks somebody to stay with him, to get more training."
As the years went on and he was more sure that things were going his way or going the Lord's way, he was more confident to express that we were a waste of space, useless heathen and would burn in hell and "the devil would rip our balls off" in a man's case. Former member Klaus Tischer
Four Corners has been told that Williams would choose a man to stay back with him and spend the night with him, ordering them to surrender and submit to him for the Lord's training.
He would then order them to perform sex acts on him during a personal naked massage and during naked showers.
The shocking ritual played out for more than two decades, with victims believing they were the only ones suffering at the hands of Williams.
Mr Frantz says he, like other men, never consented to the sexual acts and that it could happen to anyone.
"It's possible. It happened to me. And I'm not the only one," he said.
Mr Frantz says the number of possible victims is staggering.
"Firstly, he made himself rich, and secondly, he has groomed people, particularly men and boys, boys to start off and kids, for his own pleasure," he said.
"The Pentecostal church which he represents is just... a facade which he has built to build his own kingdom."
Underlying it all was the peculiar policy created and described by Williams as a "bundschaft", a special relationship between two men.
Mr Forkin said the policy of the bundschaft was mandatory for all senior men in the CAI. Men had to have a male partner if they were to be trusted, and their bond was above that of husband and wife.
"Well, it's basically a German word for the English word covenant," Mr Forkin said.
"So in his, in CAI terminology, it's a very special connection between two men, a very close friendship really, but it's more than that. It's like a lifelong commitment.
"So Scott would probably view that as a marriage without a marriage certificate, but in his eyes even if a man was married to another woman, the bundschaft friend was more appropriate and more valid to him than his own marriage."
Williams amasses impressive property portfolio
Williams, now 70, is living with his wife Ree in a luxury apartment in the beachfront Pacific Towers complex in Coffs Harbour. It is one of many properties Williams purchased using money donated by church members who believed much of it was being used for charitable purposes.
Today, the CAI boasts an impressive multi-million-dollar property portfolio including Pitversie House and Douglas House, a hotel in Abernethy, Scotland.
All were renovated to luxurious standards by church members, who have told Four Corners they worked hundreds of hours updating the properties while Williams monitored their work and punished them for any mistakes or minor misdemeanours.
People came to our house and checked the fridge, checked the house, the clothes, it was clean; if not, my ex-wife would be severely punished. Former member Gunther Frantz
Katja Forkin was recruited into the Assembly as a teenager living in Germany. She says women and men were expected to work on the properties night and day, and if they did not they would be severely punished or excommunicated.
She says life in the Assembly got worse once Williams began to purchase more and more properties.
"It started to change once the Assembly owned properties in Scotland, because basically all we did from then is just work on the properties, renovating, looking after Scott and Ree more or less, and everything evolved around their lives," she said.
"So the little spare time that we had sort of dwindled away more and more to the point that we started to have less and less connections to the outside."
As members disconnected from the outside world, following Williams around the world and moving away from family and friends, they say their leader's language and demeanour began to change.
Former members told Four Corners they were regularly denigrated and humiliated, losing their self-identity, confidence and sense of self.
Klaus Tishcer says it happened gradually.
"As the years went on and he was sort of more sure that things were going his way or going the Lord's way, then he was more confident to express that we were a waste of space, useless heathen and would burn in hell and "the devil would rip our balls off" in a man's case, or in females other words were used," he said.
Widows, pensioners pressured to make donations
Mr Frantz says there was extreme pressure applied to members to donate regularly to the church, in addition to 10 per cent of their gross income.
Over the years, an estimated $20 million to $25 million flowed into the Assembly by way of donations or tithes. If you did not give enough you would be punished.
"You would be spoken to. There would be an investigation to find out why," Mr Frantz said.
"And if you don't have good enough reasons, then there could be hell, blood and fire, because you might not make it into heavenly places."
Four Corners has counted that at one point there were up to 20 mandated donations per year and all sources of income were targeted. Senior officers were sent out to widows and pensioners to pressure them to hand over inheritances.
Church documents detail how members were to be targeted for financial contributions, with those on low incomes told to sell their property and belongings in order to give to Williams's Assembly and to ensure he grants them salvation on judgment day.
But Assembly documents reveal something even more sinister. Four Corners has discovered members were also being fined by Williams for minor misdemeanours.
Mr Tischer worked in the finance department and was assigned to be a fine collector.
"Anybody who forgot to do their normal duties and their normal scripts and was found to be wanting that they had forgotten to do their tasks, could be fined," he said.
"If somebody, say, did a tithe report and they didn't send a report on time, they were fined, and I had to go and pick the tab up from all the people that were sent to me via email, 'he is to be fined' and so on and so forth."
Mr Frantz says Williams introduced a disturbing culture of spying and monitoring in order to maintain control over members and their everyday lives.
Four Corners obtained church documentation listing what members were allowed to read, what movies they were allowed to watch and what music they were allowed to listen to.
"We had a black book where people were on the black list. If they don't perform, then they have to be excommunicated or cut off," Mr Frantz said.
"People who didn't, for example, abide within the certain rules, for example, people came to our house and checked the fridge, checked the house, the clothes, it was clean; if not, my ex-wife would be severely punished."
Women were'satanic beings not to be trusted'
Church documents show that Williams preached that women were Jezebels, swines, dogs and satanic beings, not to be trusted. Instead, they were to be punished.
In an extreme escalation, male members have told Four Corners that if they did not comply with Williams's demands regarding how women were to be controlled and treated, he would order women be beaten.
Women were also routinely excommunicated and their children given to other church members to be raised temporarily.
Four Corners also obtained church documents written by Williams detailing how women and children were to be beaten with a rod if they misbehaved.
Mr Frantz says Williams directed him to beat his then wife for not being obedient enough, something he is deeply ashamed of today. Mr Frantz says his brainwashing, like many others, was so acute that he believed Williams had ultimate power and authority on Earth.
"Otherwise we would've been chucked out of the church," he said. "Otherwise we wouldn't have been together.
Women were second-rate citizens. They were there to have children and stand in the kitchen and make food. Former member Steve Forkin
"Otherwise he would've had the power to separate us, he would've had the power to eliminate our marriage, he would have had the power to excommunicate us and burn in hell."
Sylvia Wagner, another convert originally from Germany, says she was terrified inside the Assembly.
"We were told he's the overseer and that's the highest instance before [God]," she said.
"He told us he will give account on judgment day on how well we have been doing and we ought not to offend him in any way because... he will give account on all his sheep.
"[If his account wasn't positive] I lived under the impression that I will burn in hell. I was often told I would burn in hell. My impression was, if I had left the church and joined another church I would possibly burn in hell because it's not allowed to leave this church.
"I was scared."
Ms Forkin says women were treated and used as servants inside Williams's organisation. Their role was to cook, clean, and produce children for the Assembly. Women were told what to wear, what to cook and how to behave.
"We were supposed to be at all times what they called humble and subdued and obey our husbands," she said.
"So they were the ones that made the decisions over us, whether they were good at what they were doing or not; that didn't come into it. And I suppose that was the same on them, was the pressure that they were to be seen as being in charge of us."
Katja's husband, Steve, says women were treated as less than men.
"Women were second-rate citizens," he said. "They were there to have children and stand in the kitchen and make food."
Using biblical scripture, Williams also preached that children were born evil and that the evil had to beaten out of them with an iron rod.
Four Corners spoke to many children who were born into the cult who are now adults. They detailed disturbing policies of punishment, including children being publically beaten for making any noise during a Sunday sermon or for moving off a mat laid out at the front of the Assembly.
'We won't stop until justice is done'
For all of the former members of the CAI who have broken their silence, they hope by going public and exposing their former leader that justice will finally be served.
Mr Frantz says CAI is not a Christian organisation, nor is it charitable, and it should not enjoy the tax-free status it currently does in Australia.
"It's a cult," he said. "I was abused and I didn't understand it. For me I just thought maybe it's me, it's me? I just don't understand why is this happening?
"I said to him, 'I don't understand why are you doing this', and he says, 'Well, the Bible says you've got to surrender, you're my bundtling', and all the rest of it.
"I remember the times where I begged, 'Give me time'. He says, 'You're still not surrendering fully and I can't use you and God is not gonna use you'."
Mr Frantz now realises what happened to him was wrong. He is calling for more members of the CAI to come forward and expose the truth about the tormented regime run by Williams.
"I hope that many more people out there hear the message and have the guts to come out, because more and more people are coming out," he said.
"Whatever happened to you, come out and tell them about it. Go to the police. Go public. I hope people have the guts."
Topics: religion-and-beliefs, other-religions, cults, coffs-harbour-2450, nsw, germany
First postedWhen Google(s goog) offered a series of concessions in order to settle its search-related antitrust investigation in Europe, some of those whose complaints had kicked off the whole affair were quick to dismiss Google’s proposals. And now it looks like the European Commission itself will also tell the U.S. firm to go back to the drawing board.
Google is accused of surreptitiously favoring its own services in its search results, locking advertisers onto its platform and scraping content from rival, subject-specific search engines. To settle the Commission’s investigation, it proposed labelling links to its own services, letting websites opt out of having their content show up in Google’s specialized search, and taking some of the lock-in out of its ad contracts.
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On Tuesday, according to a Reuters report, EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia told European parliamentarians that it was a near-certainty that Google would have to revise its proposals. Referring to the extended period that Google’s rivals have been given to formally respond to the proposals, he said: “After, we will analyze the responses we have received, we will ask Google, probably, I cannot anticipate this formally, almost 100 percent we will ask Google: you should improve your proposals.”
When those proposals were formally revealed in March, Foundem – a British vertical search and comparison site that’s part of Microsoft(s msft)’s anti-Google FairSearch organization – was quick to issue a comprehensive counter-argument (PDF warning). This more-or-less came down to Foundem saying Google’s proposals wouldn’t change the alleged inherent bias in its search rankings.
The European consumer protection organization BEUC also noted that the proposed concessions wouldn’t stop Google from manipulating its natural search results. In the U.S., by the way, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cleared Google of so-called “search bias”.
The European Commission had originally set a deadline of May 26 for responses to Google’s concessions. That has been pushed back to June 27. Apart from giving a pretty clear characterization of the responses the Commission has already received, Almunia said on Tuesday that he had not yet decided whether to press on with a formal antitrust investigation over Android — an investigation that was again called for by FairSearch.https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/killer-criminal-cop-in-oakland-invokes-nuremberg-defense-gets-reinstated/
After Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen was struck in the head by a lead-lined beanbag round during an October 25 protest in Oakland, Officer Robert Roche fired a CS tear-gas canister into a crowd of people who had gathered to help him. This act of self-indulgent sadism is hardly out of what passes for Roche’s character: As a SWAT operative, Roche has been involved in three fatal shootings, and has posted a photograph boasting of his accomplishments as a killer.
“That’s the last thing many of the more observant people I’ve `met’ have ever seen,” gloated a caption Roche composed for a photograph of himself in a prone sniper’s position. “Consider yourself fortunate.”
In response to public outrage over Roche’s criminal actions during the October 25, 2011 incident, the Oakland PD fired the officer. Last March, the city hit up the tax victims within its jurisdiction to underwrite a $4.5 million settlement with Olsen. The following month, Roche filed for arbitration to get his job back. He has now been reinstated on the force, and his attorney says that he will resume his occupation as a state-licensed killer “with all enthusiasm, with all alacrity.”
Roche was placed on paid vacation prior to his termination. He will receive two years’ back pay once he rejoins the force.
There is no dispute that Roche’s assault was “unreasonable” and illegal. However, in arbitration proceedings Roche successfully used the “Nuremberg Defense,” insisting (in the words of a report from PoliceOne.com) that his actions were “justified because he was following a superior officer’s orders.”
Roche’s on-site commander, Captain Paul Figueroa, is now the Oakland PD’s assistant chief. Apparently, he wasn’t held liable for Roche’s criminal actions because no specific order to fire was clearly given.
This is a case of self-reinforcing police impunity: Roche is exonerated because he was just following orders; Figueroa, for his part, isn’t responsible for Roche’s crime because he was just ordering followers.
In this video produced by WeCopwatch, Scott Olsen — who has recovered from his injuries – describes his ordeal and warns that the Oakland PD has now re-hired a “serial killer” who has “cost our city millions at the expense of the people of Oakland.”
11:13 am on August 1, 2014
The Best of William Norman GriggYou've probably heard a lot of stories about where the 420 phenomenon got its start. Despite what your college roommate told you, it has nothing to do with police codes, Bob Marley, or Adolf Hitler's birthday (talk about a buzzkill).
Thanks to a history lesson from Slate, we can finally clear up the myth once and for all. Turns out 420 found its roots in the Bay Area in 1971. The story goes that a group of San Rafael teens, known as the Waldos, would regularly meet at a statue on their high school campus at 4:20pm, before heading off to Point Reyes in search of an alleged field of pot. Despite weeks of searching, they never found it, but they did find themselves unwittingly changing the history of popular culture, thanks to a connection within the Grateful Dead, who made the phrase go from local shorthand to a global movement.
Click below to watch the story unfold (and hear the narrator pronounce Marin wrong):Facebook today revealed that the Indian government had asked for access to information of 4,144 users of the social network in the first half of 2013. India sent 3,245 requests to Facebook during the period, making it the second largest country in terms of requests for information after the United States. Facebook complied with 50 percent of the requests, according to data released by the company in its first ever Global Governments Request Report.
“As we have made clear in recent weeks, we have stringent processes in place to handle all government data requests. We believe this process protects the data of the people who use our service, and requires governments to meet a very high legal bar with each individual request in order to receive any information about any of our users,” Colin Stretch, Facebook General Counsel explained in a statement. “We scrutinize each request for legal sufficiency under our terms and the strict letter of the law, and require a detailed description of the legal and factual bases for each request. We fight many of these requests, pushing back when we find legal deficiencies and narrowing the scope of overly broad or vague requests. When we are required to comply with a particular request, we frequently share only basic user information, such as name,” he added.
According to the statistics released by Facebook, 74 countries requested information on 37,954 users with the United States topping the list with request for information related to over 21,000 accounts. Facebook says it will continue to release such transparency reports, which have become crucial for users after news emerged that the NSA was covertly accessing online data on people via companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft and others via its PRISM program.
“We believe that while governments have an important responsibility to keep people safe, it is possible to do so while also being transparent. Government transparency and public safety are not mutually exclusive ideals. Each can exist simultaneously in free and open societies, and they help make us stronger,” Stretch added.
The trend of the United States and India topping the charts for user requests does not come as a surprise considering that was the case when Google announced its transparency report in January this year. According to Google, India had requested for information 2,431 times related to 4,106 users and 66 percent of the requests led to information being produced by Google.
However, the friction between governments and online services like Google, Facebook and Twitter among others is only expected to increase in the coming times as they become an integral part of daily lives of online citizens. There are over 82 million users on Facebook from India. The Delhi High Court directed Google and Facebook last week to display on their websites the name and contact details of their grievance officers.
“We direct Google Inc and Facebook Inc to display the name of grievance officer on their respective sites. We also direct other intermediaries that the compliance (of the rules) be done in two weeks,” the court said. “Just because you are a foreign company, you cannot flout the law. Like us, you are bound by the rule of law of this country,” the court added, also asking the central government to take steps to ensure that the social networking sites comply with the rules.Former CIA Agent Claims Americans Did Not Kill bin Laden
Osama bin Laden died a natural death nearly 5 years before it was announced that he was eliminated by the American commandos. This sensational statement was made by a Turkish politician, and a former U.S. intelligence agent. In an interview with Russia's Channel One, he said that the Americans simply found and opened the tomb of the leader of al-Qaeda.
The journalists of Channel One first met this man in 2008. At the time he was featured in the documentary "Plan Caucasus," talking about the attempts of the western intelligence services in the early 1990's to separate the Northern Caucasus and, in particular, Chechnya from Russia. Chechen by nationality, Berkan Yashar is now a Turkish politician, but in those years he was one of the ideologists of Johar Dudayev. He asked for a meeting, promising to tell the truth about the death of Osama bin Laden whom he met in the early 90-ies in Chechnya.
"In September of 1992 I was in Chechnya, that's when I first met the man whose name was Bin Laden. This meeting took place in a two-story house in the city of Grozny; on the top floor was a family of Gamsakhurdia, the Georgian president, who then was kicked out of his country. We met on the bottom floor; Osama lived in the same building, "said Berkan Yashar. Berkan said he did not know why bin Laden visited while in Grozny, and said only one thing about his meetings: "Just wanted to talk."
However, according to Channel One, in those years the former employee of Radio Liberty Berkan Yashar already had an operational name Abubakar, given to him by the CIA. According to Berkan, after that trip Chechen nationals appeared in Osama bin Laden's circle. Berkan Yashar emphasized that they did not participate "directly in the terror bombings." "They protected bin Laden, it was his choice because he trusted them entirely, and knew that they would never betray," said Yashar. According to Yashar he was not the only one who knew about it, but the Russian security services and the CIA were aware of this as well.
Answering the question whether he believed that the Americans killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, Berkan Yashar answered: "Even if the entire world believed I could not possibly believe it." "I personally know the Chechens who protected him, they are Sami, Mahmood, and Ayub, and they were with him until the very end. I remember that day very well, there were three sixes in it: 26 June 2006. These people, as well as two others from London and two Americans, all |
, who ignored them all as he looked through the crowd, scanning for someone before his eyes found her. Jun was cheering loudly, holding two fans with his name emblazoned across them. Hayama smiled, the last of his nerves fading, leaving only steel and willpower.
"The stakes are the same as always: If Hayama-kun wins, then the Shiomi seminar remains on as part of Tōtsuki, with increased budget and land allocated to it. If Sōma wins, then the Shiomi seminar is disbanded and its resources are given over to Sōma-kun. Are the contestants ready?"
Seeing both of them nod, Urara grinned and raised her hand in the air.
"Then BEGIN!"News Releases from Region 10
EPA awards Idaho almost $15 million for critical water project loans statewide
Contact Information: Mark MacIntyre (macintyre.mark@epa.gov) 206-553-7302
SEATTLE (10-18-17) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today that it is awarding $14.6 million to Idaho’s clean water and drinking water revolving funds to help finance improvements to water projects that are essential to protecting public health and the environment. The funds will be used to finance water quality protection and drinking water projects that will last far into the future.
"Investments in water infrastructure are part of our back-to-basics agenda,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. “We will work with Idaho and our other state partners to continue to provide clean, safe water.”
The $14.6 million in additional funding announced today will be used across Idaho for water quality projects that will reduce water pollution, improve municipal drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, make projects more sustainable by increasing water and energy efficiency, and provide technical assistance to communities.
The Clean Water State Revolving Fund program, administered by the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, was awarded $6.4 million. The program provides low-interest loans for water quality protection projects to make improvements to wastewater treatment systems, control pollution from rain water runoff, and protect sensitive water bodies and estuaries.
Since 1987, Idaho has received more than $200 million in annual CWSRF capitalization grants. Combined with state match and repayments, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality has provided more than $552 million in low-interest CWSRF loans for water quality and wastewater projects. Some of the projects that have received funding through the CWSRF include:
Wastewater lagoon upgrades in Franklin
Improvements to sewer and wastewater treatment system in Ashton
Installation of collection system, lift station, and lift station control building for West Bonner Water & Sewer District
The Drinking Water State Revolving Fund program, also administered by the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, was awarded $8.2 million. The program provides low-interest loans (in 2017 the average interest rate across the state was 1.3 percent) to finance improvements to drinking water systems, with a particular focus on providing funds to small and disadvantaged communities.
Since the program’s program inception in 1997, the state of Idaho has received $196 million in annual DWSRF capitalization grants. Those funds, along with state match and repayments, have allowed Idaho to provide more than $230 million in DWSRF loans.
DWSRF projects in Idaho that have received funding from previous capitalization grants include a new water reservoir for the City of Blackfoot, water main replacement in American Falls, installation of water meters in Kimberly, and a microfiltration facility for Central Shoshone County Water District.
“We really appreciate having these sources of funding every year,” said Tim Wendland, Idaho DEQ Loans and Grants Manager. “This is much-needed funding that supports public health and water quality projects throughout the state.”
In addition to providing grant funds through the SRFs and other programs, EPA technical experts and managers provide their expertise to local, state, and tribal grant recipients on strategy development, research, technical needs, and compliance and enforcement.
For more about EPA’s Clean Water and Safe Drinking programs, please visit:
https://www.epa.gov/cwsrf/learn-about-clean-water-state-revolving-fund-cwsrf
https://www.epa.gov/drinkingwatersrf
# # #
SEATTLE - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today that it is awarding $14.6 million to Idaho’s clean water and drinking water revolving funds to help finance improvements to water projects that are essential to protecting public health and the environment. The funds will be used to finance water quality protection and drinking water projects that will last far into the future.
"Investments in water infrastructure are part of our back-to-basics agenda,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. “We will work with Idaho and our other state partners to continue to provide clean, safe water.”
The $14.6 million in additional funding announced today will be used across Idaho for water quality projects that will reduce water pollution, improve municipal drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, make projects more sustainable by increasing water and energy efficiency, and provide technical assistance to communities.
The Clean Water State Revolving Fund program, administered by the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, was awarded $6.4 million. The program provides low-interest loans for water quality protection projects to make improvements to wastewater treatment systems, control pollution from rain water runoff, and protect sensitive water bodies and estuaries.
Since 1987, Idaho has received more than $200 million in annual CWSRF capitalization grants. Combined with state match and repayments, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality has provided more than $552 million in low-interest CWSRF loans for water quality and wastewater projects. Some of the projects that have received funding through the CWSRF include:
Wastewater lagoon upgrades in Franklin
Improvements to sewer and wastewater treatment system in Ashton
Installation of collection system, lift station, and lift station control building for West Bonner Water & Sewer District
The Drinking Water State Revolving Fund program, also administered by the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, was awarded $8.2 million. The program provides low-interest loans (in 2017 the average interest rate across the state was 1.3 percent) to finance improvements to drinking water systems, with a particular focus on providing funds to small and disadvantaged communities.
Since the program’s program inception in 1997, the state of Idaho has received $196 million in annual DWSRF capitalization grants. Those funds, along with state match and repayments, have allowed Idaho to provide more than $230 million in DWSRF loans.
DWSRF projects in Idaho that have received funding from previous capitalization grants include a new water reservoir for the City of Blackfoot, water main replacement in American Falls, installation of water meters in Kimberly, and a microfiltration facility for Central Shoshone County Water District.
“We really appreciate having these sources of funding every year,” said Tim Wendland, Idaho DEQ Loans and Grants Manager. “This is much-needed funding that supports public health and water quality projects throughout the state.”
In addition to providing grant funds through the SRFs and other programs, EPA technical experts and managers provide their expertise to local, state, and tribal grant recipients on strategy development, research, technical needs, and compliance and enforcement.
For more about EPA’s Clean Water and Safe Drinking programs, please visit:
https://www.epa.gov/cwsrf/learn-about-clean-water-state-revolving-fund-cwsrf
https://www.epa.gov/drinkingwatersrf
# # #On May 21st, 2011 a wave of great earthquakes will occur, like none our planet has ever witnessed. These will begin the process of the rapture; as the chosen elect are taken up from the world to meet the Lord in the air and be forever with God. All who are without salvation will be left behind. Five months later on October 21st, God will destroy the earth and all of the remaining people...
With this message Harold Camping has reached millions of people worldwide. Leader of the Oakland based organization Family Radio, Camping's prediction was backed by a global TV & radio network, countless evangelizers, and thousands of billboards.
I spent the weeks before May 21st with Camping and his congregation. When I asked what to do about my impending judgement, I was told to "pray for mercy".
A Sunday service lead by Harold Camping commences at the Veterans Memorial Building outside Oakland.
The Oakland base of Family Radio is the source of all billboards and literature seen worldwide.
The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.
John 12:48
Harold Camping inside the Family Radio compound in Oakland. His previous Judgement Day prediction in 1994 proved false.
Family Radio is a non-denominational network. However, Camping was a member of the Reformed Church until 1988.
In the months leading up to May 21st, Family Radio had volunteers traveling around the United States in four caravans of RVs spreading the word of judgement day.
Camping is 89 years old. 18 years ago Mr. Camping realized that Biblical evidence pointed to 2011 for the rapture.
When asked how they would be spending May 21st, most congregation members said they didn't have plans. One man said he would be on a plane.
The church stated they would not congregate on Sunday, May 22nd.
The present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
2 Peter 3:7-8
Camping prepares for Open Forum, a live talk-telephone program broadcast daily on radio and TV.
The Open Forum live studio audience.
Family Radio broadcasts their programming internationally via shortwave radio and four satellites. It is translated into over fifty languages including Somali.
In 2007 the Family Radio net assets were at approximately $152 million.
And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
Revelation 9:5
Mark and his son.
After his last sermon on May 15th, Camping and his wife Shirley enjoy a final meal with the congregation.
I paid a visit to Camping's home just before 11PM on May 20th, when the first earthquakes were to begin near Australia.
Camping had fled his home to an unknown location. His mail laid untouched on the stoop.
A mock rapture left by partying visitors outside the Family Radio office on Saturday May 21st.
I paid another visit to Camping's home on the morning of Sunday the 22nd. This time he was there.
[AUDIO] The first statement made by Camping after the failed prediction.
Members of Camping's congregation wait outside the empty church building on Sunday, May 22nd.
Scott Noble, a member of Camping's congregation, stands in the empty sanctuary.
Louie flew to Oakland from New York to spend his last month near Camping. Louie will fly back home but wants answers from Camping.
Camping addresses the press during the May 23rd Open Forum show, stating that the rapture occurred in a spiritual sense.NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian politicians are expected to spend around $5 billion on campaigning for elections next month - a sum second only to the most expensive U.S. presidential campaign of all time - in a splurge that could give India’s floundering economy a temporary boost.
Supporters of Gujarat's chief minister and Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate for India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), hold placards during a rally being addressed by Modi ahead of the 2014 general elections, in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad February 20, 2014. REUTERS/Amit Dave
India’s campaign spend, which can include cash stuffed in envelopes as well as multi-million-dollar ad campaigns, has been estimated at 300 billion rupees ($4.9 billion) by the Centre for Media Studies, which tracks spending.
That is triple the expenditure the centre said was spent on electioneering in the last national poll in 2009 - partly a reflection of a high-octane campaign by pro-business opposition candidate for prime minister, Narendra Modi, who started nationwide rallies and advertising last year.
“They started much before, and they are also focusing on states where they are traditionally not strong. They are leaving no area untouched,” said N. Bhaskara Rao, chairman of the Centre for Media Studies.
The campaign spending for this election could give a boost to the economy, which has been heading for its longest slump since the 1980s. Economists have forecast a second year of growth below 5 percent in the financial year ending this month.
Candidate and party funding in India is opaque and the source of much of the spending is hard to ascertain, but the Centre for Media Studies and other transparency advocates say the main contenders have built up large war chests.
“This election spending largesse will help to boost Indian consumption expenditure over the second quarter of 2014, but this will be a temporary spike,” said Rajiv Biswas, the Asia-Pacific chief economist at IHS Global Insight.
India’s projected campaign spending is only rivaled by the $7 billion spent by candidates, parties and support groups in the 2012 U.S. presidential race, the world’s most expensive, according to data provided by the U.S. election commission.
Spending on previous Indian elections have benefited a wide range of businesses, from media groups and advertisers that rake in campaign-ad revenues to consumer-based firms that capitalize indirectly on the overall jump in spending, such as motor-bike manufacturers and brewers like United Spirits.
India’s advertising industry expects to see an $800 million injection during the election season, according to an outlook by the country’s largest local agency, Madison Media. That should benefit media firms, such as DB Corp, which owns the high-circulation Hindi language daily Dainik Bhaskar.
CASH HIDDEN IN NEWSPAPERS
Much of India’s campaign spend will remain in its thriving black economy.
Rules allow candidates to spend 7 million rupees ($114,000) on campaigns for a parliament seat but the real cost of winning is about 10 times that, thanks to spending on rallies, fuel and media campaigns that often include payments for coverage.
Indian politicians regularly bribe voters with cash payouts or alcohol to secure their support. Recent state elections have seen innovations such as getting money to voters via mobile phone credit and envelopes of cash delivered in morning papers.
In the last three years, election authorities seized from politicians a total of about $32.65 million in the form of concealed cash, some if it stashed in helicopters, milk trucks and even funeral vans, a former election commissioner said.
The dates for the month-long election starting on April 7 were announced last week, with polls staggered in nine stages to help security forces prevent polling booth fraud.
Despite evidence of vote-buying, India’s elections are now largely seen as free and fair on polling day.
However, chief election commissioner V.S. Sampath said on Wednesday he was worried about “money power” - heavy spending and the use of illegal funds to influence the outcome.
The Centre for Media Studies’ spending projections are based on analyses of rising costs in local and state elections in the past five years. It also surveys voters on prevalence of bribes.
MODI FUNDRAISING
Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, got off to an early start in campaigning, pushing into the south where the BJP is weak and has avoided spending money in the past.
Modi’s BJP-led coalition has a strong lead over the ruling Congress party in opinion polls, but it is unlikely to win an outright majority.
Some of Modi’s fundraising is led by a seven-member team, including Deepak Kanth, a former investment banker previously with Citibank in London. This team has organized an online fund-raising drive in India and is also targeting donations from wealthy Indians living in Hong Kong and Singapore.
This team has only raised $4 million, a party source said, but shows how far Modi is casting his net for campaign funds.Let's lead off this week's special Drinks edition of The Food Lab with a little quote from The Philosophy of Andy Warhol:
What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.
And it's all true enough, right? Apparently not. If there's one thing this country is really great at, it's coming up with clever new ways to take what is a completely normal product, apply a bit of subtle psychological manipulation, convince people that it's something special, and sell it at a jacked up price.
I'm talking here about Mexican Coke, and I do so not without a hint of irony, because I myself am a firm believer in its superiority over regular old American Coke. I mean, how could it not be better? Real sugar instead of corn syrup. Glass bottle instead of aluminum or plastic. The cachet of seeing the words refresco and no retornable printed instead of plain old pedestrian "refreshing."
It's so much better, in fact, that I go out of my way to seek it out. I keep a little black notebook of the elusive locations selling it. Everywhere from the Costco on 117th and Pleasant ($17.99 for a case of 24—the cheapest location in the city) to the bodega around the corner from the office ($3 for an icy cold bottle), to the restaurants that are hip to its superiority (and charge an arm and a leg for it).
You want Mexican Coke? I can get you a Mexican Coke. There are ways, believe me. Hell, I could get you a Mexican Coke by 3 o'clock this afternoon, with bottle opener.
But here's the thing. More than once in the past, I've discovered that the brain has a powerful effect on the taste buds. Free-range eggs taste better? Nope. Darker colored eggs taste better. Is New York pizza better when made with New York tap water? Nope. At least my panel of experts couldn't tell the difference. I've done tests where I've fed an entire room full of people two batches of identical carrots, labeling one as organic and the other as conventional. Unsurprisingly, they unanimously pick the carrots labeled organic as superior in flavor every single time, even when they are two halves of the same carrot.
Is it possible, however unlikely, that somehow we—the cult of Mexican Coke lovers—are all being hoodwinked? Does Mexican Coke really taste better?
This week, we're gonna find out.
Behind The Bottle
First off, before we even get to the tasting, let's examine the differences between regular old American Coke and Mexican Coke.
Mexican Coke contains: Carbonated water, sugar, caramel color, phosphoric acid, natural flavors, caffeine.
Carbonated water, sugar, caramel color, phosphoric acid, natural flavors, caffeine. American Coke contains: Carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, caramel color, phosphoric acid, natural flavors, caffeine.
Since 1980, American Coke has been formulated with High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) instead of Sucrose (that is, table sugar). Now I'm no nutritionist or dietitian so I'm not going to weigh in on the whole HFCS vs. real sugar thing from a health perspective except to say that as someone with a very basic understanding of chemistry, I don't worry myself too much about the health implications of HFCS vs. sugar. After all, they are nearly chemically identical. Sucrose (or saccharose) is a disaccharide made of a single fructose molecule attached to a single glucose molecule.
HFCS is a mixture of dissociated glucose and fructose molecules. The only real difference between the two is the ratio of fructose to glucose, and the way in which the molecules are connected with each other. Even sucrose breaks down into fructose and glucose in your body. I feel pretty safe drinking either version (at least in moderation).
At first glance, the labels on both bottles appear to be pretty much identical, except for their sweetener. But take a closer look at the nutrition information and you'll find that for the same 355 mL serving, American Coke has 140 calories and 45 mg of sodium, while the Mexican version has 150 calories and 85 mg of sodium. How do you explain this?
I called up the Coca-Cola company to find out and talked a bit with a very pleasant lady named Annette. After a bit of idle chit chat on the state of cola we got down to brass tacks. Or at least, I tried to.
"The differences all come down to formulation," she'd tell me.
Ok, thanks. But Annette, I'm wondering, exactly what kind of differences? "Well, depending on what part of the world you go to, Coke is made with a slightly different formula."
I understand that, but is it to appease local palates? Is it because of ingredient availability? What's the market research? Dear God, Annette, where are the data?!? "Oh, I see what you're asking, sir. Well, the truth is, because Coke is made with a different formula in each part of the world, the formulation is not the same from country to country."
Yep, the old runaround. It all reminded me very much of my early dating career: feigned interest, pleasant enough conversation, a general airing of grievances but ultimately, no real return on my time investment. And for the record, I have absolutely no information on whether or not Coke is planning on releasing a competitor to the sugar-sweetened Pepsi Throwback.
Without a straight-up answer from Coke, I can only speculate as to the differences. Since there is exactly the same amount of fat, protein, and carohydrates by weight the difference in calorie count must simply be in the rounding (companies are required to report calories in multiples of ten). There are 3.8 calories in a gram of sugar, giving us an actual calorie count of 148.2 per 355 ml bottle. Somewhere in between the reported 140 and 150.
As for sodium, my guess would be that the Mexican and American bottlers use different carbonation methods. More sodium bicarbonate (an ingredient used to give club soda its bubbles) would lead to a higher sodium content.
Whether all of this affects the flavor of the two products is the real question.
The Tasting
For the purposes of my taste test there were a couple of criteria I had to set up first:
Mexican Coke would come in bottles, American coke would come in cans. Of the packaging widely available in America (plastic or aluminum), aluminum is less reactive, less porous, more opaque, has a longer shelf life, and is thus more likely to give me a product that simply tastes more like it should.
Of the packaging widely available in America (plastic or aluminum), aluminum is less reactive, less porous, more opaque, has a longer shelf life, and is thus more likely to give me a product that simply tastes more like it should. All Coke must be served ice cold. Bottles and cans would be stored in the fridge then placed in an ice water bath for at least 1 hour before tasting.
Bottles and cans would be stored in the fridge then placed in an ice water bath for at least 1 hour before tasting. All Coke must be as fresh as possible. According to Annette, canned Coke and Mexican glass-bottled coke both have a shelf life of 9 months (plastic bottle coke, on the other hand, starts losing bubbles after a mere 10 weeks). I managed to find cases of Mexican Coke and American Coke with expiration dates within a week of each other next April.
Now, a lazy researcher could crack open a couple cans and bottles, invite some friends over, ask some opinions, and be done with the whole thing, and there's no shortage of "taste tests" on the internet of this sort. But we all know that those tests aren't really valid, right? I mean, double-blind, good science, and all that?
What we'd be doing is subjecting our tasters to an entire battery of tests. See, I'm not so convinced that a lot of what's going on in your mouth isn't based solely on the packaging or presentation of the Coke product. Indeed, perhaps the packaging and presentation are even more important than the flavor itself. If the Coke 2 debacle of the 1980's* taught us anything, it's that when it comes down to it, people care far more about branding than actual flavor. Would this be the case with Mexican Coke as well?
*an infamous marketing play gone bad in which the Coca-Cola company carried out a series of blind taste tests between its classic Coke, a newly reformulated "New Coke," and Pepsi. In the blind taste tests, tasters overwhelmingly preferred the flavor of New Coke to either Coke or Pepsi. Yet when it was released later on as "New Coke," the Coca-Cola loyalists flipped out. Eventually, the company decided to re-release the old-fashioned Coke as "Coca-Cola Classic" (branding they still use to this day) and finally re-branded the new Coca-Cola as "Coke 2" in 1992. It never sold well (despite people preferring its flavor), and eventually slipped quietly into the night in the early 2000's.
Here's what I tested in my first round. All tests were carried out completely blind. Tasters were brought one at a time to taste and did not discuss their answers with either myself nor any of the other tasters until all responses were completely collected. For each taster, tests were administered in a completely random order (both in terms of test order and sample order), and fresh bottles and cans were opened for each taster. In cases where liquid had to be poured from one vessel to another, the utmost care was taken to ensure a minimal loss of carbonation. Tasters were asked to pick their favorite from within each sample set of two.
Test 1: Mexican Coke in glass bottle vs. American Coke in a can
Mexican Coke in glass bottle vs. American Coke in a can Test 2: Mexican Coke in a cup with ice vs. American Coke in a cup with ice
Mexican Coke in a cup with ice vs. American Coke in a cup with ice Test 3: Mexican Coke in a cup with no ice vs. American Coke in a cup with no ice
Mexican Coke in a cup with no ice vs. American Coke in a cup with no ice Test 4: Mexican Coke in a can vs. American Coke in a can
Mexican Coke in a can vs. American Coke in a can Test 5: Mexican Coke in a can vs. American Coke in a glass bottle
Mexican Coke in a can vs. American Coke in a glass bottle Test 6: Mexican Coke in a glass bottle vs. American Coke in a glass bottle
Mexican Coke in a glass bottle vs. American Coke in a glass bottle Test 7: American Coke in a can vs. American Coke in a glass bottle
With this battery of tests—which pitted the most important permutations of American/Mexican and can/bottle/cup against one another—I was fairly confident that I should be able to tease out whether or not tasters could a) really taste a difference between the two products, b) whether they preferred drinking from a can or a bottle, and c) whether the difference a can or bottle makes is great enough that it trumps any perceived flavor differences.
The Tasters and the Feelers
The spread of results I got from this initial testing was surprising to say the least, and answered one thing for sure: There is a perceivable difference in the flavor between Mexican and American Coke, despite the best efforts of the Coca-Cola company to convince us otherwise.
The first analysis I made was to tally up the scores between every test in which tasters had a choice between Mexican and American Coke (that is, tests 1 through 6). From within this set of tests, there was an overwhelming preference for American Coke over Mexican Coke. The average taster picked regular coke two to one over Mexican coke!
So that settles it. America reigns supreme in the Coke flavor wars, right? Not so fast. Looking closer, we see something even more interesting: Half of the tasters seemed to have no real preference between American and Mexican Coke, while the other half of the tasters unanimously chose American Coke as their favorite for nearly every test, regardless of the vessel it was served in. We'll call these folks the Tasters—the ones who let their tongues and noses do all the deciding.
The Tasters pick out American Coke as superior to Mexican Coke a full 7 times out of 8.
When you take the Tasters out of the pool in order to determine what the other half are basing their tasting decision on, everything becomes clear: the other half of the tasters unanimously picked Coke served out of a glass bottle as their favorite for nearly each and every test, regardless of whether the liquid in there was Mexican or American Coke. We'll call these folks the Feelers—the ones who care more about the tactile sense of the bottle against their lips or in their hands than the minor differences in flavor or aroma that the product inside may have.
So just to sum up here:
People prefer American Coke to Mexican Coke from a pure flavor and aroma standpoint.
from a pure flavor and aroma standpoint. People prefer glass bottles to aluminum cans from a purely tactile standpoint.
Interesting, right?
But there's still a nagging question on my mind. Why don't people freak out about American Coke sold in glass bottles? I mean, it's available, and it theoretically should make both the Tasters and the Feelers happy, providing the ultimate Coke experience, right?
I did one more round of testing with a fresh batch of tasters to get to the bottom of it.
The Mexico Boosters
This time, there would be no more trickery. Ok, I lie. A little bit more trickery. My goal was to see if in a non-blind taste test—that is, one in which the tasters are specifically told that what they are drinking is Mexican Coke or American Coke (regardless of if it really is or not), would they be consistent in their choices?
That is, could the knowledge that a given batch of Coke is Mexican affect tasters' perception of it?
For this set of tests, I had tasters try Mexican and American Coke out of glass bottles and cans. For half of the tests, tasters were told the truth: when I said the Mexican Coke was in the glass bottle and the American Coke was in the can, it really was. For the other half of the tests, I told a lie. Both the Coke in the can and the bottle were from the exact same source.
Can you guess what happened?
Exactly. Regardless of what was actually in the serving containers, people stuck by their original choice. Those who preferred what really was the Mexican Coke the first time (we'll call these guys the Mexico Boosters) unanimously picked the Coke that I told them was the Mexican Coke the second time, whether it really was or was not. Even when the containers were completely removed from the test and the Coke was served in plastic cups, the Coke labeled as Mexican was picked by the Mexico Boosters every time.
Of course, that's not to say that everyone was a Mexico Booster. Some folks knowingly picked American Coke (though they too consistently picked the Coke labeled American, regardless of whether it really was or what container it was served in).
What Does It Mean?
There are a number of pretty clear conclusions that can be drawn from these tests. To put it simply, when it comes to taste, there's this simple relationship: Boosterism > Tasting = Feeling, meaning that while there are an equal number of people who are affected by the flavor of Coke as there are affected by the feel of the container, both of these groups are eclipsed once you add in knowledge of the product's provenance. Those folks who prefer Mexican Coke (like myself), really just like the idea of Mexican Coke—whether it's because they think real sugar is tastier/healthier than corn syrup, whether it's because Mexican Coke is more expensive and harder to find, thus more valuable, whether it's because of its exoticism, whatever the reason—strip away the Mexicanness of it, and suddenly it's a lot less appealing.
This is not all that surprising to me, given some pretty similar results in taste tests past. What was surprising was that after the Mexicanity of the Coke was removed, people actually preferred the flavor of American Coke.
So, Coca-Cola Company, here is what you need to do to provide your valued customers with the ultimate Coke experience: Bottle American HFCS-sweetened Coke in Mexican Coke bottles, and just tell everyone it comes from Mexico. ¡Que refresco!
There are many questions left unanswered here: does glass insulate better than aluminum, and does that have an effect? How about plastic? What about storage conditions—can light affect flavor? What about quantity? Our tasters were taking sips. Would their opinions change if they had to drink an entire portion? And for some of us, more importantly, what about Diet Coke vs. Coke Light?
The universe never ceases to amaze with the number of questions it can throw your way. Now, I've gotta go run around the block a few times to work off the massive caffeine shakes I've built up.
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Display technology is a very fast-growing area in the global economy, and Sony has been a huge player in it for a while. In the last twenty years we have seen amazing improvements with such technology. In the last few years however the predominant focus in television technology has been the outro of Plasma and the rise of LCD. A new challenger is being ushered in by Sony, which is OLED, but what are we expecting a decade or so from now? It’s Holographic TV’s, and major barriers that restricted the technology from becoming a consumer electronics item have been broken.
There are people working on the technology as I write this, and its maturing rapidly with each passing year. The Japanese Government is pushing huge financial and technical weight into the development of three-dimensional, virtual-reality television, and the country’s Communications Ministry is aiming at having such technology available by 2020. Sony would obviously be involved with this in some capacity as they have always been at the forefront of display technology. However, it is being reported that there aren’t any real big sponsors from the consumer electronics industry in this technology..yet.
CNN writes, “Dr Nasser Peyghambarian, chair of photonics and lasers at the university’s Optical Sciences department, told CNN that scientists have broken a barrier by making the first updatable three-dimensional displays with memory.
“This is a prerequisite for any type of moving holographic technology. The way it works presently is not suitable for 3-D images,” he said.
The researchers produced displays that can be erased and rewritten in a matter of minutes. To create television sets the images would need to be changing multiple times each second — but Peyghambarian is very optimistic this can happen. He said the University of Arizona team, which is now ten-strong, has been working on advancing hologram technology since 1990 — so this is a major step forward. He believes that much of the difficulty in creating a holographic set has now been overcome.”
Examples of how this technology would work is a display of a football game on a table, or movie characters able to appear and disappear between walls. The potential is unlimited, and could essentially turn households into a movie set. Imagine a war scene inserted into your living room from an wall-based 3D Holographic Projector, where your couch could be the bunker that movie characters use to hide from suppresive gunfire and grenades. There are also several applications beyond the home the technology could be used at, such as military and medical displays for optimal efficiency and accuracy.
I would hope that if the technology does become mainstream one day that they have a set up system for the room the holographic television is being installed in. If objects and items in your home could be mapped out and integrated into the action somehow. The world would have to update their broadcast and film equipment as well for this technology, since conventional camera work probably could suffice to be a true source for holographic 3D. So, while the thought process behind this is attractive, there are still many barriers and upgrades needed to make it work.
Image courtesy of PopSci.Now A Democrat, Ex-Florida Gov. Crist Tries To Get Old Job Back
Enlarge this image toggle caption Edward Linsmier/Getty Images Edward Linsmier/Getty Images
Florida's governor's race just got more interesting. The state's former Republican governor, Charlie Crist, announced in St. Petersburg on Monday that he's entering the race as a Democrat.
Crist is running against Florida's current Republican governor, Rick Scott, a conservative elected with strong Tea Party support.
At a rally to kick off his campaign at a park overlooking Tampa Bay, Crist was unapologetic about his change in parties.
"Yeah, I'm running as a Democrat," he said. "And I am proud to do it."
There have been a lot of changes for Crist over the past three years. In his first term as governor, he decided to run for Florida's open Senate seat.
But that was just after "the hug" — when Crist welcomed President Obama to Florida with a half embrace. It became a symbol for conservative Republicans of what they didn't like about Crist. Even more, it helped Marco Rubio galvanize Tea Party support and win the Republican nomination for the Senate.
Crist left the Republican Party to run — and lose — as an independent.
Now he's back looking for his old job as governor, this time as a Democrat. He says he's entered the race because he doesn't like what he sees from Scott, his conservative Republican successor.
"The more I watched Rick Scott govern," Crist said, "the partisanship, the deals, always putting the special interests ahead of your interests, and the more I heard from you the people, I knew it was time to take Florida in a better direction."
Scott is a former hospital executive who narrowly won the governor's race in 2010 by spending more than $70 million of his personal fortune. As governor, he has opposed many of Obama's policies, rejecting billions of dollars in stimulus money to build a high-speed rail line and helping to lead the fight against the Affordable Care Act.
This week, Scott is on an overseas trade mission. Although he hasn't officially kicked off his re-election campaign, it's already active, |
Shakedown Street ## (TH) >
Throwing Stones $$ (SM)
ENC: The Weight (All + AC)
AC is Alecia Chakour (Tedeschi Trucks Band) on Vocals
+ - First Time Played by Almost Dead
@ - With at Throwin’ Stones Tease (TH)
# - 30 Beat BIODTL for Dec 30th
$ - With Feel Like A Stranger & Hoedown (Aaron Copeland) Teases (MB) & a Lovelight Jam (Band)
% - First Time Played by Almost Dead, Beatles Cover, Unfinished, 2 verses were sung
^ - With a Day Tripper (The Beatles) Tease (MB)
& - Unfinished
* - With Cochemea Gastelum (Dap Kings) on Bari Sax
@@ - Benevento Russo Duo Cover, not played since 2015-10-03, a gap of 46 shows. Basically only Joe & Marco played on this song.
++ - Wilco/Billy Bragg/Woody Guthrie Cover, First Time Played by Almost Dead.
## - With a MB Piano Solo, an On The Road Again Tease (Band), a “That’s All” (Phil Collins) Tease - I think, it might be something else (Band) & an unknown jam (Band) that I may be able to figure out.
$$ - With an Unknown Tease (TH)Gallery Folders
Search Gallery ZBrush - New Jowwi Rebecca1208 96 ZBrush - Semi-Realistic Jowwi Rebecca1208 531 ZBrush - Garden Snake Rebecca1208 106 ZBrush - Eternum Rek'sai - League of Legends Rebecca1208 59 ZBrush - Nile, Wildclaw - FlightRising Rebecca1208 110 ZBrush - Glass the Absol Final Rebecca1208 40 Arudite FINAL - COMMISSION ZBrushCore Rebecca1208 108 Aurvandil - COMMISSION ZBrushCore Rebecca1208 69 Xalis FINAL - COMMISSION ZBrushCore Rebecca1208 150 ZBrush - Penya Leviathan Rebecca1208 53 ZBrush - Draconic Xenomorph Queen WIP Rebecca1208 47 ZBrush - ''Beryl'' Gemstone Dragon Bust Rebecca1208 176 ZBrush - Wings Study 1 Rebecca1208 62 ZBrush - ''Nemesyth'' Dragon Bust Rebecca1208 156 ZBrush - Leatherback Doodle Rebecca1208 72 Sculptris - Deathwing Bust Rebecca1208 211 Mosasaurus and Pteranodon Rebecca1208 39 Playing With Sculptris #12 - Rainbow Gecko Rebecca1208 53 Kimo - Breath of Flame Rebecca1208 48 Bull Sun Wyvern (Rough Sketch) Rebecca1208 101 Water Colossus Rebecca1208 27 Wyvern Sketch Rebecca1208 40 Eye of the Tiger Rebecca1208 23 Harris Hawk Rebecca1208 18Nvidia Corp.’s recently unveiled GM204 graphics processing unit and GeForce GTX 980 graphics card have proven to be excellent performers and also great overclockers. This week an enthusiast from Sweden managed to boost clock-rate of the GeForce GTX 980 graphics processing unit to whopping 2.20GHz, a new world’s record.
Elmor, an overclocker from SweClockers.com team, has managed to increase GPU clock-rate of Asus GeForce GTX 980 Direct CU II graphics card by 81.58 per cent from default, to 2208MHz. He also managed to increase effective GDDR5 memory frequency to 8392MHz, a 19.27 per cent boost. To achieve his remarkable overclocking result, Elmor used liquid nitrogen cooling. The core voltage of the GM204 GPU was 1.2120V.
Using a system based on Intel Core i7-5960X clocked at 5586MHz (also cooled by LN2), Elmor managed to score 9568 in 3DMark FireStrike Extreme, another world’s record, reports Hwbot.
Earlier this year Nvidia Corp.’s GK110 graphics processing unit has managed to conquer 2.0GHz frequency, setting the world’s record. The GM204 graphics chip is smaller than the GK110 and contains fewer transistors, therefore, it is not surprising that it can work at even higher frequencies. Moreover, thanks to increased efficiency of Nvidia’s Maxwell architecture, the GM204 can actually be faster than the GK110 in benchmarks when overclocked.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 graphics cards have existed on the market for less than a month. Professional overclockers only start to push them to the max. Eventually, it is highly likely that the GM204 GPU will set a number of other records.Jackson: What surely tainted our election? Voter suppression
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The CIA conclusion that the Russians intervened in our elections in order to help elect Donald Trump has sent Washington into one of its fabled tizzies.
President Barack Obama has ordered an intelligence agency report before he leaves office. Democrats and responsible Republicans are calling for congressional investigations. Pundits are arguing the Russians — combined with FBI Director James Comey’s outrageous interventions — cost Hillary Clinton the election. In response, President-elect Trump is tweeting furiously about voter fraud, peddling lies about millions of illegal immigrants voting and many other things to distract from the escalating scandal.
OPINION
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Left out of this brouhaha is the systematic and purposeful voter suppression that certainly cost Clinton the election. The Russians didn’t do it. It was done by right-wing partisan state officials eager to suppress the vote of people of color, the young and the working poor. These efforts were open, systematic and widespread. And this domestic hacking at our elections was far more destructive than the hacking Russia is said to have done.
This was the first presidential election since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. According to the Brennan Center, 14 states passed voter suppression laws that were in effect for the first time in November, including swing states like Ohio and Wisconsin.
The steps taken to suppress the vote aren’t secret: new requirements of voter ID that discriminate against the poor, the elderly and disproportionately people of color; restrictions on use of college ID to impede student voting; closing registration weeks before Election Day; limiting early voting days, closing on Sundays; holding Election Day on a workday with limited hours for voting, making it difficult for those with inflexible hours to get to the polls; shutting down or moving polling places to confuse voters and force them to wait in long lines; purging voters from the polling lists, leaving them to cast provisional ballots at best; prohibiting felons who have paid their debt to society from ever recovering the right to vote, disproportionately impacting African-American men.
There is little doubt that these measures worked, and cost Clinton the election. In Wisconsin, for example, Trump’s margin of victory was 27,000. A record 300,000 registered voters lacked the newly required ID, contributing to the lowest turnout in 20 years. Turnout was down by more than 50,000 in Milwaukee where 70 percent of the state’s African-American population lives.
In North Carolina, black turnout was down 16 percent in the first week of early voting, in part because there were 158 fewer polling places in the 40 counties with large numbers of black voters. The targeting was intentional, with Republican officials celebrating the effects. The decision by the right-wing gang of five on the Supreme Court in the Shelby case effectively subverted the victory of the civil rights movement at Selma.
If Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee’s and the Clinton campaign’s emails to influence the election, it should be investigated. In an election decided by 80,000 votes in three states, it might have made a difference (as almost anything could in an election that close). But what is clear is that Russian hacking was not nearly as effective as the partisan systematic suppression of the vote. And that effort is continuing. Republicans in Missouri took control and moved to institute new voting ID restrictions for the next election. In Wisconsin, Republicans announced plans for new restrictions on early voting.
Why aren’t Democrats railing about voter suppression and demanding congressional investigation and action? Why haven’t university presidents and civil rights lawyers joined in a national commission to detail the suppression and demand a strengthening of the Voting Rights Act? Why aren’t pundits pounding on this, outing the state officials and legislators who did it and exposing the right-wing apparatus that orchestrated it? Is it because Russian interference is more exotic? Is it because neither party thinks suppression of the votes of people of color and the young is an unacceptable outrage?
I urge President Obama to launch an investigation and report on voter suppression to be released before he leaves office. President-elect Donald Trump says he wants to be the president of all Americans. If so, he should lead an effort to end voter suppression and to revive the Voting Rights Act. Democratic leaders say they want the party to build a broad majority coalition across lines of race. If so, they should be demanding an investigation of voter suppression and filibustering to force revival of the Voting Rights Act.
Inside the beltway, voter suppression isn’t hot. Republicans peddle the myth of voter fraud. Democrats cry foul on Russian interference. Neither party will focus on the biggest scandal of all: the fact that partisans in states across the country acted purposefully to suppress the right to vote of targeted groups of citizens. We didn’t win the right to vote from politicians. Citizens had to march and protest, bleed and die to win that right. We can’t count on politicians to defend the right to vote — they, after all, are elected under the distorted rules we have. Citizens of conscience must move to end voter suppression and clean up our elections.
Email: jjackson@rainbowpush.org.The City of Seattle is spending more than ever in order to reduce the homeless population. That includes a 22-member team tasked with connecting people with the services they need, helping them find shelter, and more humanely clearing illegal camps.
RELATED: Can Durkan turn things around?
So has the city turned a corner in the way it’s addressing homelessness?
Seattle Times reporter Vianna Davila says the Navigation Team represents a “huge improvement.” She said she’s been told by her colleagues that there is a noticeable difference in how the city is handling homelessness compared to a year ago. However, it may be too early to tell if we have turned a corner.
“The Navigation Team is still learning what happens to these people,” she told Seattle’s Morning News. “They can’t quantify for sure how many of these people are going into shelter. They know a certain number are, but not all.”
RELATED: Frustration surfaces during forum
It isn’t clear how many people are actually staying in shelters once they leave their camps.
“And then once they go into shelter what happens to them?
“I think those are important things to know before we can say the city is on the right track — this is all going to be OK,” Davila said. “I know they are trying very hard and I think they’re very dedicated. But we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Listen to the entire conversation here.Share Share
As FASTPASS+ edges nearer and nearer to going live, a few more details appear to be getting finalized with respect to how the system will actually operate once it goes live later this year.
A huge area of discussion on the WDWMAGIC forums has centered on how many FASTPASS+ experiences and attractions can be made. According to Cast Members who have been briefed on the system earlier this week, on launch of FASTPASS+, a guest will be able to choose up to a maximum of 3 FASTPASS+ experiences at one park per day. The number of attractions offering FASTPASS+ has been greatly expanded over the current FASTPASS system, with over 60 rides, shows, parades, and meet and greets now being included in FASTPASS+.
Guests will be able to select FASTPASS+ experiences before arrival, or on the day of. Changes can be made at anytime to an unredeemed FASTPASS+, even once the FASTPASS+ arrival window begins.
A great feature of FASTPASS+ is the ability for the My Disney Experience smartphone app to notify FASTPASS+ holders in the event of an attraction being temporarily unavailable. This gives advance notice to the guest, and prevents them arriving at the attraction only to find it is closed. In this event, the system can suggest an alternative. The guest also has the option to opt out of notifications.
Read more about FASTPASS+ and MyMagic+
Article Posted:Right-wing activist and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza is convinced that Costco, Google and the New York Times are working together to suppress his new book, “America: Imagine the World Without Her” and its companion movie of the same name, which liberals hate because they hate America.
D’Souza sat down with One American News Network’s Rick Amato on Wednesday to explain how liberal executives at the three companies are working to suppress his book: Costco by pulling his book from its shelves citing low ratings on the New York Times bestseller list, the New York Times by somehow doctoring its bestseller list to keep him off it, and Google for sending people who search for his movie “America” to listings for his previous movie “2016: Obama’s America” (obviously a liberal plot).
But fear not, America. As Jim Newell noted, “the longer [D’Souza] suffers, the more selectively he’s prosecuted, the more his art is censored, the stronger he becomes!”
D’Souza told Amato that Costco restored his book not because of rising sales — which may have something to do with all of the manufactured controversy he successfully ginned up in the conservative media — but because of the “real heroes” who left angry notes on the company’s Facebook page and “brought a giant corporation to its knees.”
Later in the program, D’Souza told viewers that they could continue to be heroes and “stick it to the left“…by buying tickets to his movie.Since the 2016 presidential election, alt-right trolls have been widely credited with stoking nationalist sentiment across the US and helping to get Donald Trump elected. But what makes them so good at convincing people to join their side? In this episode of CYBERWAR, VICELAND's show about the world of online warfare, host Ben Makuch met with a slew of notorious alt-right meme makers to try and understand their tactics.
The first is Charles C. Johnson, a notorious shitposter who was permanently banned from Twitter after asking for donations to help "take out" a Black Lives Matter activist. For Johnson, the line between journalism and trolling has blurred to the point where the two are one in the same.
Next, Makuch meets up with Mike Cernovich, one of the right's most infamous meme makers. He says the key to making an effective meme is to tell a convincing, simple story. "People think in terms of stories and in terms of archetypes," Cernovich said.
At the core of today's meme war is an unsettlingly reality: Facts aren't always what win hearts and minds.
Season two of CYBERWAR premieres on VICELAND October 3.by lewwaters
Facebook is likely the premier social networking site, having grown immensely since it was first brought online years ago. Millions of people have joined and promoted several causes, many quite controversial and of questionable taste, without even a bat of the eyelids from facebook.
Some have been very objectionable such as a page labeled “Ann Romney’s Magical Mormon Cunt” depicting Mrs. Romney with vampire fangs.
Complaints on that offensive page received a reply from facebook of, “we were not able to confirm that the specific page you reported violates Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.
You judge if the page would be considered objectionable to you in the screenshot below.
That particular page is now gone, presumably because the election is over and whoever set it up took it down. But there are others people find objectionable like, Wolf Butchering, Cooking and Recipes seen by many as an animal abuse page.
Facebook sat idle while two men shared child porn on their pages.
There have been pages demeaning our Troops and Veterans that facebook let stand.
So why would they find a page promoting heterosexuality objectionable and pull it down?
A few months ago a page was created called Heterosexual Awareness Month that stood for heterosexuality and approached the subject with humorous cartoons and images. It did not bash homosexuals, but said there was nothing wrong with being heterosexual, since we are male and female for a reason in nature.
As we all know, agenda driven homosexual activists despise heterosexuality and want their lifestyle promoted over any other, even though they cannot reproduce amongst themselves. They cry hate and homophobia any time someone speaks up in appreciation of heterosexuality, even though those people never say anything about homosexuals.
To those types in the homosexual community, and not all homosexuals buy into it, any mention of heterosexuality is enough to send them in a frenzy.
I would have to think that is what was behind the creation of the facebook page, Stop “Heterosexual Awareness Month” that bills itself as
“dedicated to stopping LGBT HATE GROUPS on facebook like the so-called ‘Heterosexual Awareness Month’ page.”
“They are not spreading awareness… they are spreading animosity.”
While these sort of groups have no problem promoting the made up word “homophobia,” they have made up a derogatory definition of the term “heterophobia” of
“a neologism used as a snarl word to delegitimize the gay rights movement’s campaign for equal treatment and an end to anti-gay bigotry.”
Standing up for the natural order of male & female is anathema to them and must be silenced. No tolerance or acceptance given at all. None, just their agenda is all that is to be promoted today in the new politically correct times we live in.
The creators of “Heterosexual Awareness Month” were equally astonished to find their page removed without warning or notice and sent out the notice,
“We did not approach the protection of marriage as many others have done in the past, but with a humorous and more satirical point of view. We had almost 6400 fans, we kept our posts as clean and fun as possible, and we were shut DOWN. How’s that for First Amendment rights? Someone remind me again about equality. Being a heterosexual and pro marriage is now considered ‘in violation of policy,’ apparently.”
They have opened a new “Heterosexual Awareness Month” page and will continue to promote our lifestyle, the natural order if you will as the struggle to stop the bashing and demeaning of heterosexuals continues.
As for facebook, I can’t say how disappointed I am that they would do this while letting obvious hateful sites remain.
It may be popular to follow the idiotic P.C. nonsense, but to actually shut down the promotion of heterosexuality while allowing homosexuality to reign throughout their site doesn’t endear me to them and might make me reassess my involvement with facebook.
At the very least, they should be ashamed of themselves.
UPDATE: It looks like facebook caved to SHAM (Stop Heterosexual Awareness Month) again. As stated in the post, these homosexual activists will not tolerate anybody not in line with their views.
Some examples taken from SHAM’s facebook page
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Like this: Like Loading... RelatedIn front of the hammer and sickle and beneath a fur cap, Richard Dunne's image looks out over Dublin's Aviva Stadium. The slogan on the banner reinforces the legend he created on that claustrophobic occasion in Moscow: The Iron Curtain. Nothing got past the Republic of Ireland defender in last September's 0-0 qualifying draw against Russia, which moved his country inexorably towards the Euro 2012 finals. His exploits in the competition have already been immortalised.
Dunne sits in the cigar room of the Grand Hotel in Sopot, the city on the banks of the Baltic Sea in northern Poland where the Ireland squad are based. The hotel is indeed exquisitely grand. Fine cigars and caviar are on show in one glass cabinet while vintage Dom Perignon bottles line up along a ledge. On the walls are portraits of the hotel's famous guests: Fidel Castro, Henry Kissinger, Greta Garbo. They look down from all walks of life. A black-and-white Brigitte Bardot movie projects silently on to another wall.
Adulation and grandeur, though, seem to sit uncomfortably with Dunne. Humility is his default setting. "Moscow was just a game," he says. "It's strange because I cleared one off the line but everyone did the same things. You train and you just end up in the right positions at the right times. It's not always as good as that."
Dunne neglects to mention the blocks and the headers and the tackles. Or the blood that he spilt, which necessitated a change of shirt. The new one lacked a number so the goalkeeping coach, Alan Kelly, seized a felt-tip pen to scrawl the No5 on the back. Dunne's "5uperman" jersey would become a prized charity auction item.
The 32-year-old describes the game of his life as a "blur" and not only because of the head wound that needed four stitches. His memories of Russia's visit to Dublin in October 2010 are clearer. The visitors had a sharper cutting edge that night and led 3-0 after 50 minutes. Although Ireland rallied to 3-2, Russia were impressive victors and Dunne gave vent to his emotions afterwards, telling reporters that Ireland's players needed to assume greater responsibility.
"People ask you questions in the heat of the moment and you want to say stuff," says Dunne. "We just needed to stop accepting second best, stop being this team that nearly gets there. We had to do it and to do it we needed to be stronger in those big games. It was just the frustration. After the France thing, this was a big chance to win our home games and we got hammered for an hour, really."
The France thing, when Ireland were denied qualification for the 2010 World Cup by Thierry Henry's infamous handball, will always haunt Dunne and his team-mates. But they are no longer the nearly team. Thanks in part to that hard-earned point in Moscow, and a favourable play-off draw against Estonia – whom they beat 5-1 on aggregate – they are here in Poland, with excitement mounting ahead of Sunday'sGroup C opener against Croatia. Dunne hopes there are more individual and collective heroics to come.
"The banner [at the Aviva Stadium] is pretty good, it's brilliant to walk out and have something like that," he says. "I appreciate it, but it's in the past. We're probably going to have similar battles in the games coming up. In every game, we have to produce the same performances and battle in the same way."
Dunne has waited his whole career to play at a major finals. He was a member of the 2002 World Cup squad, the last time Ireland qualified for a tournament, but was an unused substitute. He had no complaints, despite featuring regularly during the qualification campaign. Dunne had played the season at Championship level with Manchester City, having been relegated with them in 2000-01, and Mick McCarthy's more established centre-halves, Steve Staunton and Gary Breen, were fit.
It is different now. Dunne is the first name on Giovanni Trapattoni's team-sheet, at the heart of his miserly defence, and he has come to epitomise the values that the manager demands: focus, maturity and discipline. "You'd like to think that when you have a game like Moscow the opposition are never going to score, but as soon as you do, I guarantee that they will score," says Dunne.
He will need his very best form against the might of Spain and Italy, but first his focus is on Croatia, the team managed by Slaven Bilic, his former Everton team-mate, which boasts familiar and potent offensive threats. "Slaven was a really nice fella, really cool and chilled out," Dunne says. "He played the guitar. His side are like us. They'll be relaxed going into the games, rather than having any fear.
"Croatia are technically very good and Luka Modric is the one that makes them tick. I know, having played against and seen him at Tottenham for a long time, that he's one of the top players in the tournament. He's definitely one to stop, and so is Nikica Jelavic. He's done brilliantly since he joined Everton."
Dunne endured a trying season at Aston Villa, which took in a fractured shoulder that sidelined him for two months from February and a dogfight towards the bottom of the Premier League table. Relegation was avoided, but it was not enough to save the manager, Alex McLeish. He has been replaced by Paul Lambert.
"It was very hard for Alex McLeish because of his Birmingham connections," Dunne said. "The fans never took to him. He probably didn't get a fair go, but, as players, we weren't good enough. For the chairman and the fans, they needed a change as much as anything else, so hopefully now we can push on."
Going away on Ireland duty, where Trapattoni has been in charge for four years and consistency has been a by-word, might have felt like a release. The relaxed atmosphere in the squad, promoted by Trapattoni, was in evidence at their Gdynia training base during the week, before their flight to Poznan on Saturday morning. Trapattoni was the defender in a crossing and shooting drill on Thursday. "He's quite happy for us to have a laugh, as long as we do the hard work," Dunne says. "He plays a massive part in our spirit."
Dunne briefly turns his thoughts to the longer-term. This tournament has the feel of an international swansong for him, but he does not see it that way. "I'll be around next campaign, too," he says. "Fingers crossed, everything is OK."
It is the clash with Croatia that consumes him. The nerves are building, the pressure is intensifying. Dunne is ready.Efforts to rewrite the Massachusetts marijuana laws hit a pothole Thursday night.
Around 9 p.m., lawmakers at the State House headed home without a compromise bill to place on Gov. Charlie Baker's desk.
"We haven't filed a bill yet, that you can see," said state Sen. William Brownsberger, D-Belmont, declining further comment to reporters as he left.
Lawmakers, who have been meeting behind closed doors this week, are poised to blow a June 30th deadline they set for themselves, in order to give Baker and other state officials the time to set up the regulatory structure that would oversee the marijuana industry.
In November, 1.8 million voters approved a ballot question broadly legalizing marijuana for people age 21 and over. But throughout the election cycle, state lawmakers who for years were reluctant to address the issue said they planned to make revisions if the ballot question passed.
Marijuana legalization advocates, who wrote the ballot question, noted Beacon Hill's tight timeframe.
"At this point, only through extraordinary parliamentary procedures will they be able to meet their June 30 deadline," said Jim Borghesani, a spokesman for the advocates. "If they cannot do so, we call on the governor to uphold the voters' will by immediately releasing funds necessary for the treasurer to begin forming the governing body of this important new industry."
Marijuana in Massachusetts: Here's what you need to know about the potential changes to the new law
Current law calls for a three-member Cannabis Control Commission; the House and Senate are seeking to expand to five members while taking away some power over the commission from the state treasurer.
Lawmakers have disagreed over the total tax rate on marijuana and whether local cities and towns can ban retail pot shops through a voter referendum or a municipality's governing body.
The lawmakers are also seeking to overhaul the medical marijuana law approved by voters in 2012. The two sides have proposed rolling the state's medical marijuana system under the Cannabis Control Commission and removing it from the purview of the state Department of Public Health.
Earlier this year, Gov. Baker and lawmakers approved delays in the voter-approved law as a way to give themselves time to craft a larger rewrite. The six-month delay meant retail pot shops won't be opening until July 1, 2018.
But the delays also pushed back appointment deadlines for the treasurer and the governor. For example, the date for when the governor has to make appointments to a cannabis advisory board to the commission is Aug. 1, 2017.
Legalization advocates have repeatedly objected to any changes to the law passed by voters.
Here's what Gov. Charlie Baker says about hiking the tax ratePARIS — Marine Le Pen, the French far right’s presidential candidate, has never hidden her admiration for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and on Friday she met with him in the Kremlin.
Russian television broadcast images of Ms. Le Pen, gesticulating energetically across the table from a disengaged-looking Mr. Putin. Earlier, she called for “developing relations” with Russia and “cooperation” in antiterrorism. Both were nods to her presidential campaign platform, which advocates closer ties with Mr. Putin, friendliness toward President Trump and rejection of the European Union.
The meeting highlighted the potential for a general realignment of relations with Russia, even at a time when it has been accused of meddling in Western elections through computer hacking and the promotion of fake news, sowing alarm on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Trump administration has shown itself sympathetic to Moscow, to the extent that pre-election contacts between the two sides are being investigated in the United States. In a crucial election year in Europe, campaigns are now peppered with parties and candidates that could sharply redirect ties with Moscow.Warren Buffett Monday penned an op-ed in the New York Times in which he urged Congress to raise taxes on him and other rich folks. He pointed out that in a time of rampant inequality and fiscal crisis, it is absurd that many wealthy people pay much lower taxes on income earned from investments than middle-class pay on income earned from their wages.
An excellent point. But talk is cheap, especially when the talk is about how you are being undertaxed. If Buffett thinks he should be paying more, critics say, he should just send a check to Washington. And that's a great idea.
A century ago, anarchists used to speak about 'propaganda by deed' — a bold stroke that would capture attention, inspire change, alter public opinion, perhaps even foment a revolution. Of course, back then it meant, say, throwing bombs into the middle of a crowd. These days, a rich person — or corporation — could carry off such a coup by simply writing a check to the government.
Throughout history, businesspeople have occasionally taken highly public actions that were seemingly irrational, risky and self-impoverishing. In 1907, during a vicious stock panic that threatened to engulf the U.S. financial system, J.P. Morgan single-handedly stepped in. "This is the place to stop the trouble, then," he said, while putting his own funds at risk to orchestrate a bank bailout. Amid the panic, John D. Rockefeller loudly deposited money in a troubled bank and pledged to buy stocks. In 1914, at a time of rising labor unrest, Henry Ford shocked his competitors (and the establishment) by announcing he would pay assembly line workers the above-market wage of $5 per day. These moves may not have seemed economically rational at the time. People who commit big sums to equities in the middle of crashes generally lose money, and businesses that intentionally pay unskilled labor above-market wages tend to go out of business. But they were actually very shrewd investments in the system. If U.S. markets ceased to function, J.P. Morgan's firm would have been among the biggest losers. Ford reasoned that his company would prosper if he could turn the automobile from a luxury product into a utility for the working- and middle class. He wanted to pay his workers enough so they could afford to buy his products. It worked out pretty well for Ford and his heirs.
Such bold, seemingly self-abnegating strokes can bring non-financial rewards, too. J.P. Morgan, with his massive fortune, devil-may-care attitude toward the public, and bulbous rosacea-encrusted nose, was perhaps the least cuddly figure of early 20th century American finance. But Morgan's role in stopping the panic (chronicled by Robert Bruner and Sean Carr in The Panic of 1907: Lessons Learned from the Market's Perfect Storm) has led history to regard him more kindly. The $5 day has had a similar effect in burnishing the historical reputation of Henry Ford, which was tarnished by anti-Semitism and bizarre foreign policy stances.
In today's culture, it's not enough for the very rich to have more money than other people. They want to be more well-regarded and better-loved than other people. People with large fortunes routinely take steps that will make them or their heirs less wealthy in an effort to gain social goodwill, prominence and reputation. That's the whole idea behind the giving pledge, the 2010 initiative started by Buffett and Bill Gates, under which 40 billionaires pledged to give away more than half their fortunes. As the song goes: How do you spell love? M-O-N-E-Y.
So why not take the same attitude toward taxes? Imagine if Buffett and a dozen other billionaires just started asking their payroll departments, or accountants, to withhold a higher level of taxes from their salaries, or to pay capital gains at a higher rate. It wouldn't do much to dent their existing fortunes — that's money they've already made. And sure they'd look like chumps at the next Davos, and would open themselves to ridicule on Internet message boards and in private clubs. But, oh, how their reputations would soar! They'd be lauded as patriotic citizens, invited to appear on all the best talk shows, elevated above their fellow gazillionaires. While such check-writing wouldn't do much to impact the national debt, it might inspire others to do the same and alter the poisonous conversation surrounding taxes and income.
Story continuesReuters Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks to the media in New Albany, Ind.
It might seem counterintuitive, but the chances of Bernie Sanders winning the Democratic nomination actually got worse after the Vermont senator won the Indiana primary on Tuesday night.
Sanders won 52.5% of the Hoosier state’s vote, compared with 47.5% for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, according to the Associated Press.
But Indiana awards delegates on the Democratic side proportionately. The AP says 43 delegates have gone for Sanders, compared with 37 for Clinton. There are another three to be allocated depending on final vote tallies.
So the latest national tally for delegates has Clinton on 2,202 — consisting of 1,682 pledged delegates and 520 so-called superdelegates, luminaries like former President Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Also read: Here’s the superdelegates that stack the race to Clinton
Sanders has 1,400 delegates, with 1,361 pledged delegates and 39 superdelegates.
There are 2,383 delegates needed to secure the nomination. So the odds of Sanders winning the nomination actually got longer after the Indiana win, because there are just a few states left for the 74-year-old to win delegates. (California and New Jersey are the largest prizes still remaining.)
Even assuming he captures the three as-yet unallocated Indiana delegates, Sanders will need to win 88% of the remaining delegates at stake. Before Indiana, his challenge was to win 82% of remaining delegates.
Now, the Sanders camp has said it would fight to switch over the superdelegates to his side, arguing that he’s the better candidate to fight Donald Trump in a presidential election.
But it’s hard to see how that effort will be successful, given that he’ll trying to persuade the superdelegates not to back the candidate with more votes, as well as the fact that the superdelegates are the very definition of the establishment that he’s spent the whole campaign fighting.BY EDGAR WALTERS AND ISABELLE TAFT
Faced with a rising death toll from opioid abuse, Texas public health officials in May decided to apply for a $1 million federal grant to purchase Naloxone, a drug that, if administered during an overdose, can save the life of a person addicted to heroin or pain pills.
The Texas Department of State Health Services hired an outside grant writer to begin drafting a proposal, which was due at the end of the month. As the deadline drew closer, outside researchers and public health workers were brought in to help. If the grant was approved, community health workers and first responders hoped to have the Naloxone on hand by year’s end, courtesy of funding by the Obama administration.
But state officials never submitted the application. Researchers and advocates who contributed to the grant process said they were surprised to learn their work was for naught. They said state officials never offered them an explanation for why the grant was not pursued.
Now, the public health agency is going to unusual lengths to keep the public from seeing government records related to the grant. In response to a public information request filed by The Texas Tribune, the Texas Attorney General’s office told the health agency in September that records about the aborted grant application are public under Texas law.
The agency responded by filing a lawsuit last month against the attorney general's office in an effort to keep the records secret.
A spokesman for the Department of State Health Services said the agency’s lawsuit was merited because unfinished drafts are exempt from open records law. State officials withheld the application, he said, because grant writers had simply failed to meet the deadline.
“The clock just ran out,” said Chris Van Deusen, the spokesman. “We just didn’t have everything we needed organized to get the application in by the deadline.”
That contradicted multiple accounts from researchers with knowledge of the grant application, who said their work was complete but not approved by state leadership.
“You never quite know why things get approved and don’t get approved,” said Jane Maxwell, a University of Texas researcher who volunteered a data analysis for the grant application. “I’m sorry it didn’t happen.”
Maxwell said that while federal funding is never guaranteed — of the 31 states that applied for funding, 12 received grants, according to the Obama administration — she believed Texas’ application was strong. “Unfortunately, it just has to do with the politics in the Capitol,” she said.
“We never got a solid explanation,” said Marc Fleming, a University of Houston professor of pharmaceutical health outcomes, who worked on the grant.
Charles Thibodeaux, an Austin-based advocate for the Texas Overdose Naloxone Initiative, which contributed to the grant and would have received funding for Naloxone distribution, said he believed Texas leaders were uncomfortable with the proposal because they did not want to appear “soft” on drugs.
“I have no |
all about a cover that is no longer on the shelf.
“Sometimes a writer can feel, ‘But I liked this cover!’” says Crown’s O’Shea. “It’s important to be flexible about the approach, being open to the idea of reimagining your own work for a broader audience, and using the tools available to digitally promote the book with your publisher.”
More bluntly said, You want to sell books? Get in the game. Your hardcover might have come and gone, but in terms of your book’s rollout, it’s not even halftime yet.
“The paperback is truly a new release, and a smart author will treat it as such,” says Randy Susan Meyers, author The Murderer’s Daughters, her new novel The Comfort Of Lies, and co-author of the publishing-advice book What To Do Before Your Book Launch with book marketer and novelist M.J. Rose. “Make new bookmarks, spruce up your website, and introduce yourself to as many libraries as possible. Bookstores will welcome you, especially when you plan engaging multi-author events. There are opportunities for paperbacks that barely exist for hardcovers, including placement in stores such as Target, Costco, Walmart, and a host of others. Don’t let your paperback launch slip by. For me, as for many, it was when my book broke out.”Game of Thrones was a grower, not a shower.
After a relatively average launch of 2.2 million viewers, Thrones continued to edge higher in the ratings all season. With its tenth episode finale, Thrones hit a strong number that HBO had been targeting: 3 million viewers. Adding the show’s repeat at 11 p.m., a total of 3.9 million viewers tuned in. Though the Thrones premiere was harshly compared to the big debut of Boardwalk Empire, their finales were pretty close, with the Boardwalk closer delivering 3.3/4.2 million. Thrones continues to average 8.3 million viewers when you include all repeats, DVR and On Demand viewing. Guess those viewers pledging they would stop watching after Episode 9’s shocking event couldn’t stay away.
READ MORE:
Game of Thrones season finale recap! Plus: We list the best & worst episodes, acting, fights and sex scenes from season one
‘Game of Thrones’ producers talk season finale surprises
Game of Thrones epic final photoPluto’s relationship with its moon Charon is one of the more unusual interactions in the solar system due to Charon’s size and proximity. It’s more than half of Pluto’s diameter and orbits only 12,000 or so miles away. To put that into perspective, picture our moon three times closer to Earth, and as large as Mars.
A new study from the Georgia Institute of Technology provides additional insight into this relationship and how it affects the continuous stripping of Pluto’s atmosphere by solar wind. When Charon is positioned between the sun and Pluto, the research indicates that the moon can significantly reduce atmospheric loss.
“Charon doesn’t always have its own atmosphere,” said Carol Paty, a Georgia Tech associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “But when it does, it creates a shield for Pluto and redirects much of the solar wind around and away.”
This barrier creates a more acute angle of Pluto’s bow shock, slowing down the deterioration of the atmosphere. When Charon doesn’t have an atmosphere, or when it’s behind or next to Pluto (a term scientists call “downstream”), then Charon has only a minor effect on the interaction of the solar wind with Pluto.
The study’s predictions, performed before the New Horizons probe collected and returned data to Earth, is consistent with the measurements made by the spacecraft about Pluto’s atmospheric loss rate. Previous estimates at the time of the study were at least 100 times higher than the actual rate.
The research is currently published in a special Pluto issue of the journal Icarus.
John Hale is the Georgia Tech student who co-led the study with Paty. He says the Pluto system is a window into our origins because Pluto hasn’t been subjected to the same extreme temperatures as objects in closer orbits to the sun.
“As a result, Pluto still has more of its volatile elements, which have long since been blown off the inner planets by solar wind,” Hale said. “Even at its great distance from the sun, Pluto is slowly losing its atmosphere. Knowing the rate at which Pluto’s atmosphere is being lost can tell us how much atmosphere it had to begin with, and therefore what it looked like originally. From there, we can get an idea of what the solar system was made of during its formation.”
Hale and Paty also say their study affirms a popular hypothesis of Charon. The areas of discoloration near its lunar poles are likely caused by magnetized particles that have been shorn from Pluto’s atmosphere. These particles have accumulated and settled on Charon over billions of years, particularly when it is downstream of Pluto.Benchmark: unpacked values in containers
Inspired by a discussion on the ghc mailing list, I wondered how much performance can be gained by specializing and unboxing certain data types. In particular, I looked at Data.Map. Suppose that you have a map from ints to ints. First of all, you should be using Data.IntMap instead, but that is besides the point.
If you know that the keys and values are always strict integers, then the data type could be specialized from
data Map k a = Bin {-# UNPACK #-}! Size! k a! ( Map k a )! ( Map k a ) | Tip
to
data MapIntInt = Tip | Bin {-# UNPACK #-}! Size {-# UNPACK #-}! Int {-# UNPACK #-}! Int! ( MapIntInt )! ( MapIntInt )
It would be great if this could be generated automatically by the compiler. But as was pointed out, that is really hard to do, because the size of the constructors would change, depending on the type arguments. So generic functions become impossible. It would also require multiple different info tables for the garbage collector, among other problems.
So, it's probably easier to do this specialization manually. I was thinking of using template haskell, in combination with type families. This would allow you to write something like
deriveSpecializedUnboxedType [ d | type UnboxedMapIntInt = Map! Int! Int |]
but before going there, let's first see whether this is worth the effort at all.
So, I did the specialization by hand for Map Int Int, and ran the containers benchmarks. Here is a representative part of the results,
click for full the criterion report. The horribly hacky code is available on github.
In this graph
generic = generic Map Int Int.
. unboxed = Map with both key and value specialized to strict and unpacked Int.
with both key and value specialized to strict and unpacked. gintmap = value generic IntMap Int
uintmap = IntMap with values specialized to unpacked Int.
As you can see, specializing and unboxing gives a modest performance improvement. There is probably also an improvement in memory usage, but this benchmark doesn't directly measure that. Switching to a better data structure, i.e. patricia tries instead of balanced trees helps a lot more for some benchmarks, such as delete, but very little for others such as map.
Overall, it seems like specialization can definitely be worth it; in some cases improving performance by 40%. And it never has a negative impact, at least in this benchmark. Real life might be different though, especially if there are also Maps with other types of keys and values around.
Note also that this benchmark was compiled for a 32-bit architecture. On 64-bit, pointers and hence boxed values have more overhead.South Korea benefited from a terrible late error by Spanish goalkeeper Ainhoa Tirapu to grab a win in their women's World Cup Group E game on Wednesday and secure a second round game against France.
Tirapu somehow allowed a looping cross from defender Kim Soo-yun to sail over her head and into the net in the 78th minute, ensuring South Korea qualified in second place with four points.
Leaders Brazil won all their three games after Raquel Fernandes dos Santos scored the decisive goal as they beat Costa Rica 1-0.
Veronica Boquete had given Spain the lead in the first half in the clash with South Korea
South Korea hit back through Cho So-hyun in the 53th minute at Lansdowne Stadium
The win means South Korea have made it out of the group stage at the World Cup for the first time. They were eliminated at the first hurdle in their only other appearance in 2003.
South Korea, who started the day in bottom place, fell behind in the first half but tied the game in the 53rd minute when Cho So-hyun planted a header into the net from close range.
Veronica Boquete opened the scoring for Spain in the 29th minute, neatly converting a left-wing cross from 12 yards out.The newly released price tag for a citywide composting program has made Mayor Naheed Nenshi question the wisdom of Calgary’s mission to cut landfill use.
The new organics processing facility, equipment and other startup costs will be $158 million, beyond the annual $35 million to run a green cart service that begins in 2017, a city report states.
Taken with project savings from picking up black carts less often, the monthly cost of composting will be about $6.50 per household, Calgary’s waste and recycling director Dave Griffiths said.
Asked about these numbers Friday, Nenshi questioned the whole premise of the city goal of keeping 80 per cent of all waste out of city landfills by 2020.
“I’ve asked the question very clearly: if we don’t have the same kind of landfill constraints that they have in places like Toronto, why are we doing this?” the mayor said in an interview.
“Can we quantify the environmental benefit? Can we quantify the social benefit and can we quantify the financial benefit? Because it’s a lot of money.
“If the answer’s only that we need to divert more from the landfill, that’s not a good enough answer.”
The mayor, who wasn’t on council a decade ago when “80/20 by 2020” became the waste management mantra at city hall, insisted he doesn’t want to suddenly change course — unless research said Calgary should.
“I don’t know that there’s a lot of demand either from council or the public to do that, but I am always worried about path dependency,” Nenshi said. “I’m always worried that we’re doing stuff just because we’re doing it.”
His comments led Ald. Gord Lowe to caution against “short-term thinking,” and Griffiths to reason that Toronto is the horror story Calgary should strive to avoid.
Toronto, after running out of its own landfill space 11 years ago, had to haul trash to Michigan until 2006. But then the state closed the border to Toronto trash, and the city spent $220.3 million on a landfill in St. Thomas, Ont. — 200 kilometres from the city.
Calgary landfills have 30 years of capacity left at current rates, and Griffiths said he doesn’t want to have to buy more landfill space or come anywhere near the limit.
“Places like Toronto hit those walls. They had no choice,” he said.
There are also ever-rising costs of capturing landfill gases that come up and the liquids that leach down, Griffiths said.
Lowe expressed worry about greenhouse gas emissions and the risk of environmental cleanups or public health concerns like the city faced at its Spyhill Landfill.
It’s “the biggest liability the city faces,” said Lowe, an early advocate for composting and recycling.
“To simply say it’s too expensive and we shouldn’t do it is short-term thinking.”
Council will decide next year whether the green cart service and repaying the startup costs will be recouped through user fees or added into general taxes. Blue cart recycling is fully covered by a $7.40 monthly fee, while homeowners pay part of black cart garbage pickup through the $4.70 charge and the rest through taxes.The first image of Gilad Shalit out of Gaza has captured the attention of many in Israel and around the world. Shalit was led by Hamas men wearing civilian clothing including a plaid shirt. But while most focused on his gaunt frame, it appears many Palestinians were more interested in his outfit, which became an immediate trend in Gaza.
Related stories:
Merchants in the Strip are now offering "The Shalit shirt" in a wide range of colors, for NIS 60 ($16.5). The demand, it seems, is very high.
Right: Shalit interviewed by Egyptian TV. Left: Shirts on sale in Gaza
Evidence of the new fashion trend can be found on Facebook where at least 10 pages have been created in the last few days devoted to "Gilad Shalit's shirt." Thousands of web surfers have become fans.
Facebook group member uploads photo comparing himself to Shalit
One page stated, "The Shalit shirt has become the shirt of the month in Gaza – it is being sold for NIS 50." A surfer wrote, "If there was a company producing this shirt in large quantities they will run out."
Follow Ynetnews on FacebookDeclan McCullagh/CNET
President Obama last week signaled that he is open to reforming the NSA's bulk collection of phone metadata, including an advisory panel recommendation that phone companies or third parties hold onto the data instead of the NSA. However, phone companies apparently aren't thrilled with the idea.
Major phone companies argue that being required to store metadata for an extended period of time for the NSA would be costly, time consuming, and risky, according to a report from The Washington Post on Saturday.
The NSA's bulk collection of phone metadata, which it legally justifies under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, was revealed in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. While courts are split about the legality of the surveillance program, the NSA is currently allowed to store phone data for up to five years.
One recommendation floated by Obama's hand-picked NSA reform panel was scrapping the NSA's direct collection and storage of data and instead having the phone companies hang onto it. In this scenario, the NSA would be required to get a court order on a case-by-case basis to receive specific data from the phone firms.
The panel's report, which was released by the White House earlier in December, urges phone companies to reach an agreement with the government to store phone metadata. But if a "voluntary approach" doesn't work, the panel said legislation may be required.
So what do phone companies think of this voluntary approach? "No way," said an unnamed industry executive, according to the Post. Apparently, some phone companies aren't too keen on storing data for the NSA:
"We don't want to keep these records," said an industry executive, who like several others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly. "We end up with all sorts of litigation risks, privacy risks, hacking vulnerabilities. There is a huge cost involved in just protecting them. And truthfully, we just don't want to do it." One major carrier estimated that it would cost "in the range of $50 million" a year to maintain a five-year, searchable database, according to a company official. The companies and security experts say the stored records would become an attractive target for hackers. "We've always thought it was a bad idea," said a second telecom industry executive. "What I find perplexing about this is privacy advocates don't like the idea, the intelligence community doesn't like the idea, and the carriers don't like the idea. So it's not clear whether you are solving a problem or making the problem worse."
The Post goes on to note that some politicians and privacy advocates are also against the idea of phone companies or third parties storing phone data for an extended period of time.
In total, the NSA advisory panel made 46 recommendations to the White House on ways to address concerns over privacy and potential domestic spying. Obama said he is considering the recommendations and decisions will be made in January.Happy Memorial Day Weekend!!!
Happy Memorial Day weekend San Diego! This is the best time to kick off summer and start with some amazing events around the city. Here are some of the best Memorial Day Weekend events:
What: Legacy Week 2014
When: Saturday, May 24 to May 26, 2014
Where: USS Midway Museum, San Diego
Description: The USS Midway Museum is the heart of Memorial Day celebration in San Diego where it pays tribute to the brave soldiers of our country. This is the busiest weekend of the year with a great the Memorial Day lineup of activities for both adults and kids aboard the Midway. Remember our heroes as we celebrate our military heritage with pride. Memorial Day weekend activities on board the Midway offer the community a rousing and affordable way to start the summer in San Diego.
What: San Diego Padres vs. Chicago Cubs
When: Friday, May 23, 2014
Where: Petco Park, San Diego
Description: Come to Petco Park and cheer on the San Diego Padres to a blazing victory! Show your love and support to the San Diego Padres as they sprint their way to a triumphant win! Get your San Diego Padres vs. Chicago Cubs tickets today and get the best seats! The San Diego Padres start their 2014 with a a lot of energy and optimism to earn the NL West title. The team being is led by Jedd Gyorko, Chase Headley and Ian Kennedy and makes for one of the best Padres rosters this year. Head to Petco Park this baseball season to watch the Padres compete for a playoff spot.
What: Reebok Crossfit Games
When: Friday, May 23, 2014
Where: Del Mar, San Diego
Description: Witness and get inspired by tremendous feats of strength this month. The Reebok CrossFit Games scheduled at the Del Mar Arena on May 23, is set to showcase top athletes who have qualified from the International Open in February. They are here to perform surprising challenges in the regionals and earn the chance to move on to the big Games in July. The MS Fitness Challenge at Campland on the Bay demonstrated the power of exercise and the importance of nutrition in conquering Multiple Sclerosis. Founder David Lyons who was diagnosed with MS in 2006 at the age of 47, became a well-known bodybuilding champion in his own terms, despite his doctors’ dire predictions that he would be in a wheelchair. The six-hour event is open to everyone and is dedicated to those brave souls who are looking forward to soaking up some training along with inspiration and motivation.
What: San Diego Jazz Festival
When: Friday, May 23, to Sunday, May 25, 2014
Where: Omni La Costa Resort & Spa, Carlsbad, San Diego
Description: The Payne Pest Management San Diego Jazz Festival has returned this year in all its grandeur! The festival boasts of a Three-Day event hosted at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa. You don’t want to miss out on this incredible weekend steeped in great music! This year’s lineup includes:
Friday, May 23, 2014
* Maxwell
* Brian Culbertson
* Dominic Amato
Saturday, May 24, 2014
* Charlie Wilson
* Joe & Eric Darius
* Ledisi
* Mint Condition
* TBD
* Robert Glasper
Sunday, May 25, 2014
* Jill Scott
* Anthony Hamilton
* TBD
* Boney James
* Leela James
* Norman Brown & Jonathan Butler
Cost: $50-$975
What: American Freedom Foundation Rock Concert
When: Saturday, May 24, 2014
Where: Aboard flight deck of USS Midway, San Diego
Description: The American Freedom Foundation has announced the 5th Anniversary of the American Freedom Festival San Diego Concert Event this weekend. The grand annual charity event will be held on Saturday, May 24, 2014 and will start from 7:30 pm. The event will feature classic-rock-all-star band, the illustrious and fantastic, World Classic Rockers. The concert, held every year, on board the historic USS MIDWAY MUSEUM, reached record sales and a sell-out last year! Get your tickets now before all are sold! The event features not only World Classic Rockers who are back by popular demand, but will also showcase former band members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Steppenwolf, Journey, Boston and Santana. They will be performing classic rock hits such as: BORN TO BE WILD, ANYWAY YOU WANT IT, SWEET HOME ALABAMA, MORE THAN A FEELING, SEPARATE WAYS, BLACK MAGIC WOMAN, DON’T LOOK BACK, MAGIC CARPET RIDE, GIMME THREE STEPS, ROCK ‘N ROLL BAND, FREE BIRD, WHAT’S YOUR NAME, HERE I GO AGAIN, and more! The American Freedom Festival San Diego has raised nearly $120,000 for the local San Diego military charitable organizations over the last four years.
Cost: $49.50-$69.50
What: Veterans Remembrance Ceremony
When: Saturday, May 24, 2014
Where: USS Midway Museum, San Diego
Description: Join the community to honor World War II veterans at this family-oriented tribute ceremony on the flight deck of USS Midway. Entertainment will be provided by the Pomerado Community Band. Enjoy the motivational and educational event with your whole family. The event is a perfect opportunity to demonstrate the importance of service to community and country to your kids.
Cost: Free
What: Summer Nights at SeaWorld
When: Saturday, May 24 to September 1, 2014
Where: SeaWorld San Diego
Description: Enjoy the summer with good times and after-dark adventures at SeaWorld San Diego. Get ready to start as the park transforms into a nocturnal paradise with extended hours along with summer nighttime-only shows and fireworks. Take part in SeaWorld’s 50th Celebration during the day – including new entertainment, frequent animal encounters and the SeaWorld Surprise Squad delighting park guests with varied prizes every day! Feel the amazing vibrancy and delight of the all-new Shamu’s Celebration: Light Up The Night; share a laugh with friends at Sea Lions Tonite – a sea lion and otter show; and lastly, lift your spirits with Beneath the Blue fireworks of every kind.
What: Ethnic Food Fair, San Diego
When: Sunday, May 25, 2014, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Where: House of Pacific Relations International Cottages, Balboa Park, San Diego
Description: Have great fun at the annual festival in Balboa Park celebrating the different cultures of the world with their cuisine. Sample delicious foods from around the world! Taste the culinary marvels of 33 different ethnicities and witness LIVE performances in colorful native costumes with amazing music.
What: Rosarito Art Fest 2014
When: Saturday May 24, 2014
Where: Hotel Festival Plaza, Rosarito, San Diego
Description: Come and join the 5th two-day cultural festival on the 24th and 25th of May on Blvd. Benito Juárez Sur, (in front the Festival Plaza Hotel). Admission for everyone is free. The event will showcase over 80 artists and their wares. The festival will keep things fresh with a live music stage, an organic products section and the masters of Mexican folk art. Rosarito Art Fest 2014 promises to reflect the energy, traditions and mores, talent, knowledge, and eclectic wealth of artistic talent of Northern Baja. The local hotels are offering special rates just for those attending the event.
Cost: Free
What: A Time To Salute
When: Sunday, May 25, 2014
Where: 207, 5th ave. San Diego
Description: Join us to enjoy our great Memorial Day Weekend party taking place on Sunday, May 25th at 207 SD at the Hard Rock Hotel San Diego!!! The night will be celebrated by SGM’s own DJ Scooter and Fresh One. The event celebrates the day with an awesome Line-up that Includes: Engage JJ Flores Kristina Sky Lavelle Dupree Late Night Science Myron Eugene.
Cost: Free
What: Vista Strawberry Festival
When: Sunday, May 26, 2014
Where: Downtown Vista, San Diego
Description: The Annual Vista Strawberry Festival is back for 2014! The Fest is sponsored by Mossy BMW of Vista (www.bmwofvista.com) and brought to you by the Vista Chamber of Commerce. The fiesta is expected to pull in over 75,000 attendees this year!
The Festival kicks off at the Wave Waterpark in Vista on Sunday, May 25, 2014. Starting at 7:05 am, the festival will go on its merry way with the Strawberry Festival Run (10K/5K/1-Mile/¼-Mile) sponsored by Robert Franks State Farm.
The run is bound to make you hungry, so replenish your energy with a pie eating contest. Get into the strawberry costume contest and Strawberry Idol to add in some awesome fun. The event is being extended to Friday, May 23, to open the new kid’s ride area. The festival will also include a host of other activities like Sidewalk Art displays, a Strawberry Picking contest, and a 3 on 3 Basketball Tournament.
For more info, call: (760) 726-1122
Cost: Free
What: Classic Car, Truck, & Cycle Show
When: Monday, May 26, 2014
Where: Qualcomm Stadium, San Diego
Description: The San Diego Auto Swap has been serving and entertaining a long list of vehicle hobbyists since 1990. Enjoy this year with a great Classic Car, Truck & Cycle Shows & Swap Meet.
There will be hundreds of amazing classics, envy-worthy collectibles, tuners, low riders, customs, hi-performance, and mouth-watering racing vehicles in the Show & Sale area. Enjoy the show and get a chance to buy some for yourself from the scores of vendors lining up to sell thousands of parts and accessories in the Swap Meet area.
There will be dozens of trophies and prizes to be awarded at the Show plus the one and only “Best of Show” trophy and Cash Raffle prize. Have fun at the event with great Music & Go Go Girls!
Cost: Free to $10
What: Memorial Day Celebration
When: Monday May 26, 2014
Where: La Vista Memorial Park, San Diego
Description: Commander of Navy Medicine West, Rear Admiral Bruce L. Gillingham, is all set to give the keynote speech at the Memorial Day observance on Monday, May 26, at 1 p.m. at the La Vista Memorial Park, 3191 Orange St. National City. He will be joined by guest speakers Christopher Lawrence and Mark Zambon, both Warriors wounded in combat.
While the La Vista event has it’s solemn side, it also celebrates life and family. The event is hosted every year as a chance to pay our respects and to show the importance of remembrance. It includes free food and beverages, an aerialist performance with a mini-zoo and pony rides for kids. To commemorate the day, 1940’s era music will be provided by the band, Fantastic Earrings.
Cost: FreeMeet ivee...
She answers questions, obeys commands, and controls other internet-connected devices.
Our world is changing, and already there are thermostats, door locks, security systems, light bulbs, and even vacuums that are connected to the Internet. How do we control all these devices? How do you manage your "Internet of Things"?
ivee Sleek is the first Wi-Fi Voice-Activated Assistant for the home that helps you manage and control your connected devices without any hands. In addition, ivee helps you set reminders, wakes you up on time, and even fetches live Internet content (like weather, stocks, and news) that is relevant to you. Our goal is to create a simpler and more natural way of interfacing with the Internet and your smart home.
We want to deliver the virtual assistant experience that you've been dreaming about for years.
Download Press Kit
Get ready to meet ivee Sleek!
What Does ivee Do?
Just say "hello ivee," and ivee will prompt you for a command. As soon as you start talking, ivee begins turning your words into actions. ivee is especially useful for those who are visually impaired or who struggle with normal computer interaction.
When ivee Sleek ships in October, she'll come with her first batch of applications. Here are just a few examples of what you might say to ivee:
Reminders - e.g. "Remind me to pick up the kids from school at 2:45pm."
- e.g. Controls Devices - e.g. "Set the thermostat to 71 degrees."
- e.g. Alarms - e.g. " Wake me up at 6:30am.”
- e.g. " Time - e.g. "What time is it in Hong Kong?"
- e.g. Weather - e.g. "What's the weather going to be like in New York on Friday?"
- e.g. Stocks - e.g. "What's the stock price of Google?"
- e.g. Sleep Sounds - e.g. "Play ocean waves for 15 minutes.”
- e.g. Bed Time Stories - e.g. “ Read me a bed time story, please.”
- e.g. “ Settings - e.g. “ Turn up the volume.”
- e.g. “ FM Radio - e.g. " Tune the radio to 102.7 FM.”
- e.g. " Personality - e.g. "How old are you?”
ivee’s Dashboard
ivee Sleek works on her own, right out of the box. But if you want to connect ivee to other smart devices or smart home platforms, you may do so using our online dashboard.
We are making it easy and simple for you to add other devices and personalize your experience with ivee. For example, when ivee has your cell phone number, she can text (SMS) you reminders when you’re on the go.
Using our online dashboard, you will be able to connect ivee Sleek to many third-party connected devices like:
smart thermostats
smart locks
smart lights
smart plugs
smart home hubs
smart blinds
smart health monitors
smart pedometers
smart scales
smart vacuums
Watch our engineer David use ivee to control a Belkin WeMo Smart Plug!
She Keeps on Learning
Every ivee Sleek that ships connects to our servers, which is what makes her smart. This means that we can add more features every month, so the ivee that you purchase today will get smarter and more capable over time.
(We're working with RooWiFi to control the Roomba by voice!)
Calling All Developers
In addition to making ivee simple to use, we are also making ivee as open as possible, by enabling developers to build on top of our open voice platform. Through the ivee Dashboard, developers will be able to access the voice platform and connect ivee to virtually any web service that they want. We can't wait to see what you come up with!
How Does ivee Work?
She Listens
When you say the simple wake-up phrase, “hello ivee,” ivee awakens and waits for your verbal command or question. A beam-forming microphone array cancels ambient noise and makes it possible to talk to ivee from up to 10-15 feet away. ivee then uses AT&T’s Speech API (Watson) before sending the response on to her own system.
In addition, light and temperature sensors are used to detect ivee’s ambient surroundings, making her smart and aware.
She Understands
Using natural language understanding, machine learning, and Wolfram|Alpha’s computational knowledge engine, ivee understands you and responds accordingly.
For example, if you ask ivee what the weather is like in Las Vegas, she might say, “Today in Las Vegas, Nevada, the temperature will be between 46 and 54 degrees, you can expect clear skies all day.” ivee provides both an audio and visual reply.
She Performs
Our Progress So Far
We began developing ivee Sleek in February 2012, but we've been designing, developing, manufacturing, and distributing voice-activated alarm clocks for the past three years. We had the idea of a smart, Wi-Fi version of ivee at the inception of the company (before Siri!). However, it took some time to find the right team and partners. Finally in February of last year, we were able to put the right pieces together. After nearly one year of active development, we debuted two working prototypes in January at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. We are now on track to bring ivee Sleek to market this year, and we need your help!
Our next steps are to finish tooling the plastic housing for mass production, finish the ivee voice platform and online Web dashboard, and add more domains (or applications) so that ivee can understand more than what we've shown above. We have broken out our hardware and software timelines for you to review below:
Software Timeline (for final phase of development):
Hardware Timeline (for final phase of development):
Your Contribution
Your Kickstarter contribution will help us bring ivee to life. It will allow us to complete the next steps in our timelines above, like government certifications (FCC, ESD, and CE), tooling with our manufacturer, software development, and purchasing the first round of materials to start production. The more that you are able to pledge, the more applications we'll be able to develop for ivee!
Team ivee!
We are a small startup from Los Angeles, California made up of two engineers (David and Puneet), one designer (Eran), one logistics guru (Randy), one founder (Jonathon), our bookkeeper (Alice), and our intern (Shane)! We also have several technology partners who have teamed up with us to help make this project happen.
Rewards
***For $199, ivee will learn your name. You will be able to ask ANY ivee in the world, "Who is <your first name> <your last name>?" and ivee will repeat a short bio that you provide to us. Everyone will know how you've helped contribute to our KS campaign!***
$1 - backer only updates
$15 - ivee fan pack
$149 - 1 ivee in pearl white or night black (limited to 200)
$179 - 1 ivee in pearl white or night black
***$199 - 1 ivee in pearl white or night black*** (limited to 50)
$1,000 - custom ivee - choose color, finish, voice (limited to 5)
$5,000 - meet the ivee team in LA and choose an ivee (limited to 5)
$10,000 - visit the factory in Asia and choose an ivee (limited to 5)
ivee's Technical Specifications
ARM9 400 MHz Processor
128MB Memory
256MB Flash Storage
TFT LCD 4.3” Display (480x272)
Dual Beam Forming Microphones
Hi-Fi 45mm Speaker
802.11 Wi-Fi b/g (WPA/WPA2-PSK support)
Embedded Linux
Temperature Sensor
Light Sensor
Built-in Rechargeable Battery*
AC adapter (included)
*Rechargeable battery backs time, date, and alarms.
Views
(Note: USB out allows you to charge any USB device, like a smart phone)
Colors
Night black & Pearl white (front view)
Night black & Pearl white (top view). Note: both colors are the same size, just a funky camera lens.
Night black & Pearl white (back side view)
Thank You!
Thank you Kickstarter community for helping us make this happen! We greatly appreciate your contribution and your support! We would also like to give a special thanks to Logical Approach Engineering, AT&T's Speech API team, IN(D)2 Studios, and Top Team Manufacturing.
Download Press KitHAZEL PARK, Mich. — On a snowy night in 2011, April DeBoer, Jayne Rowse and their three children were driving in their minivan down a rural road when a truck, attempting to pass another vehicle, came barreling toward them.
“At the last second, he swerved off the road and veered into a field,” Ms. DeBoer recalled. “I don’t think Jayne and I would have survived the impact. It was that moment, that realization, that we needed to get things in order.”
They figured they could draw up wills and assign custody of their children during a quick meeting with a lawyer. Instead, they are headed to the United States Supreme Court.
After talking to a lawyer in Detroit, Ms. Rowse and Ms. DeBoer were stunned to discover that, as a gay couple living in Michigan, they were unprotected under the law: Michigan does not allow two unmarried people to jointly adopt a child, so their children were technically adopted by a single parent, either Ms. Rowse, 50, or Ms. DeBoer, 43. Each parent legally had no claim to the children her partner had legally adopted.The Washington Redskins have until May 3 to decide whether to pick up the fifth-year option on quarterback Robert Griffin III, and while the assumption is that they won't, that may not be the case.
One person familiar with the situation told Mark Maske of the Washington Post that he expects the Redskins to exercise Griffin's option following the draft, which would pay him $16.155 million in 2016.
General manager Scot McCloughan told reporters in March that the team had not made a decision about Griffin's long-term future. He also left open the possibility of drafting a quarterback with the No. 5 overall pick.
If the Redskins do draft a quarterback in the first round, it seems unlikely that they will pick up Griffin's option. Griffin told NFL Media's Jeff Darlington recently that he wouldn't be upset if that happened.
"I wouldn't be bummed," he said. "Either way, we're going out there to prove it this upcoming year - not next year. I just want to win. I want to win games and have fun doing it. The rest will take care of itself."During today’s IMTC Asia Conference in Delhi, Indian trading platform Coinsecure’s co-founder and CTO, Benson Samuel, and OKLink’s Chief Strategy Officer, Jack C. Liu, announced a new partnership to bring remittances over blockchain to India.
Join the industry leaders at the Finance Magnates London Summit, 14-15 November, 2016. Register here!
“We at Coinsecure not only recognize Bitcoin as the most important application of blockchain but also its potential role in alleviating global transaction woes and expedite remittance. Coinsecure is thrilled to partner with OKLink to provide faster and cheaper services |
15 and 16, the Texans face the Panthers and the Colts who rank 32nd and 30th against opposing running backs. Tate is a legitimate #2 RB play for those two weeks.Week 9 stats: 5 rec, 109 yards, 11 TargetsHines Ward is now officially an afterthought. Just kidding, Hines Ward will always find a way to annoy us, whether it's through reality TV shows or commercials. The guy just doesn't stop. He might even steal a touchdown or two from Brown the next couple of weeks, but that shouldn't stop owners from picking up the highly-targeted Brown if he is still available.Week 9 stats: 20-28, 230 yards, 1 TD, 1 INTWeek 10 stats: 20-39, 306 yards, 1 TD, 2 INTsThe Buffalo Bills just gave up three touchdowns to Matt Moore. For as bad as Mark Sanchez has played recently, he is still better than Matt Moore.Week 9 stats: 10-21, 124 yards, 2 TDs, 12 carries, 118 yardsWeek 10 stats: 2-8, 69 yards, 1 TD, 9 carries, 43 yards, 1 TDHaters keep on hating, Tebow's keeps on Tebowing. It's safe to say Tebow is a reliable fantasy option after what he did to the Jets on Thursday night. On an unrelated note, after Thursday night's game, Tebow's post-game interview with Michael Irvin and Deion Sanders absolutely hilarious. By my count, there were at least four "So what do your receivers say to you after you completely miss them when they are wide open" questions. Still, you can't blame Irvin for unintentionally making fun of Tebow. He was just nervous as it was probably the closest Irvin has been to God in years. Or maybe he had just got done sniffing cocaine, who knows.
The views and content in this article are not necessarily the opinion of Fantasy Football Champs, www.FFChamps.com, and its in-house experts.Daniel Goodman / Business Insider It's in the works. A massive Occupy Wall Street gathering with delegates from all over the country. And if these plans are carried out, Occupy Wall Street will be a major force to be reckoned with on Election Day 2012.
The date? July 4, 2012.
Put aside questions of whether or not the movement will survive that long. Imagine that they do, because they have no doubt.
If only our economy had that kind of confidence.
Discussions on how to proceed will begin tomorrow at a massive General Assembly at 7 PM. Here's how they describe what they're about to do:
....the election of delegates and holding of a national general assembly or convention on July 4, 2012 must be organized. No calls for violence. No calls for the violent overthrow of the government.
...Once organized and the delegates have been elected by direct ballot in all 435 districts. They must demand that our elected leaders take action. If they do not take action within one year of the demand, we will demand their mass resignations and that new elections be held so we can take back our democracy from the corporations and those who BUY power and influence with MONEY. Yes this includes unions and lobbyists.
The Citizens United case must be reversed...
More concrete, long-term measures can also be found on their website in a document called The Steps to Non-Violent Revolution and the Convening of a National General Assembly. There are ten of them, and the most amazing thing about them, is that they outline a democratic plan to decide on a platform of reforms supported by occupations across the entire country leading right up to the 2012 election.
Perhaps Occupy Wall Street only thought of doing this now, but I sincerely doubt it.
Basically, if this is carried out, Occupy Wall Street could shift the course of American politics at its highest levels.
Here are the steps:
1. The Occupy Wall Street movement, through the local general assembly, should elect an executive committee comprised of 11 people or some other odd number of people that is manageable for meetings. Ideally this committee should represent each city in the U.S. that is being occupied.
2. The executive committee will then attend to local issues such as obtaining permits, paying for public sanitation and dealing with the media. More important, t he executive committee shall plan and organize the election of the 870 delegates to a National General Assembly between now and July 4, 2012.
3. As stated in the 99% declaration, each of the 435 congressional districts will form an election committee to prepare ballots and invite citizens in those districts to run as delegates to a National General Assembly in Philadelphia beginning on July 4, 2012 and convening until October 2012.
4. Each of the 435 congressional districts will elect one man and one woman to attend the National General Assembly. The vote will be by direct democratic ballot regardless of voter registration status as long as the voter has reached the age of 18 and is a US citizen. This is not a sexist provision. Women are dramatically under-represented in politics even though they comprise more than 50% of the U.S. population.
5. The executive committee will act as a central point to solve problems, raise money to pay for the expenses of the election of the National General Assembly and make sure all 870 delegates are elected prior to the meeting on July 4th.
6. The executive committee would also arrange a venue in Philadelphia to accommodate the delegates attending the National General Assembly where the declaration of values, petition of grievances and platform would be proposed, debated, voted on and approved. The delegates would also elect a chair from their own ranks to run the meetings of the congress and break any tie votes. We will also need the expertise of a gifted parliamentarian to keep the meetings moving smoothly and efficiently.
7. The final declaration, platform and petition of grievances, after being voted upon by the 870 delegates to the National General Assembly would be formally presented by the 870 delegates to all three branches of government and all candidates running for federal public office in November 2012. Thus, the delegates would meet from July 4, 2012 to sometime in early to late October 2012.
8. The delegates to the National General Assembly would then vote on a time period, presently suggested as one year, to give the newly elected government in November an opportunity to redress the petition of grievances. This is our right as a People under the First Amendment.
9. If the government fails to redress the petition of grievances and drastically change the path this country is on, the delegates will demand the resignation and recall of all members of congress, the president and even the Supreme Court and call for new elections by, of and for the PEOPLE with 99 days of the resignation demand.
10. There will NEVER be any call for violence by the delegates even if the government refuses to redress the grievances and new elections are called for by the delegates. Nor will any delegate agree to take any money, job promise, or gifts from corporations, unions or any other private source. Any money donated or raised by the executive committee may only be used for publicizing the vote, the National General Assembly, and for travel expenses and accommodation at the National General Assembly ONLY. All books and records will be published openly online so that everyone may see how much money is raised and how the money is spent each month. There will be no money allowed to "purchase" delegate votes as we have in the current government. No corporate "sponsorship".
Very ambitious, we'll see how it goes.On sale Monday June 15.
18-year-old New Zealand-born music sensation Lorde covers Vogue Australia’s July 2015 issue wearing Gucci, photographed by Robbie Fimmano and styled by Christine Centenera.
“She is fiercely intelligent, equally talented, and I am very proud of this, her first Vogue Australia cover,” says editor-in-chief Edwina McCann of the star in her editor’s letter.
In the cover story, Lorde speaks to Ishil Ihtiyar about attending her first-ever Met Gala in Calvin Klein Collection, how her world has expanded since finding fame and taking time out in her hometown.
The July 2015 issue is dedicated to music and profiles other big talents including The Preatures, Daniel Johns, Say Lou Lou and Sia.
YOU SHOULD ALSO SEE:
Lorde is more powerful than Justin Bieber
What Lorde really thinks about beautyTOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Emperor Akihito’s uncle, Prince Mikasa, who served in China during World War Two and criticized the war waged in his older brother’s name, was laid to rest on Friday in solemn ceremonies attended by royals, the premier and other mourners.
Japan's Princess Yuriko, on a wheelchair, the wife of late Prince Mikasa, uncle of the current Emperor Akihito, is seen after praying at the altar during the funeral of late Prince Mikasa at the Toshimagaoka cemetery in Tokyo, Japan, November 4, 2016. REUTERS/Toru Hanai
Mikasa’s death at the age of 100 - the oldest Japanese royal in recorded history - leaves just four heirs to the Chrysanthemum throne.
His death comes amid renewed attention to the future of a monarchy whose past traditionalists say stretches back 2,600 years and whose future currently rests with one 10-year-old boy. Women cannot ascend to the throne.
A Shinto priest in white robes walked slowly ahead of the hearse at Tokyo’s Toshimagaoka cemetery under bright blue skies to the sound of “shakuhachi” flute music. Mikasa’s 93-year-old widow, Princess Yuriko, followed in a wheelchair.
Akihito’s heir, Crown Prince Naruhito and his wife, Crown Princess Masako, were in attendance along with dignitaries including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy. In line with tradition, Akihito and Empress Michiko did not attend.
After a reading by a priest, chief mourners laid offerings of ritual greenery at an alter after which others approached and bowed to pay their respects.
The youngest brother of Emperor Hirohito, who until Japan’s defeat was worshipped as a god, Mikasa served in the military and was posted to Nanjing for about a year from 1943.
China says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in 1937 in its then capital of Nanjing. A postwar Allied tribunal put the death toll at 142,000, but some conservative Japanese politicians and scholars deny a massacre took place at all.
In a 1994 interview with the Yomiuri newspaper, Mikasa was quoted saying “I was really shocked when an officer told me that the best way to train new soldiers was to use living prisoners of war for bayonet practice because it gave them will power.”
An Oriental History scholar, Mikasa eschewed royal honourifics, preferring to be addressed “Mikasa-san” like ordinary Japanese. He was also a folk dancing aficionado and enthusiastic ice skater, and enjoyed karaoke.
Akihito, 82, hinted in August that he wanted to abdicate - a step unprecedented in modern Japan and not possible under current law.
The remaining four male heirs include 10-year-old Prince Hisahito, the emperor’s only grandson, raising concerns about the monarchy’s future unless reforms to allow women to inherit and pass on the throne are enacted.
“I hope the passing of Prince Mikasa will become an opportunity to think a bit more about all these issues regarding the imperial family and succession,” said Naotaka Kimizuka, a specialist in European monarchies at Kanto Gakuin University.
The three older heirs are Akihito’s 80-year-old brother and his two middle-aged sons including Naruhito.
Mikasa’s body will be cremated and interred at the cemetery later in the day, public broadcaster NHK said.The day has finally come, we can now have custom soundtracks on the PC version of NBA 2K13. After all the work nesa24 has done, he provided Leftos with the needed information and just hours later a tool was created. The NBA 2K Audio Editor currently only supports NBA 2K13’s menu music file, but since NBA 2K11, 2K12 and other audio files such as commentary share the same format, it is possible to see an expanded usage of the tool. Below you will find a step-by-step video tutorial I created, which goes over the tool, how to select viable songs, how to shorten songs if need be and of course, how to import them into the file.
Please make your way over to the Forum Thread and say thank you to nesa24 and Leftos for this fantastic tool!These days I find myself giving advice on an occasional basis to the governments of four different countries, including the UK. I like doing this, and it makes for a refreshing counterbalance to the nitty gritty of running mySociety - spreadsheets, UX design, contracts, discussions about features - all that stuff.
Recently, however, I've started to think about what citizens themselves need to do to help make their governments keen on open data, or how to sustain any interest the government of their country might be showing.
So, last week I took the opportunity of speaking at the excellent DataCamp in London to put my thoughts into a short talk. I'm sure there'll be a video online soon, but here is a slightly more polished version of the speech I read from on the day. I hope you find it thought provoking.
"We live in quite extraordinary times. We live at a moment where many of the most important politicians in our country and in some others overseas are actually eager to stand up and say that open data is an important priority for them, and for their nations. Just pause and think about it for a second: politicians! Talking about data! At all!
Even more remarkable than the fact that they are keen to talk about it, is the fact that they are keen to change policy to deliver more open data – a commodity who's impacts are by definition complex and unpredictable. This is not the simple politics of supplying an extra hospital bed or locking up another criminal – this is about taking a calculated bet that a series of seemingly esoteric measures will have big impacts, driven mainly by the remarkable characteristics of the Internet. This is a long way from the simple crowd pleasing pleasures of bread and circuses.
We should celebrate the fact that the political classes are paying attention to open data. And we should celebrate the fact that we are starting to get information that many of us in this room have been clamouring for for years. But we should also realise that the current situation is extraordinary, and if we don't work together to manage it quite carefully, it could crash from extraordinary to ordinary with considerable speed.
And that's why the title of my talk today – a talk which is addressed to each and every one of you in the audience - is Open Data: How Not To Cock It Up.
What do I mean by cocking up open data? I mean making making mistakes that result in the flow of data we think is so valuable either drying up, or never starting in the first place. And when I say mistakes, I mean mistakes that we can make – those of us in this room right now, not the politicians.
The first way we can avoiding cocking up Open Data is to ensure that we always advocate for it in the same way that scientists advocate for Blue Sky science research – we must argue for it as a numbers game – a calculated risk that is worth taking. So, we say loud and clear : we do not expect the majority of government datasets will contain massive wells of untapped value, just as we don't expect that most university research will yield a new penicillin, or an atom bomb. But we do believe that it would be a terrible, criminally stupid bet to assume that all the value that lurked in the hidden mines of government data is valueless, especially when so much remains locked up or hidden. It would be like sitting looking at the internet in 1996, and betting against the creation of Google – a mega enterprise founded on data that nobody thought had any value.
The second way we can avoid a stroll down cock-up boulevard is cease tinkering around with demos and hacks and pretty-but-useless visualisations and bloody finish something useful. FixMyStreet is no Facebook, but it is a real service that makes a real difference to a significant number of people people who would be really sad if it went away. There are too few projects like this because it is so much easier to make a nice maps mashup, or a cool graph. But it is a steady stream of this sort of service, both commercial and not for profit, that will achieve the goal of making the cessation of open data releases unthinkable.
Third, we must go out of our way to gather information on what value is generated by people using data, even if just anecdotal. Did you know that 55% of TheyWorkForYou's users tell us that they leave the site with a more favourable impression of their MPs than they have when they arrive? Data.gov.uk could take a lead here by putting up a big, friendly page after every download that says “Please tell us how you use the data, so we can justify releasing more in the future”. Or, perhaps more menacingly: “Nice Dataset you got there – be a real shame if anything untoward were to happen to it”.
However, the process of recording and shouting the value of public data is fundamentally in our hands. For the forseeable future we should adopt the approach of someone who is trying to woo a rather unconvinced lover. Their friends – risk averse public servants and lobbyists - keep telling them that they should dump us and get on with the wooing someone more worth while (the deficit, or china), and that this open data toy-boy is just a shiny distraction with good cheekbones. We need to keep showing up with flowers and kind deeds (ie success stories) to show that we are worth not kicking out of bed. The academic research community could do a huge job here, focussing their efforts in the near term in better understandings of what sort of value open data is starting to create.
Method Number Four for avoiding cockups is to keep an eye out for where public servants might be about to make terrible mistakes that they cheerfully intend to stick the badge labelled 'open data' on. By 'terrible mistakes' I mean the possibility that someone somewhere will release data that is obviously seriously privacy infringing, and which should never have gone anywhere near the public domain (like so many people involved in open data, I am actually much more worried about data privacy than the average Joe). We should probably maintain a top-five datasets in our country that we don't want to see released! This may seem silly, but one really bad error and the name of our whole movement could become mud, and it wouldn't be our fault at all.
And finally, cock-up avoidance technique number 5, which in my mind is the most important, but which I accept many of you might find controversial. This mistake is the mistaking of insisting that Government really should be in the business of publishing everything non-private it can.
"What heresy is this?" I hear you cry, "Aren't you in favour of as much open data as possible?" My answer is simple: No, not at the moment - I don't think any government anywhere is really up to it yet. In fact, right now, I think it is a rather dangerous idea.
It may surprise you to hear that my vision of a perfect (but realistic) government, is one that would release nothing, not a jot of data, not a single row or column..... until someone asked for it. When they did ask, my perfect government would then instantly publish that data in a brilliant, helpful format, regularly updated, and running on a lovely webservice that fulfils every data-mashers dreams.
Why not publish everything as soon as we can though? Surely that would make more sense? I say no, for two admittedly counter-intuitive reasons:
First - if we focus on asking our governments to publish as much as they can, it will spread the finite amount of good will, money and political capital which exists and is available to help us achieve change. I think the change we need most strongly right now is reform to give you in the audience stronger rights to the data that many of you are still clamouring for, but whatever you think is most important change you need to realise that spreading your efforts too thin is likely to see it fail
Second, I don't actually think it is worth replacing a hopeless old 70s It system with a shiny modern web service if the combined population of the country you're in doesn't seem to care about what's in said system. There are, in short, better things to spend our money on than upgrading systems which contain data that nobody appears interested in.
So there we are. These are five suggestions I have for helping make the current move to open data as successful as it can be. I hope they're pretty international, and of relevance to you all. But my main message is this - the open data movement has some momentum internationally, but it will only sustain it if those of us who use data realise we've got to take certain steps to make the case for why it matters, and if we temper our idealism a little in the name of effectiveness."Last year, Netflix and Marvel expertly brought Daredevil to life. It was the perfect mix of action, character development, and heart that made it a smashing success. Season 1 ended with Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) donning the famous red suit and taking down the enemy of Hell’s Kitchen, Kingpin.
**WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS**
Still At It
Season 2 opens just as it should, with Daredevil silently defending Hell’s Kitchen from the criminal elements with his wits, fists, and heightened senses. He roughs up the bad guys but continues to toe the line between giving them a sound beating and permanently ending their crime careers.
The Bad Luck Of The Irish
With Fisk, a.k.a. Kingpin behind bars, the Irish mob decides to reassert themselves into the dominate role of drug lords in the city. While meeting to discuss this plan, they are gunned down by unseen forces using military grade weaponry. Someone has declared war on the scum of Hell’s Kitchen.
Foggy and Murdock and Karen Make Three
Matt Murdock might be the one beating convicts to a pulp every night but he is not the only one that is courageous. By day, the near bankrupt law firm is defending the good people of New York. But by night, whether it’s Foggy (Elden Henson) looking for clues to the Irish massacre in some very dangerous locales or Karen (Deborah Ann Woll) defending the star witness to the shootout, the non-superheroes act pretty darn super.
Punished…by One Man.
We finally get our first glimpse at Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), otherwise known as the Punisher, albeit a brief one. Where the police think that the assault on the mob was a new crime army on the scene, it is in fact one very angry man.
The second season of Daredevil picks back up perfectly, reinforcing Murdock’s commitment to ridding his city of fear of the criminal element, showing the heart of a community law firm willing to fight for the little guy and setting up a season long showdown between two men that are after the same goals but vastly differ on their methods. As with season 1, the tone conveys the darkness and raw grit of the inner city which is much more geared to a mature audience rather than the bright colors of the Marvel Universe films such as The Avengers. My binge watching this weekend is only hampered by the NCAA tournament but I will do my best to keep my eyes open for both.
If you still need a fix after watching, here are some recommended books you should check out to hold you over.
Advertisementsby Nan Rhyner
How DARE you stand on that stage, on the shoulders of generations of women who have struggled and sacrificed to allow a woman to achieve what you have, and spit in their faces the way you have done over the past few weeks? For a serious candidate for vice president to turn in such a poor performance in interview after interview that the fact that you managed not to pee on the stage meant that you exceeded many people’s expectations is a crying shame. In the month since you were named as candidate for VP, you have embodied every single negative stereotype ever put forward as a “reason” why women are not fit to lead a nation. You have been shallow, superficial, disorganized, and clearly uninformed on a wide range of issues that the president MUST understand. That is absolutely disgraceful. You are no longer Miss Wasilla – this is not a beauty contest that you can win by chirping “World peace!” into a microphone and waiting for someone to show up with your tiara and sash – it is deadly serious. How do you propose to take over the presidency, should that be necessary, when it takes you weeks of preparation and drilling and rehearsal in seclusion to get through a 90 minute debate? You are so afraid of the press after your three disastrous interviews that you have decided to avoid them completely – don’t think that we can’t see through your attempt to spin the situation to cast yourself as a victim of the evil, mean, press corps. Do you seriously believe that that would be an option for you, should you ever become president? What will you do then?
How DARE you stand up there and criticize other nations’ lack of women’s rights, when you have systematically worked to strip women of their rights since you have had power of any sort? Your city led the fight in Alaska to charge women for the rape kits used to gather forensic evidence after a woman has been sexually assaulted. Your state leads the nation in number of forcible rapes per capita, but you’ve done nothing to stem the tide. You speak out against socialized health care – you don’t want the government involved in what you believe are private decisions – but you’re more than happy to take away a woman’s right to choose whether to continue an unwanted pregnancy, even if that pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.
How DARE you stand in front of us as a nation and claim that you are prepared to lead us in finding a way to improve education, when you have demonstrated over and over again your own lack of understanding of basic principles of science, history, and civics? Any high school freshman should be able to name at least one or two other Supreme Court cases. Finding ones you disagreed with might be a bit harder, although for me, Bush v. Gore, Plessy v. Ferguson, and District of Columbia v. Heller come to mind pretty quickly. One would hope that you would also disagree with the verdict of at least the second case in that list. How is it that you propose to lead our nation in its interactions with other countries, yet you can’t be bothered to do some studying to find out what the Bush Doctrine might be? You don’t seem to grasp the concept that if you do not understand what is causing climate change, you will not be able to do anything to stop it. Yes, the climate has warmed and cooled in the past without it being caused by human activity – but the difference is those climate changes happened over centuries and millennia — not decades. They also tended to be accompanied by mass extinctions. It seems to me that, even if you don’t believe that humans are to blame, it’s worth taking action to make absolutely sure that we’re not part of the problem. Your position in opposition to comprehensive sexual education is fatally flawed. As the gap between puberty and marriage widens for more and more young people, abstinence becomes more and more unlikely. Young people will have sex, and nothing that we say or do will ever stop that. Sex is a basic drive for humans. We can either accept this fact and make sure that these young people have comprehensive sex ed – including a thorough understanding of how to prevent pregnancy and disease – and access to condoms and other forms of birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies and the spread of STIs, or we can continue to see young people’s options in life severely limited by disease and unplanned pregnancies. I have been unable to definitively substantiate reports that you are a young-earth creationist who believes that dinosaurs coexisted with humans, but if that is true, it is one more proof that you are unfit to lead this nation. Science and technology are the US’s only hope for maintaining its position in the global economy. We cannot move forward as a nation and maintain our position in the vanguard of science and technology behind a leader who rejects even the most basic scientific understanding in favor of myths and legends.
How DARE you claim to be part of a middle-class family? The AP reports that your family income is approximately $230,000 per year, with assets in excess of $1 million. That’s almost 4 times the average income in Alaska, and over 5 times the average income in the entire US. That’s approximately 3 times the net worth of Joe Biden. The folksy, aw-shucks routine is a calculated fake with which you hope to lie your way into national-level power – what other reason could there be for you refusing to release your financial information before the VP debate, other than your hope that no one would bother to fact-check your claim to be in the middle class? God help us if you actually succeed at this. You are nothing more than a conniving, grasping politician who favors style over substance. You talk of your status as an “outsider”, but your true colors showed tonight as you talked of your hopes of expanding the power you would wield as vice president, were the American people crazy enough to elect you. Dick Cheney has already had his crack at running the country into the ground by wielding powers to which he had absolutely no right, from a Constitutional standpoint. The LAST thing we want to do now is expand those powers further for the likes of you.
We’ve been lied to for eight years already. We’ve dealt with cronyism and abuse of power. We’ve watched the government stonewall inquiries into even its most blatantly illegal and unethical actions. (We’ve already seen evidence of how you’re more than happy to do these things as well, in your less than two years as Alaska governor. Why is it that you are no longer asking us to “hold you accountable” in your ethics inquiry? Why are your people now refusing to answer subpoenas so that the inquiry can proceed?) We’ve seen our homes and jobs and money stolen, and watched wealth concentrated in the hands of the rich while the poor and the middle class suffered. We’ve watched oil company profits shoot up, and no-bid contracts handed out unapologetically to companies with undeniable ties to the Bush/Cheney regime. We’ve watched scientists routinely manipulated or squelched if their findings were inconvenient to the administration’s political objectives. We’ve seen ally after ally throughout the world alienated. We’ve watched thousands of young men and women die in a preemptive war which the government lied to us to start, yet we’ve continued to fail to catch the people who were actually the ones that attacked us on 9/11. We’ve watched the economy tank, and the deficit skyrocket. You talk about “change”, but spout the same old policies we’ve seen over and over and over and over. You are nothing more than 4 more years of Bush.
And it’s time we said “Enough.”
As for you, the best thing you could do for the nation is to take your family, and go back to Wasilla. Spend time in that lovely house you own – the one by the lake. Or maybe in one of your vacation cottages. Relax. Maybe read a book. You can use your private plane to get there. But leave the rest of us alone. We’ve had enough of your type.
Sincerely,
Nan Rhyner
Nan Rhyner is an aspiring teacher, an animal lover, and a flaming liberal. Nan lives in the Midwest with far too many rescued dogs, cats, and guinea pigs, and an extremely tolerant roommate. She rants about politics in her spare time.by
Favorite Processor Paper from ISSCC 2014
My favorite paper from the ISSCC processor session (5.6) describes an adaptive clocking technique implemented in AMD’s 28nm Steamroller core that compensates for power supply noise. Most papers in the processor sessions are overviews that emphasize broad feature sets and the scope and scale of the project. In contrast, paper 5.6 was tightly focused on a specific problem (i.e. power supply noise) and clearly articulated a solution that was implemented in the Steamroller core.
Power Supply Noise
The power delivery network (PDN) in a modern processor starts with the 12V DC rail from the power supply and crosses the motherboard to a voltage regulator, where it is converted down to roughly 1V. The power is then delivered across the motherboard to the processor socket, through the processor package, and finally arrives at the processor die.
In an ideal world, the voltage that is delivered to the processor is constant. In reality, dynamic conditions cause significant fluctuations in the voltage. For example, when a large number of gates begin to switch (e.g., a core goes from power gated to active or a 256-bit vector unit goes from idle to computing a multiply-add), the current draw increases sharply. This is referred to as a dI/dt event, and it will cause an immediate droop in voltage across the chip (referred to as the first droop). More insidiously, dI/dt events interact with the PDN (e.g., power rails in the processor package and motherboard) to create additional delayed voltage droops (e.g., a second and third droop respectively).
Conceptually, a voltage droop causes the equivalent of a brownout on a portion of the chip. For example, if a chip is clocked at 3GHz and requires V min = 900mV to safely achieve this frequency – then a voltage droop that reduces the voltage supplied to the transistors below V min is likely to cause undetectable errors. In most chips, the worst case design point is a scenario when a first and second droop simultaneously occur, which can drop the voltage at the transistors by 10-15%.
To address these power supply problems, there are several techniques available to chip designers:
Reduce the static frequency based on post-manufacturing testing so that the V min is not violated during voltage droop; this reduces performance by ~10-15% for a ~10-15% droop. This is the standard technique used by many companies during the frequency binning process. Increase the static voltage supply to tolerate any possible droops; this wastes considerable power (~20-32%), but avoids losing performance. Add decoupling capacitance to reduce power supply noise; this adds cost to the processor/package and only partially solves the problem. Moreover, area efficient on-die capacitors are very difficult and proprietary; IBM uses an expensive deep trench process and Intel has a customized MIM capacitor. Dynamically increase the voltage during low activity periods to tolerate small voltage droops; this costs power during low activity, cannot address very big (i.e. large current and/or small time) dI/dt events, and may not work for dI/dt events during high activity periods. Use a very fast voltage regulator (e.g., 140Mhz Haswell IVR), which eliminates the second and third droop. IVRs are very difficult to implement, entirely proprietary, and don’t fix the first droop without large capacitors. Microarchitectural throttling to reduce current draw (e.g., Itanium processors issue fewer instructions during dI/dt events and vector units often take many cycles to ‘warm up’); this reduces IPC and can cause instruction scheduling challenges. Adaptive clocking which dynamically adjusts the cycle time (e.g., decreasing the frequency) to tolerate voltage droops, without increasing voltage.
Steamroller Adaptive Clocking
The design team at AMD chose option 7, an adaptive clocking system, for Steamroller. The system has two key components: a detector that determines when the voltage droops, and an adaptive clocking component that reduces the clock frequency in response to a droop. Figure 1 shows the concepts behind AMD’s implementation in Steamroller.
One of the critical measures of an adaptive clocking system is the response latency. The faster the system can respond, the greater the reduction in voltage and therefore the greater the power savings. The adaptive clocking in Streamroller is designed for very low latency (e.g., 3 cycles) to compensate for the first and second droop.
The droop detector works by comparing the phase of the reference clock signal (which uses a clean analog power supply with no noise), with clock phases that are generated on the noisy digital power supply. When a droop occurs, the reduction in voltage will slow down the noisy clock and the phases on the noisy clock will fall behind the phases of the reference clock. Steamroller uses a DLL-based 40-phase detection circuit, which is configurable to detect when the voltage falls below a pre-defined threshold. The droop detection is very low latency, and takes between 1-3 clock cycles to trigger. Based on experiments with real workloads, the architects determined that the best threshold is 2.5% of the supply voltage. A smaller threshold (e.g., 1.25%) will trigger too many changes in clock frequency, but larger thresholds save less power.
Once the droop is detected and the magnitude is determined, a clock stretching circuit increases the clock period (i.e., decreasing frequency) to compensate. Normally, the PLL sets the clock period; for Steamroller’s adaptive clocking, the PLL output is divided into 40 phases using a DLL and extra phases are added, stretching out the clock period slightly. Once a droop is detected, the clock period can be adjusted in as little as two cycles. The AMD team ran a number of experiments and determined that for a 2.5% droop threshold, stretching the clock period by 7% struck the right balance between maintaining high frequencies and improving V min.
Adaptive Clocking Results
The improvements in V min from adaptive clocking are greatest when the Steamroller core is operating at high frequency (up to 9% lower V min at 4GHz). High frequency circuits are much more sensitive to power supply noise and stand to benefit more as a result. Figure 2 shows the benefits of the adaptive clocking system on power consumption for a desktop productization of Steamroller, with savings as high as 19%.
The cost of implementing adaptive clocking is quite low, especially given the significant power benefits. The area overhead for adaptive clocking is minimal; the droop detection and clock stretching circuits are approximately 0.2mm2, whereas a Streamroller module (i.e., two cores and a 2MB L2 cache) is 29.5mm2. The additional clock stretching circuitry does increase jitter by 0.5-1%, but only when the clock stretching is engaged and the |
T = h+t.
Next, let r be the actual probability of obtaining heads in a single toss of the coin. This is the property of the coin which is being investigated. Using Bayes' theorem, the posterior probability density of r conditional on h and t is expressed as follows:
f ( r | H = h, T = t ) = Pr ( H = h | r, N = h + t ) g ( r ) ∫ 0 1 Pr ( H = h | p, N = h + t ) g ( p ) d p. {\displaystyle f(r|H=h,T=t)={\frac {\Pr(H=h|r,N=h+t)\,g(r)}{\int _{0}^{1}\Pr(H=h|p,N=h+t)\,g(p)\,dp}}.\!}
where g(r) represents the prior probability density distribution of r, which lies in the range 0 to 1.
The prior probability density distribution summarizes what is known about the distribution of r in the absence of any observation. We will assume that the prior distribution of r is uniform over the interval [0, 1]. That is, g(r) = 1. (In practice, it would be more appropriate to assume a prior distribution which is much more heavily weighted in the region around 0.5, to reflect our experience with real coins.)
The probability of obtaining h heads in N tosses of a coin with a probability of heads equal to r is given by the binomial distribution:
Pr ( H = h | r, N = h + t ) = ( N h ) r h ( 1 − r ) t. {\displaystyle \Pr(H=h|r,N=h+t)={N \choose h}\,r^{h}\,(1-r)^{t}.\!}
Substituting this into the previous formula:
f ( r | H = h, T = t ) = ( N h ) r h ( 1 − r ) t ∫ 0 1 ( N h ) p h ( 1 − p ) t d p = r h ( 1 − r ) t ∫ 0 1 p h ( 1 − p ) t d p. {\displaystyle f(r|H=h,T=t)={\frac {{N \choose h}\,r^{h}\,(1-r)^{t}}{\int _{0}^{1}{N \choose h}\,p^{h}\,(1-p)^{t}\,dp}}={\frac {r^{h}\,(1-r)^{t}}{\int _{0}^{1}p^{h}\,(1-p)^{t}\,dp}}.}
This is in fact a beta distribution (the conjugate prior for the binomial distribution), whose denominator can be expressed in terms of the beta function:
f ( r | H = h, T = t ) = 1 B ( h + 1, t + 1 ) r h ( 1 − r ) t. {\displaystyle f(r|H=h,T=t)={\frac {1}{\mathrm {B} (h+1,t+1)}}\;r^{h}\,(1-r)^{t}.\!}
As a uniform prior distribution has been assumed, and because h and t are integers, this can also be written in terms of factorials:
f ( r | H = h, T = t ) = ( h + t + 1 )! h! t! r h ( 1 − r ) t. {\displaystyle f(r|H=h,T=t)={\frac {(h+t+1)!}{h!\,\,t!}}\;r^{h}\,(1-r)^{t}.\!}
Example [ edit ]
For example, let N = 10, h = 7, i.e. the coin is tossed 10 times and 7 heads are obtained:
f ( r | H = 7, T = 3 ) = ( 10 + 1 )! 7! 3! r 7 ( 1 − r ) 3 = 1320 r 7 ( 1 − r ) 3 {\displaystyle f(r|H=7,T=3)={\frac {(10+1)!}{7!\,\,3!}}\;r^{7}\,(1-r)^{3}=1320\,r^{7}\,(1-r)^{3}\!}
The graph on the right shows the probability density function of r given that 7 heads were obtained in 10 tosses. (Note: r is the probability of obtaining heads when tossing the same coin once.)
f(r | H = 7,T = 3) = 1320 r7 (1 - r)3 with r ranging from 0 to 1. Plot of the probability density= 7,= 3) = 1320(1 -withranging from 0 to 1.
The probability for an unbiased coin (defined for this purpose as one whose probability of coming down heads is somewhere between 45% and 55%)
Pr ( 0.45 < r < 0.55 ) = ∫ 0.45 0.55 f ( p | H = 7, T = 3 ) d p ≈ 13 % {\displaystyle \Pr(0.45<r<0.55)=\int _{0.45}^{0.55}f(p|H=7,T=3)\,dp\approx 13\%\!}
is small when compared with the alternative hypothesis (a biased coin). However, it is not small enough to cause us to believe that the coin has a significant bias. Notice that this probability is slightly higher than our presupposition of the probability that the coin was fair corresponding to the uniform prior distribution, which was 10%. Using a prior distribution that reflects our prior knowledge of what a coin is and how it acts, the posterior distribution would not favor the hypothesis of bias. However the number of trials in this example (10 tosses) is very small, and with more trials the choice of prior distribution would be somewhat less relevant.)
Note that, with the uniform prior, the posterior probability distribution f(r | H = 7,T = 3) achieves its peak at r = h / (h + t) = 0.7; this value is called the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimate of r. Also with the uniform prior, the expected value of r under the posterior distribution is
E [ r ] = ∫ 0 1 r ⋅ f ( r | H = 7, T = 3 ) d r = h + 1 h + t + 2 = 2 3. {\displaystyle \operatorname {E} [r]=\int _{0}^{1}r\cdot f(r|H=7,T=3)\,\mathrm {d} r={\frac {h+1}{h+t+2}}={\frac {2}{3}}\,.}
Estimator of true probability [ edit ]
The best estimator for the actual value r {\displaystyle r\,\!} p = h h + t {\displaystyle p\,\!={\frac {h}{h+t}}} This estimator has a margin of error (E) where | p − r | < E {\displaystyle |p-r|<E} at a particular confidence level.
Using this approach, to decide the number of times the coin should be tossed, two parameters are required:
The confidence level which is denoted by confidence interval (Z) The maximum (acceptable) error (E)
The confidence level is denoted by Z and is given by the Z-value of a standard normal distribution. This value can be read off a standard score statistics table for the normal distribution. Some examples are:
Z value Confidence level Comment 0.6745 gives 50.000% level of confidence Half 1.0000 gives 68.269% level of confidence One std dev 1.6449 gives 90.000% level of confidence "One nine" 1.9599 gives 95.000% level of confidence 95 percent 2.0000 gives 95.450% level of confidence Two std dev 2.5759 gives 99.000% level of confidence "Two nines" 3.0000 gives 99.730% level of confidence Three std dev 3.2905 gives 99.900% level of confidence "Three nines" 3.8906 gives 99.990% level of confidence "Four nines" 4.0000 gives 99.993% level of confidence Four std dev 4.4172 gives 99.999% level of confidence "Five nines"
The maximum error (E) is defined by | p − r | < E {\displaystyle |p-r|<E} p {\displaystyle p\,\!} estimated probability of obtaining heads. Note: r {\displaystyle r} r {\displaystyle r\,\!}
of obtaining heads. Note: In statistics, the estimate of a proportion of a sample (denoted by p) has a standard error (standard deviation of error) given by:
s p = p ( 1 − p ) n {\displaystyle s_{p}={\sqrt {\frac {p\,(1-p)}{n}}}}
where n is the number of trials (which was denoted by N in the previous section).
This standard error s p {\displaystyle s_{p}} function of p has a maximum at p = ( 1 − p ) = 0.5 {\displaystyle p=(1-p)=0.5}. Further, in the case of a coin being tossed, it is likely that p will be not far from 0.5, so it is reasonable to take p=0.5 in the following:
s p {\displaystyle s_{p}\,\!} = p ( 1 − p ) n ≤ 0.5 × 0.5 n = 1 2 n {\displaystyle ={\sqrt {\frac {p\,(1-p)}{n}}}\leq {\sqrt {\frac {0.5\times 0.5}{n}}}={\frac {1}{2\,{\sqrt {n}}}}}
And hence the value of maximum error (E) is given by
E = Z s p = Z 2 n {\displaystyle E=Z\,s_{p}={\frac {Z}{2\,{\sqrt {n}}}}}
Solving for the required number of coin tosses, n,
n = Z 2 4 E 2 {\displaystyle n={\frac {Z^{2}}{4\,E^{2}}}\!}
Examples [ edit ]
1. If a maximum error of 0.01 is desired, how many times should the coin be tossed?
n = Z 2 4 E 2 = Z 2 4 × 0.01 2 = 2500 Z 2 {\displaystyle n={\frac {Z^{2}}{4\,E^{2}}}={\frac {Z^{2}}{4\times 0.01^{2}}}=2500\ Z^{2}}
n = 2500 {\displaystyle n=2500\,} n = 10000 {\displaystyle n=10000\,} n = 27225 {\displaystyle n=27225\,}
2. If the coin is tossed 10000 times, what is the maximum error of the estimator p {\displaystyle p\,\!} on the value of r {\displaystyle r\,\!} (the actual probability of obtaining heads in a coin toss)?
E = Z 2 n {\displaystyle E={\frac {Z}{2\,{\sqrt {n}}}}} E = Z 2 10000 = Z 200 {\displaystyle E={\frac {Z}{2\,{\sqrt {10000}}}}={\frac {Z}{200}}} E = 0.0050 {\displaystyle E=0.0050\,} E = 0.0100 {\displaystyle E=0.0100\,} E = 0.0165 {\displaystyle E=0.0165\,}
3. The coin is tossed 12000 times with a result of 5961 heads (and 6039 tails). What interval does the value of r {\displaystyle r\,\!} (the true probability of obtaining heads) lie within if a confidence level of 99.999% is desired?
p = h h + t = 5961 12000 = 0.4968 {\displaystyle p={\frac {h}{h+t}}\,={\frac {5961}{12000}}\,=0.4968}
Now find the value of Z corresponding to 99.999% level of confidence.
Z = 4.4172 {\displaystyle Z=4.4172\,\!}
Now calculate E
E = Z 2 n = 4.4172 2 12000 = 0.0202 {\displaystyle E={\frac {Z}{2\,{\sqrt {n}}}}\,={\frac {4.4172}{2\,{\sqrt {12000}}}}\,=0.0202}
The interval which contains r is thus:
p − E < r < p + E {\displaystyle p-E<r<p+E\,\!}
0.4766 < r < 0.5170 {\displaystyle 0.4766<r<0.5170\,\!}
Hence, 99.999% of the time, the interval above would contain r {\displaystyle r\,\!} which is the true value of obtaining heads in a single toss.
Other approaches [ edit ]
Other approaches to the question of checking whether a coin is fair are available using decision theory, whose application would require the formulation of a loss function or utility function which describes the consequences of making a given decision. An approach that avoids requiring either a loss function or a prior probability (as in the Bayesian approach) is that of "acceptance sampling".[2]
Other applications [ edit ]
The above mathematical analysis for determining if a coin is fair can also be applied to other uses. For example:
Determining the proportion of defective items for a product subjected to a particular (but well defined) condition. Sometimes a product can be very difficult or expensive to produce. Furthermore, if testing such products will result in their destruction, a minimum number of items should be tested. Using a similar analysis, the probability density function of the product defect rate can be found.
Two party polling. If a small random sample poll is taken where there are only two mutually exclusive choices, then this is similar to tossing a single coin multiple times using a possibly biased coin. A similar analysis can therefore be applied to determine the confidence to be ascribed to the actual ratio of votes cast. (Note that if people are allowed to abstain then the analysis must take account of that, and the coin-flip analogy doesn't quite hold.)
Determining the sex ratio in a large group of an animal species. Provided that a small random sample (i.e. small in comparison with the total population) is taken when performing the random sampling of the population, the analysis is similar to determining the probability of obtaining heads in a coin toss.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
^ Gelman, Andrew; Deborah Nolan (2002). "Teacher's Corner: You Can Load a Die, But You Can't Bias a Coin". American Statistician. 56 (4): 308–311. doi:10.1198/000313002605. However, if the coin is caught rather than allowed to bounce or spin, it is difficult to bias a coin flip's outcome. See ^ Theoretical Statistics (Example 11.7), Chapman & Hall. ISBN 0-412-12420-3 Cox, D.R., Hinkley, D.V. (1974)(Example 11.7), Chapman & Hall.Imagine you run a team, and somehow this past off-season, you had your pick of any goalie you wanted.
The reasons don't matter; it's a hypothetical. Maybe it's some sort of expansion draft, maybe you have great assets to trade, or maybe they've all hit free agency at once for some reason. Forget about their contracts and their age, and just think about who you'd most want to have for the coming season.
Would your top five have looked like this: 1) Jonas Hiller, 2) Tuukka Rask, 3) Niklas Backstrom, 4) Marc-Andre Fleury, 5) Ilya Bryzgalov?
Would you have ranked Steve Mason ahead of Tim Thomas? Brian Elliott ahead of Carey Price? Ondrej Pavelec ahead of Pekka Rinne? I don't think I would've.
The Big Save
Many people will tell you that the number of saves a goalie doesn't matter; the key question is whether he can make the big timely save and bail his team out when they really need him to.
An agent named Jay Grossman seems to subscribe to that theory. On Monday, he said that most of what you need to know about a goalie is his save percentage on close-range shots in high-pressure situations.
So I did what I do in these situations: I pulled the data to see whether there was any truth to this.
For starters, I needed some definitions. What's a close-range shot? What's a high-pressure situation? For my first pass, I defined things as follows:
Close-range shot: anything inside 25 feet
High-pressure situation: overtime or last ten minutes of the third period, in a tie game or with a one-goal lead
I pulled four years' numbers, from the 2009-10 season through the 2012-13 season. The rankings I referred to above are for the four-year total of save percentage on close-range clutch shots, using these definitions.
Next, I wanted to see if my definitions had a big impact on the results. I looked at saying a shot was close-range only if it was within 20 feet, or at saying high-pressure situations included plays where the goalie's team was down by a goal.
In each case, the resulting top five was pretty different from the general consensus. Regardless of which definition I used, Bryzgalov was the only goalie in our Big Save top five to be a Vezina finalist in this timespan; Rask was the only goalie with a top-10 cap hit to crack our Big Save leaderboard.
So if we're going to take Grossman at face value, it would seem we have to think he'd pick Bryzgalov ahead of Henrik Lundqvist.
A rudimentary assessment
When numbers give a surprising result, that doesn't mean they're wrong. It does, however, mean that we'll need some compelling proof that the numbers are worth paying attention to. Can we really tell which goalies are most likely to make The Big Save?
I'll take a little bit of a stat-guy look in a minute, but I think just skimming the list makes the answer pretty clear. For example...
Fleury made 74 out of 75 clutch saves and 27 out of 28 close-range clutch saves in 2011-12. Anyone who placed their bets on the basis of that clutch performance was likely surprised and disappointed when he gave up 26 goals in six playoff games -- a 83.4 percent save percentage and 4.63 goals against average.
James Reimer's 94.2 percent clutch save percentage is among the very highest four-year totals, but he didn't make the clutch saves in last year's epic game seven meltdown. Three-time Stanley Cup winner Martin Brodeur was second-lowest in both clutch and close-range clutch save percentage (among goalies with at least 2000 shots faced).
There are a lot of results that look fishy, but we really ought to take a comprehensive look before we pass judgment. We'll look at whether close-range clutch save percentage over the first two years of our timespan does us any good when it comes to predicting how they'll do in the next two years:
If this stat were a good predictor of future performance, we'd see the dots falling on a diagonal line. Players who were bad in the first two years would be bad in the next two and fall in the bottom-left part of the plot; players who were good in the first two would be good in the next two and fall in the top-right.
Instead, we see a big blob; knowing a goalie's save percentage on close-range clutch shots in the first two years is essentially worthless as a predictor of how they'll do in the next two. Devan Dubnyk and Reimer were as far apart as you can get in the first two years and were separated by less than a single save over the next two.
I think we have to conclude that this stat isn't really of any use at all.
The post-mortem
I didn't bring this up just to tear down some random agent's misconception. The reason I thought this was worth writing about is that it relates to a couple of concepts that have been recurring themes with this blog.
1) Demand proof. Lots of things sound good on paper, but our intuition just isn't that great about these things. For any approach you might consider using in your evaluations -- including the ones you're long-accustomed to -- you should expect there to be evidence that it's a useful predictor of future outcomes.
2) Don't overlook random chance. Some people hate thinking about sports in these terms. But we all know that a guy who makes 50 percent of his free throws doesn't make exactly 50 percent in any given game. He'll make more some nights and fewer in others; the long-run average will be 50 percent, but over the short term there will be all kinds of unpredictable hot and cold streaks.
Some goalies might be more clutch than others. But in a world where the difference between an elite goalie and an average one is a few saves per thousand shots, there's no way we're going to tell the difference over the ~40-60 close-range clutch shots the average starter faces in a year.
Which brings us to Jay's other comment on the subject (and a third recurring theme of this blog):
New Year's Resolution for all advanced stats guys: figure out not only what the numbers can explain, but what they can't — Jay Grossman (@Jay_Grossman) December 23, 2013
Obviously there's a range of people in any population, but I'd argue that any stat guy worth his salt knows the weaknesses and limitations of his stats very very well. I don't understand why so many people assume the opposite to be true. Studying what the limitations are and finding ways to improve things is a big part of what we do.
After all, it wasn't a stat guy who declared that we should evaluate goalies primarily on save percentage on close-range shots in high-pressure situations.New leaks have lead to another round of rampant speculation about whether or not Microsoft will indeed end up restricting or outright eliminating used games on their console. The new evidence suggests that the "Durango," as it's currently called, will require an installation of a game to the hard disk and won't even have optical drive support. Also worrying is an "always connected" descriptor that some are interpreting as evidence for some sort of always on DRM. With Microsoft giving everyone a firm "no comment," we're left to speculate that this could be the first console to actually do away with used games, as Sony has stated the PS4 will continue to play them.
I've examined the potential ramifications of that in brief, and Jason Evangelho has talked about the precedent for such a thing happening. On my last article on the topic, I received a rather interesting comment from a Rygar9 taking an opposition view, something you don't see often when bringing up this topic. He's no industry expert from what I can tell, but the points he brings up I believe are worth discussing. He views a move by Microsoft to kill used games as a bold step that could indeed ensure their victory in the next console generation.
The entirety of his comment is below, and I'll discuss it after:
"I’m going to have to disagree with you Paul, you’re falling into a common trap. Your assertion is that “If Microsoft blocks used games, then people who buy used games won’t buy a Microsoft console, and Microsoft will lose”. Which sounds true on the surface, but if you actually break down the issue, you’ll find that in such a scenario Microsoft wins. Big. First, remember that the sale of a console costs the manufacturer money. Second, recall that the manufacturer and Publisher does not profit from the sale of a used game. Basically, a person who only plays used games costs the manufacturer money for the console, and it’s never recovered, that person is not only not a revenue generator, he’s literally an expense. So what happens if Microsoft blocks used games? First, Microsoft doesn’t actually lose money. If the person who only or mostly plays used games doesn’t buy MS’s console, MS doesn’t take a loss on the sale. That event alone improves the profitability of the console. Second, those people go over to Sony. So instead of both MS and Sony taking a share of a population that causes them to lose money, Sony shoulders the entire burden alone. Sony is left trying to recover the losses from only a portion of their customers, while the other portion never ends up being a revenue generator. The more consoles Sony sells, the more money it loses. Selling 20 million consoles isn’t all that great when only 5 million of them are ever going to generate revenue for you. In contrast, if MS sells 5 million consoles, all 5 million of them will generate revenue and recover the loss of the sale. Third, Publishers will do to Sony what they do to the PC. Staggered releases and/or barebones releases. If the Publisher sees it can get revenue from 100% of the sales on the 720, and only a percentage on the PS4, they’ll very quickly make sure that the PS4 release is weeks behind the 720′s in order to “Encourage” people to buy it on the 720. Over a period of a few years, Sony will have massive problems as it shoulders the entire burden of used gamers who never generate revenue, and Publishers who see it as a “Freeloader” platform. People keep making the mistake of thinking that Microsoft’s making a mistake, when in truth, they’d be making a brilliant move that would end up killing Sony."
To sum up, his main idea is that by dumping all those gamers who primarily buy used games on Sony, Microsoft wins by having a more profitable console, even if they sell dramatically less units.
He's right to say that the specific action doesn't immediately cause Microsoft to lose money (overlooking for the moment theoretical loss of console sales due to consumer anger). Banning used games means that every game purchased on the system would indeed put money into Microsoft's pocket each and every time. That's opposed to the sale of a used game which benefits exactly no one financially but Gamestop, making pure profit on it, and the consumer, who gets a cheaper game.
But saying this, it's important to remember that used game sales often spur new game sales if a player gets into a series they hadn't played before, and then wants the new copy of the latest game when it's released. This also negates the idea that people who buy used games ONLY buy used games. I very much doubt that's the case for anyone other than a fractional percentage of the player base. All those people that bought a PS4 over an Xbox are now going to be purchasing new games for that system in addition to used ones.
I also take issue when he starts saying that Microsoft could sell 5 million consoles and Sony could sell 20 million, and Microsoft would still come out on top because their software sales are more profitable. I think this runs contrary to Microsoft's not-so-subtle goal to put an Xbox in every living room as a media center, not just a game console. They will not be satisfied if they sell 25% of the consoles of their competitors, even if they have better profit margins on software. They want the Xbox to be a permanent fixture in living rooms, and I don't know if they should upset their core userbase by eliminating used game sales and driving many of them over to Sony. As I said before, they simply don't have the exclusive games line-up to get people to stay, and if Sony racks up advantages like A) sticking with a free PSN while XBL still costs $60 a year and B) the ability of the PS4 to play used games while the Durango can't, that's going to be a huge feature disparity between the two.
I do think he raises an interesting point about developer and publisher support, however. If my math is right, developers and publishers benefit more from software sales than the console manufacturer, so it very well could be the case that Sony's PS4 could get second class treatment for continuing to support used games, the bane of many game makers' existence. I could in fact see Xbox getting preferential treatment because they know that copies sold on the system will directly benefit them, while used copies on the PS4 will not. It would be a gamble to start treating Sony poorly, but the precedent is already there with delayed DLC releases and such. This rift could elevate that to a new level.
It's not about whether or not banning used games is "right or wrong" from a consumer well-being perspective. Gamers will undoubtedly lose if used game sales are eliminated without a subsequent price drop on new games. Rather, it's a matter of if this is a long-term strategy that could work in Microsoft's benefit. I'm deeply skeptical that it would, but it's certainly interesting to look at both sides of it. I'll be curious to hear your own thoughts in the comments.
Follow me on Twitter here and subscribe to my Forbes blog here.(Portland, OR, June 21, 2011)—This morning, Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit on behalf of Alec Esquivel, a state employee who was denied insurance coverage for medically necessary surgery because he is transgender.
"Alec Esquivel was denied coverage for a medically necessary procedure specifically because he is transgender. This type of discrimination is unlawful and risks the health of hardworking, productive citizens of Oregon," said Dru Levasseur, Transgender Rights Attorney at Lambda Legal. "By not covering this procedure, the state is refusing to provide him with the same health care coverage as his co-workers."
Alec Esquivel is a 41-year-old law school graduate who is clerking for the Oregon Court of Appeals. Assigned female sex at birth, he was diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder (GID) in 2001 and began to take steps to have his body match his male gender identity. In 2010, as part of his transition-related health plan, Esquivel's doctor recommended that he undergo a hysterectomy as part of his GID treatment and because he was at heightened risk for uterine and ovarian cancer. Esquivel's doctor then submitted a request for insurance coverage. On June 21, 2010, Esquivel was denied coverage based on the plan's categorical exclusion of transition-related health care. This morning, Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit against the state of Oregon and the Public Employees' Benefit Board arguing that Oregon's antidiscrimination law prohibits an employer from denying insurance coverage on the basis of gender identity.
"Whether your insurance will cover a medically necessary procedure should not depend on who you are," said Jennifer Middleton, attorney for Middleton & Lee, PC. "The Oregon legislature outlawed this kind of discrimination in 2007 and the State has no place continuing to practice it."
Gender Identity Disorder is a serious medical condition recognized by the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the National Association of Social Workers. GID treatment varies by individual, but can involve a combination of hormone therapy, sex reassignment surgery and Real Life Experience (living for a period of time in accordance with your gender identity). The AMA and other the organizations above have called for an end to discriminatory exclusions of medical care in public and private health insurance policies for people with GID.
"My doctor has determined that this procedure is necessary for me," said Alec Esquivel. "Other people who work here and who need this very same procedure get the coverage they need, why shouldn't I?"
Read more about the case, Esquivel v. Oregon.
Dru Levasseur, Transgender Rights Staff Attorney, and Tara Borelli, both with Lambda Legal, are seeking admission pro hac vice to participate in the case along with Oregon attorneys Stefan Johnson (also with Lambda Legal) and Jennifer Middleton of Middleton & Lee PC, based in Eugene, Oregon.
###CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s efforts to roll back coal and climate-change regulations aren’t discouraging a utility from making a $3.5 billion investment in wind energy, the bulk of which will build dozens of new wind turbines in the top coal-producing state.
Rocky Mountain Power is ready to present its detailed wind plan to regulators in Wyoming, Utah and Idaho, utility officials announced Thursday.
The plan includes building new power lines and putting longer blades on existing wind turbines so they can generate electricity in slower winds. But the biggest part will be building new turbines in Wyoming, the top coal-producing state.
Rocky Mountain Power, which serves more than 1 million customers in the three states, plans to seek proposals for new wind turbine projects in Wyoming in the months ahead.
“These investments will provide significant long-term benefits to our customers and bring substantial economic benefits to rural communities where the facilities will be located,” Rocky Mountain Power Chief Executive Officer Cindy Crane said.
The new Wyoming turbines will generate up to 1,270 megawatts. Calculating how many homes that will serve is challenging because the wind doesn’t blow all the time but a rough estimate is 190,000, said Rocky Mountain Power spokesman David Eskelsen.
The Salt Lake City-based utility, a subsidiary of Portland, Oregon-based PacifiCorp, plans to get to work quickly before a federal tax credit for wind power begins to ramp down in 2020.
Wyoming, especially, has welcomed Trump’s recent moves to lift a moratorium on federal coal leasing, reconsider climate-change regulations and back off an international climate-change accord. The state supplies about 40 percent of the nation’s coal.
The U.S. coal industry in 2016 slogged through its worst year since the 1970s as utilities continued to prefer cheaper, cleaner-burning natural gas to generate electricity. Mines in the Powder River Basin of northern Wyoming and southern Montana laid off hundreds of workers.
Trump, who won Wyoming by a more than 46-point margin, has reinvigorated the hopes of many in the state. But long-term economic trends factor into Rocky Mountain Power’s planning much more than the policies of any given administration, according to Eskelsen.
“For a long time, we have determined in that long-range planning process that the most cost-effective resources for customers are wind and natural gas,” Eskelsen said.
Wyoming already is home to the biggest wind farm in the works in the U.S., the $5 billion Chokecherry and Sierra Madre project under development by Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz. The up to 3,000-megawatt project will have as many as 1,000 turbines.
Road work began last year and turbines will go up as soon as next year.
The Anschutz project will export wind energy to the Southwest to help California meet is renewable energy requirements. Rocky Mountain Power’s wind power will help serve PacifiCorp’s six-state region, which includes the Pacific Northwest and northern California.
___
Follow Mead Gruver at https://twitter.com/meadgruverPaul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, May 25, 2009 Monday, May 25, 2009
Our speculation that the “secret billionaire club” meeting at the beginning of the month was primarily focused around population control, a cause célèbre embraced by David Rockefeller, Ted Turner and Bill Gates, has been confirmed by a London Times report.
Details of the secret confab were thin on the ground in the initial reports concerning the meeting of rich “philanthropists” like Rockefeller, Turner, Gates, Warren Buffet and George Soros, which took place in New York on May 5 at the home of Sir Paul Nurse, a British Nobel prize biochemist and president of the private Rockefeller University.
An ABC News report about the confab offered little more than fawning idolatry towards the attendees, and was little more than a sophistic exercise in ass kissing and creeping adulation for people like Rockefeller and Turner, who were portrayed as philanthropic saviors of the planet.
We questioned this premise by pointing out that Turner has publicly advocated shocking population reduction programs that would cull the human population by a staggering 95%. He has also called for a Communist-style one child policy to be mandated by governments in the west. In China, the one child policy is enforced by means of taxes on each subsequent child, allied to an intimidation program which includes secret police and “family planning” authorities kidnapping pregnant women from their homes and performing forced abortions.
Of course, Turner completely fails to follow his own rules on how everyone else should live their lives, having five children and owning no less than 2 million acres of land.
In the third world, Turner has contributed literally billions to population reduction, namely through United Nations programs, leading the way for the likes of Bill & Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet(Gates’ father has long been a leading board member of Planned Parenthood and a top eugenicist).
Our initial suspicions that the secret meeting was primarily concerned with population control has been confirmed by a London Times report, which states, “SOME of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population and speed up improvements in health and education. The philanthropists who attended a summit convened on the initiative of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.”
Of course, slowing the growth of the world’s population while also improving its health are two irreconcilable concepts to the elite. Stabilizing world population is a natural byproduct of higher living standards, as has been proven by the stabilization of the white population in the west. Elitists like David Rockefeller have no interest in “slowing the growth of world population” by natural methods, their agenda is firmly rooted in the pseudo-science of eugenics, which is all about “culling” the surplus population via draconian methods.
David Rockefeller’s legacy is not derived from a well-meaning “philanthropic” urge to improve health in third world countries, it is born out of a Malthusian drive to eliminate the poor and those deemed racially inferior, using the justification of social Darwinism.
[efoods]
As is documented in Alex Jones’ seminal film Endgame |
I love adjectives. Most writers probably do, too. They’re how we build our fictional worlds and enliven the pages. It’s easy to get carried away. When I’m revising, I take a hard look at adjectives to ensure that they’re strong, that they evoke the right image, and that they couldn’t be replaced by something else, like a metaphor.
I also look for and ruthlessly cut modifiers, like the word very. Either the modifier’s not necessary, or the adjective needs to change. Very big becomes huge.
6. Cleaning up Dialogue
I’m not a dialogue expert by any means. That said, we’ve all experienced dialogue that needs to be polished. Common problems include:
Too many or too few attribution tags. We need to know who’s talking but don’t need a reminder every single time. Give the reader some credit, here!
Name-dropping. In real life (in my culture, at least), we don’t often use a person’s name during conversation. Eye contact and other visual cues make this redundant. I try to ensure that my dialogue reflects that.
A similar problem is the over-use of character names in narration. If there’s only one character in a scene, we don’t need to have his or her name used instead of a pronoun.
7. Thought and Point of View
Here is a small point — probably a pet peeve for me — that bears mentioning. Good writing rarely ha a lot of italicized thought in it. When you have first person or tight third person POV, the reader sees the world through the lens of that point-of-view character. There’s no need to specify that certain things are thoughts. For example:
Bill looked up at the new customer. She’s pretty, he thought.
If we have a tight third person POV, we don’t need the italics or attribution. We’re already seeing the world through Bill’s eyes. So this is all we need:
Bill looked up at the new customer. She was pretty.
It conveys the same information, but leverages the tight POV.
How Do You Tighten Prose?
If you have your own system for trimming during revision or tightening prose, please leave a comment or two!
Click to Tweet this Article!
Click to Tweet 7 ways to tighten prose by @DanKoboldt: #1: Trim the backstory. http://bit.ly/1rb2ifd #writing #writetip Click to Tweet 7 ways to tighten prose by @DanKoboldt: #4: Fix description overload. http://bit.ly/1rb2ifd #writing #writetip Click to Tweet 7 ways to tighten prose by @DanKoboldt: #6: Clean up the dialogue. http://bit.ly/1rb2ifd #writing #writetip
Please share this article:Follow me and you'll never miss a post:Shortcuts Directory
This repository contains user-submitted shortcuts for Shortcuts for iOS.
All shortcuts are saved as.shortcut files and located in the shortcuts/ directory so that they are available without needing an iCloud link. Each shortcut includes a README with information about it. Older workflows are saved as.wflow files and are compatible with Shortcuts.
Downloading shortcuts
You don't need a GitHub account or be familiar with Git to download shortcuts.
If you're viewing the repository on GitHub, select the shortcut file you want and then tap Download.
. You can clone the repository using an app like Working Copy (one of my favorite iOS apps). This can be easily updated by pulling the latest changes at any time.
You can also download the entire repository as a ZIP file by tapping Clone or download and select Download ZIP.
Submitting a shortcut
See the Contributing guide for instructions on submitting a new shortcut (or updating an existing one). A GitHub account is required.Update at 3:20 p.m. — The U.S. Supreme Court has issued a stay in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling striking down Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage. Arlington will not be able to grant marriage licenses unless the Supreme Court either declines to take further action or considers and then upholds the ruling.
Update at 4:40 p.m. — Paul Ferguson has issued a statement: “I am disappointed with the Supreme Court’s decision but remain hopeful that the Fourth Circuit’s ruling will ultimately be upheld. Our office will be prepared to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples whenever that time comes.”
Earlier: Arlington officials are preparing to issue what could be the state’s first same sex marriage licenses tomorrow (Thursday).
Unless a stay is issued by the U.S. Supreme Court, Arlington Clerk of the Circuit Court Paul Ferguson says he will start taking applications and issuing licenses to same sex couples at 8:00 a.m.
The applications will be taken on the 6th floor of the Arlington County Courthouse (1425 N. Courthouse Road), but in light of the fact that cameras are not allowed inside the courthouse, Ferguson will also administer oaths outside.
“Since cameras are not allowed, I will administer oaths to those couples who want to be filmed/interviewed outside of the courthouse,” Ferguson told ARLnow.com today. “Also, there will be ministers and civil celebrants outside the courthouse ready to perform marriages for those who would like to get married immediately after receiving the license.”
Arlington County is expecting a large media presence for the event. From 7:30 to 9:00 a.m., the police department is planning to shut down N. Courthouse Road between 14th and 15th Streets to allow for television truck parking.
Arlington will not be joined tomorrow by Arlington’s neighbor Fairfax County, whose clerk, John T. Frey, told RestonNow.com that he would not issue same sex marriage licenses until the court case was “a done deal.” If no stay is ordered, Ferguson said he’s not sure how big of a crowd to expect in his office tomorrow.
“We have redeployed staff from other sections of the office and will do our best to serve people as promptly as possible,” he said. “It is hard to estimate how many couples might request licenses. We have an overflow room for people to wait that is comfortable. I am guessing it will be a festive atmosphere with couples visiting with other couples who are waiting.”
Despite the planning, there’s a chance it could all be for naught, at least for a while.
Following the ruling of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals last week that same sex marriages could begin first thing Thursday morning, state Attorney General Mark Herring requested a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court until it rules fully on the case to strike down the state’s constitutional amendment ban on same sex marriage.
“A stay is warranted,” Herring said in a press release, “in light of the negative impact on Virginia children, families, and businesses if the Supreme Court eventually rules against marriage equality and forces an unwinding of Virginians’ marriages, adoptions, inheritances, or workplace benefits.”
Chief Justice John Roberts has yet to issue a decision.
Arlington County Board Chairman Jay Fisette married his longtime partner, Bob Rosen, last fall, and told ARLnow.com from his office last week that even he was stunned with how quickly the momentum toward legal same sex marriages has grown.
“The pace of this evolution has been remarkable and rewarding,” Fisette said. “In my view, it’s just a matter of time. There’s now an inevitability around marriage equality, as there should be.”MF Doom.
Frustration has always been essential to the MF Doom experience. Born Daniel Dumile, Long Island–raised rapper created his comic-book alter ego in the wake of losses so harrowing as they verged on the cartoonish. To hear Ta-Nehisi Coates’s 2009 profile tell the origin story, it was 1993 when Dumile’s younger brother, Dingilizwe, was killed by a car as he tried to cross an expressway; a week later, the release for Black Bastards, the sophomore album from KMD, the group the Dumile brothers were members of, was halted by its record company over concerns about the album cover’s caricature of a lynching. Years of homelessness and exile followed before Dumile returned to rap, his face shielded in a metallic mask. Like the A-list Marvel supervillain whose name he appropriated, Doom, though disfigured by catastrophic defeat, had survived and was prepared to avenge himself upon the world.
Vengeance, for the most part, took the form of rapping wittily and well, making frequent lyrical references to nerd-culture staples of the ’80s and ’90s, producing his own instrumentals, and above all, generating vast amounts of material: Years before Gucci Mane flooded his local market with mixtapes there was Doom, a new Atlanta resident, uncorking torrents worth of albums, loosies, mixtapes, instrumental mixtapes, collaborative tapes with other rappers and producers, and more. Taken together, the output made him a legend on the underground circuit in an era when major-label rap was mired in a particularly leaden form of materialism. Obsessed with marginality and arcana, Doom’s fan base soon became a distinct branch of the geek- and indie-rap cultures that had spawned Doom’s music. A stubborn relic of an era less obsessed with money and more obsessed with lyrical brilliance, Doom was never going to cross over into the spotlight. Notoriety among an insular set of aficionados was more than enough, though of course when Coates, commissioned by The New Yorker, came calling on his fellow black nerd, he didn’t say no, and even allowed the journalist to peep at his rhyme books.
The artist’s production has slowed considerably since 2009, though. Between visa troubles that prevented him from returning to the U.S. after an overseas tour and the sheer exhaustion to which even the most prolific creators are prone, there hasn’t been as much time or energy for new work. In the past seven years, there’ve been two collaborative albums (with fellow underground rappers Jneiro Jarel and Bishop Nehru, respectively) and little else. So there was great rejoicing among the still-faithful fan base when Adult Swim announced in August that Doom would be partnering with the network to release a fresh Doom track every week for 15 weeks under the rubric of The Missing Notebook Rhymes. Speculation abounded as to whether the new tracks amounted to a new album. Optimists even dared to believe that each track would come from a different new album. A preposterous assumption, but in the case of Doom, an artist renowned for being unlikely, anything seemed possible.
Seven weeks in, the results are decidedly mixed. Even if one counts the material released as fresh, at least some of it is certainly not new. “Notebook 06,” this week’s release, is a barely remixed version of “Pause Tape” from 2013’s JJ DOOM joint album; “Notebook 05” has been swirling around online for years on compilations under the name of “No Refunds”; “Notebook 03” sounds suspiciously like an outtake from 2005’s DangerDoom joint album; the verse from “Notebook 02,” though now layered over a sweet Alchemist beat, has been extant since 2012; “Negus,” the original entry, is actually a Sean Price song featuring Doom included on Imperius Rex, the posthumous album from Price released this year. Things like this are, if nothing else, a useful reminder that frustration has always been as essential to the MF Doom fan experience as it has been to the artist itself. Doom’s passing off old material as new harks back to the infamous concerts where, mimicking the comic book Doom’s use of robot clones, he would hire impersonators to perform in his stead. It’s amusing to hear on “No Refunds” — sorry, “Notebook 05” — “I sell them bums a scrap verse that’s so-so, nice / You get what you pays for, raps for the low-low price”; as if to signal that Adult Swim, a cool company renowned for budgets that could barely purchase the contents of a broom closet, having offered the artist scrap-metal prices, were being fobbed off with slag in due course.
To be fair, it’s not all tired work: “True Lightyears,” featuring the similarly reclusive, silent, U.K.-based expatriate, and virtuoso lyricist Jay Electronica, goes hard over a high flute line; and “Notebook 04,” with lines about Trump, how “the forces of evil keep winning,” and announcement of Doom’s 25th anniversary (KMD’s first album dropped in 1991, 26 years ago), sounds both potent and recent. But even so, it’s hard for Doom loyalists to receive so little in return for their faith. Fortunately, mainstream hip-hop is in far better shape than 10 or 15 years ago, when Doom and the need for him was at its peak. References to animé abound in the work of countless younger rappers, Lil Uzi Vert most prominent among them; West Coast artists, Kendrick Lamar in particular, have resurrected the old-school priority of lyricism over materialism, proving that it’s still possible to sell out stadiums without selling out. Though the mystique of Doom endures, whether Doom himself remains necessary is, like the final eight weeks of The Missing Notebook Rhymes, an open question.Comcast and Time Warner Cable have just raised fees for renting a modem so high that it now makes sense to buy your own. Even if it's a headache installing it.
The cable companies just hiked the monthly rates they charge customers for leasing their modems -- a somewhat hidden charge that most people don't even think about.
The price hikes are significant: Time Warner Cable's fee is leaping from $5.99 to $8, and Comcast's fee is jumping from $8 to $10.
That's a surprise 25% to 33% price surge. In the case of Time Warner Cable, this is the second fee increase in just over a year. Some Comcast Xfinity customers weren't notified until mid-December that prices would be raised on Jan. 1.
Time Warner Cable noted that the fee pays for "guaranteed full support and maintenance." Comcast did not return calls for comment.
Why buying makes sense now
People typically rent a modem for three reasons: Self-installation is a confusing chore. You might buy a modem that's not compatible. And most importantly, they're expensive.
But the game has changed. Consider the yearly fees: Time Warner Cable's rental fee is now $96. Comcast's rental is now $120.
If you buy an Arris SB6121 modem, it'll pay for itself in less than a year. If you buy the faster Arris SBG6580 (modems don't have sexy or memorable names), it'll pay for itself in just over a year.
Be warned: Buying your own modem requires homework. Not all modems are compatible with Time Warner Cable and Comcast homes.
If you're a Time Warner Cable customer, you can look up whether a modem is compatible with its network on the company's website. Comcast customers can do the same on that company's website. You'll need to know a little about your current plan to figure it out.
And as Gizmodo noticed, be extra careful with Time Warner Cable. The company has a long, extensive list of dozens of approved devices that are older and therefore less expensive -- but only if you're renting. If you're buying, you can only pick from a handful of modems.
Comcast and Time Warner Cable are seeking federal approval for their proposed $45 billion merger.
Related: 17 gadget hits & flops from CES'Attractive' male birds that mate with many females aren't passing on the best genes to their offspring, according to new UCL research which found promiscuity in male birds leads to small, genetic faults in the species' genome.
Although minor, these genetic flaws may limit how well future generations can adapt to changing environments.
The study, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and funded by the European Research Council, shows for the first time the power of sexual selection - where some individuals are better at securing mates than others - in shaping broad patterns of genome evolution.
Study author, Professor Judith Mank, (UCL Genetics, Evolution & Environment), said: "We've found that promiscuous bird species that have to fight others for mating rights have a genome that evolves faster than bird species which are monogamous and pair for life. What's interesting is that this evolved genome includes mildly negative mutations. So a male may be attractive to a female and fight hard to mate with her but he doesn't deliver at the genetic level. As a result, his descendants will be less fit."
The researchers studied a 90 million year old group of birds called the Galloanserae which including the mallard duck, swan goose, wild turkey, helmeted guineafowl, Indian peafowl and common pheasant. The birds all share similar genomes but the way genes are expressed between males and females varies considerably across the group, as does their sexual selection.
A male may be attractive to a female and fight hard to mate with her but he doesn't deliver at the genetic level. As a result, his descendants will be less fit. Professor Judith Mank
The team analysed genetic material from the spleen and gonads of male and female birds and the information was used to assess the relationship between the features of sex-biased genes and the visual characteristics used by the birds when choosing mates.
First author of the study, Dr Peter Harrison (UCL Genetics, Evolution & Environment), said: "We chose a particular group of birds which differ in how they display male and female traits, and the extent to which males compete for mating. It's very difficult to tell a male and female goose or guineafowl apart by their visual characteristics but the differences are obvious with peafowl. Similarly, the birds vary in their sexual selection with a dominant peacock mating with up to 50 females, compared to the swan goose which pairs monogamously for life. This dramatic variation allowed us to critically test the connection between sex-biased gene expression and sexual selection."
Professor Mank, said: "We found a significant association between the turnover of male-biased genes and the extent to which birds use physical ornaments to attract mates. We predicted a link between gene expression evolution across species and the degree of sexual selection, but this is the first statistical evidence for it and shows how powerful sexual selection can be in leading to major changes in how a gene is expressed."
The authors are now working to understand how selection acts differently on males and females, and how this leads to differences in gene expression between the sexes.
Links
Image
Straight Ahead Peacock (Credit: MrClean1982, Source: Flickr)
Media contact
Bex Caygill
Tel: +44 (0)20 3108 3846
Email: r.caygill [at] ucl.ac.ukA prisoner imported machine guns from Germany and had them delivered by Parcelforce, a court heard.
Alexander Mullings, 23, allegedly masterminded the operation from his cell at Wandsworth Prison using a smuggled mobile phone.
The prosecution at the Old Bailey hinges on records from illicit mobile phones via numerous websites and apps including Instagram, Whatsapp, Youtube and even escort websites.
Phone records obtained by police are alleged to link Mullings to four co-defendants outside prison.
Prosecutors say they show he communicated with them around the time each weapon was despatched and delivered by Parcelforce.
Mullings who goes by the street name "Smokey", has admitted organising drug deals from his prison cell.
He also admits coordinating the packages, but claims he thought they contained imitation firearms.
Mullings, known as "Smokey", is standing trial at the Old Bailey with four other defendants on joint charges of transferring machine guns and ammunition with intent to endanger life.
Three Skorpion submachine guns, two of which contained 74 and 100 bullets, were intercepted by police between April and June last year.
But five other lethal firearms delivered via Parcelforce to north London have not been recovered.
He said he only did this because he was acting to help his 20-year-old ex-girlfriend, Emily Ciantar, also on trial, to pay off a £20,000 drugs debt owed to a violent Holloway "gang lord" referred to in court as "Mr X".
The Met Police Trident Gang Crime Command is awaiting the jury's verdict of this landmark four-week trial which exposes the potential for serious and organised criminals to carry out drugs and weapons smuggling from behind bars.
Seven of the eight parcels were delivered to Woodstock Road in Finsbury Park, to a house occupied by drug addict Joseph Macgillivray, 55, who has said he thought the packages contained pornography and that he was collecting them from a friend to save him from embarrassment.
One of the Skorpion sub machine guns was seized by police during a dramatic firearms raid in April in Mitcham, which the prosecution claims was delivered by Ciantar to Spencer Inglis, 24, who intended to use it to endanger life.
Inglis, who is in custody, has denied the allegations but declined to give evidence in court.
The recovered machine gun and ammo carried fingerprints belonging to Islington woman Sarah Anderson, 24, also standing trial.
Anderson is a known friend of Mullings, who took him in for six weeks when he was hiding from police for a previous conviction.
She told the court she could not explain how her fingerprints came to be on the gun and ammo and has denied all charges.
Delivering his closing speech, prosecuting barrister Benedict Kelleher presented a narrative of a team of trusted accomplices most of whom were linked to Mullings by sex or drugs who he used to run a lucrative business from his prison cell.
He said Mr X, whose real identity is known to police and barristers, was in fact another accomplice used by Mullings to deal drugs and smuggle weapons.
He said: "This was a conspiracy run by Mr Mullings to import machine guns and ammunition to be redistributed to those around London that wanted them.
"The one reason people want guns and ammunition is to be able to fire them at people and to endanger lives and that's why Mr Inglis took possession of that gun."
Ciantar also denies the charges.
The defendants' barristers will make their closing speeches on Tuesday and the jury is expected to reach a verdict later this week.
The trial comes as proposed new legislation by the Ministry of Justice and Home Office discussed in Parliament yesterday could see phone networks compelled to cut off mobile phones being used by prisoners.
Detective Inspector Matthew Husher, a lead Trident officer in the Mullings case, said it had become more difficult for prison staff to prevent mobile phones being brought into prisons with some models matching the shape and size of a car key fob.
Prison visitors are also known to conceal Sim cards in their mouth.
In 2013, 7,451 illicit mobile phones were seized from UK prisons.
Speaking about the proposed new legislation, prisons minister Andrew Selous said: "We will never tolerate the use of mobile phones in prisons and will continue to clamp down on their illicit use.
"Our range of tough security measures has already successfully seen the number of seizures increase, but this proposed new legislation will significantly increase our ability to tackle this problem.
"By ordering a phone to be cut off once it is identified, we will be able to reassure victims and prevent further criminal activity faster and wider than ever before."A decision by Australia’s High Court on February 3 2016 has cleared the way for the government to keep up its policy of indefinite detention of a small number of refugee children in abusive, unsafe circumstances in two lawless and highly corrupt states (Papua New Guinea and Nauru) as part of a strategy it says deters people smugglers. The ethical confusion in the Australian position is Orwellian.
There is no other way to interpret the policy than “child abuse as deterrence” for border protection. Important members of the medical and legal professions in Australia have spoken out against the policy because of direct knowledge of sexual abuse and other abusive practices in the centers. The critics include doctors who have treated the children, and some of whom face jail terms under quite recent Australian legislation criminalizing unauthorized public disclosure of conditions and events by medical staff who worked in the detention centers.
A state that cannot distinguish between its own border deterrence strategy (a political signaling problem) and the safety of children in its care is worthy of sustained international condemnation. The officials involved should reckon that one day they may face in the mid-term future criminal charges or civil law suits, if not in Australian courts then in other jurisdictions. They will certainly face the moral opprobrium of many Australians.
The government argues that the refugee families and individuals who arrived by boat must never be allowed to settle in Australia because that would give the green light to people smugglers and other would-be refugee boat arrivals. This is the same government whose secret service is alleged to have paid some of those people smugglers. This is the same government who paid the human-rights-abusing Cambodian government tens of millions of dollars to resettle refugees, only to see it fail to meet its commitments (in part because the refuges refused to take up the option).
Australia had reached an agreement with New Zealand to take some of the refugees in detention but then pulled out of it.
What is the ethical foundation for a policy by a government that cannot distinguish between failure to protect a small number of children in its care and the need to deter unapproved boat arrivals supported by people smugglers?
The failing of the Australian government, supported by the Opposition Labor Party, is all the more staggering because it has adopted a far more successful border protection policy that did stop the boats. This strategy involves the towing back to Indonesia waters of boats operated by the people smugglers (and paying them off). The Liberal-National coalition can be commended for this strategy. It worked. Its continued success depends in no way on keeping children currently in Australian care in abusive circumstances.
Australia’s ethical blindness to child abuse in the name of a higher interest seems to be an enduring national failing. There is a long-running Royal Commission into child sexual abuse of children in the care of all sorts of institutions, including religious groups. In living memory, Australian governments had a policy of forced separation of aboriginal children which was abusive in itself, but which in some case led to their sustained sexual abuse. Through 2015, the country went through a high profile campaign of candor and transparency about the impact on children (and other victims) of domestic violence. This recent history of public repentance for more than a half century of tolerance of child abuse should have been enough to shake the Turnbull government (and its Labor opposition) out of their ethical blindness toward the refugee children. But it has not.
In practical terms, it may be time for Prime Minister Turnbull and the country to ask its new Border Force and its Department of Immigration to come up with more humane and sustainable border deterrence options. It is the lack of creative (and ethical) thinking by these advisers that makes Australia and Turnbull look so brutish. The government can surely find a way to protect our borders without seeing children in its care subjected to repeat sexual abuse.According to Peter Wyse, the SVP of production and development at Warner Bros. Interactive, there are two optimized rendering options available to PS4 Pro developers. "Resolution mode" lets them lock games into a resolution beyond 1080p (I've found 1440p works well in PC gaming). "Quality mode," on the other hand, dynamically scales the resolution depending on how the game is performing. Wyse says you can expect resolutions that are up to 90 percent close to 4K in that mode.
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, a WB title, looked great on the PS4 Pro, even though it wasn't running completely in 4K. There was more detail in player outfits and the environment, and on the whole it looked as good as it does on a powerful PC. The same was true for Rise of the Tomb Raider: At one point, I could make out the plumage of a bird sitting on a cliffside. Most players likely won't notice if PS4 Pro titles don't reach 4K completely as long as the results they're seeing look better than the standard PS4.
To be clear, true 4K rendering is possible on the PS4 Pro, but it looks like we'll only see it on some titles. Bethesda has the Elder Scrolls Online running 4K, but that's a game that also benefits from an engine that scales across a wide variety of PC hardware, from integrated laptop graphics to powerful GPUs. And graphically it's not nearly as detailed as most AAA games. According to Matthew Firor, the game's director, it didn't take much effort to get it up and running on the PS4 Pro. Since he's mainly been developing for the PC, his team is used to creating games that scale with incremental hardware upgrades.
Here's the thing gamers will have to get used to: 4K doesn't matter as much as you think. The PS4 Pro's real power will be in running games higher than 1080p and together with high-dynamic-range lighting. (Sony is also making HDR available to all PS4 models via a firmware update.) The higher resolutions will make things look sharper and more detailed overall, while the HDR lighting will give bright scenes and shadows more depth. Both The Last of Us and Uncharted 4 looked strikingly different on the PS4 Pro, thanks to the graphical upgrades. (Naughty Dog might have downplayed how good the games looked on the previous hardware to make the new gear seem better.)
Compared to the Xbox One S, which is basically just upscaling existing games, the PS4 Pro is effectively a "4K gaming" machine. And unfortunately for Microsoft, it won't have a real 4K competitor until Project Scorpio debuts next year.TODAY: Boston will guarantee Young $13MM over the two years of the deal, Rosenthal tweets. That puts the contract right in line with recent paydays for strong free agent fourth outfielders. The pre-2014 David Murphy contract — two years and $12MM — represents the closest comp.
Young will earn $6.5MM in each year of the deal, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe adds on Twitter.
YESTERDAY, 5:43pm: Young will receive a two-year guarantee, Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com tweets.
12:29pm: The Red Sox and outfielder Chris Young are in agreement on a multi-year contract, pending a physical, reports Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (Twitter link). Young is represented by CAA Sports.
The 32-year-old Young has significantly rebuilt his stock after a dismal showing with the 2014 Mets in which he failed to live up to the club’s one-year, $7.25MM free-agent investment. Young latched on with the Yankees late that offseason and posted an impressive.282/.354/.521 batting line in 79 plate appearances. That showing led to a one-year, $2.5MM contract to return to the Bronx, and Young exceeded expectations on that deal by a fair margin.
In 2015, Young batted a healthy.252/.320/.453 in 356 trips to the plate spread across 140 contests for the Yankees. Young possesses decent pop against right-handed pitching but nearly all of his production comes against lefties at this point. Last season, he logged 175 plate appearances when holding the platoon advantage and batted an incredible.327/.397/.575 with seven home runs. As such, he figures to be held to primarily a platoon role in Boston, though he clearly can deliver a good amount of value at the plate in said capacity.
While Young was at one time to be considered a sound defender in center field, he’s more or less limited to the corners now. He can handle center in a pinch — the Yankees gave him 90 innings there in 2015 –but the Red Sox have multiple options on the roster that project as better defenders in center. In fact, all three of the Sox’ projected starters — Mookie Betts, Rusney Castillo and Jackie Bradley — are capable of handling center (with Bradley likely to see much of the center-field action next season). Bradley is the only left-handed hitter of the bunch, so Young could slot into the lineup in his place against southpaws, with Betts sliding over to center field on those days.
Young is essentially a dead-pull hitter, which should mesh just fine with the Green Monster at Fenway Park. His signing gives the Red Sox a fourth outfield option and also lessens the potential blow if the Sox are to indeed trade one of Bradley or Castillo, as some have speculated. (The notion of a Betts trade teeters on the brink of unfathomable at this point.) In the event of a trade, the Sox could then pursue free-agent (or trade) upgrades in the outfield or simply platoon Young with the left-handed-hiting Brock Holt, who has more than his fair share of outfield experience.
Boston’s 40-man roster is full at this juncture, so the Sox will have to make a move in order to accommodate Young if and when he passes his physical exam to make the deal official.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.Yet this story applies, if at all, to Greece and nobody else. Spain in particular had a budget surplus and low debt before the 2008 financial crisis; its fiscal record, one might say, was impeccable. And while it was hit hard by the collapse of its housing boom, it’s still a relatively low-debt country, and it’s hard to make the case that the underlying fiscal condition of Spain’s government is worse than that of, say, Britain ’s government.
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So why is Spain — along with Italy, which has higher debt but smaller deficits — in so much trouble? The answer is that these countries are facing something very much like a bank run, except that the run is on their governments rather than, or more accurately as well as, their financial institutions.
Here’s how such a run works: Investors, for whatever reason, fear that a country will default on its debt. This makes them unwilling to buy the country’s bonds, or at least not unless offered a very high interest rate. And the fact that the country must roll its debt over at high interest rates worsens its fiscal prospects, making default more likely, so that the crisis of confidence becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And as it does, it becomes a banking crisis as well, since a country’s banks are normally heavily invested in government debt.
Now, a country with its own currency, like Britain, can short-circuit this process: if necessary, the Bank of England can step in to buy government debt with newly created money. This might lead to inflation (although even that is doubtful when the economy is depressed), but inflation poses a much smaller threat to investors than outright default. Spain and Italy, however, have adopted the euro and no longer have their own currencies. As a result, the threat of a self-fulfilling crisis is very real — and interest rates on Spanish and Italian debt are more than twice the rate on British debt.
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Which brings us back to the impeccable E.C.B.
What Mr. Trichet and his colleagues should be doing right now is buying up Spanish and Italian debt — that is, doing what these countries would be doing for themselves if they still had their own currencies. In fact, the E.C.B. started doing just that a few weeks ago, and produced a temporary respite for those nations. But the E.C.B. immediately found itself under severe pressure from the moralizers, who hate the idea of letting countries off the hook for their alleged fiscal sins. And the perception that the moralizers will block any further rescue actions has set off a renewed market panic.
Adding to the problem is the E.C.B.’s obsession with maintaining its “impeccable” record on price stability: at a time when Europe desperately needs a strong recovery, and modest inflation would actually be helpful, the bank has instead been tightening money, trying to head off inflation risks that exist only in its imagination.
And now it’s all coming to a head. We’re not talking about a crisis that will unfold over a year or two; this thing could come apart in a matter of days. And if it does, the whole world will suffer.
So will the E.C.B. do what needs to be done — lend freely and cut rates? Or will European leaders remain too focused on punishing debtors to save themselves? The whole world is watching.Nicholson’s foodie fame didn’t happen overnight. While she spent many years in both the front and back of restaurants, those years “prepared me for life in general,” but weren’t essential to her roles now as a content curator, social media influencer and pasta artist.
What was essential? She’s been cooking pasta since her grandparents showed her how to make egg noodles at age 4. She dialed into her pasta passion while living in Torino, Italy, with her husband, Jonas, for a few years in the mid-2000s. But it wasn’t until her son, Bentley (now 9), stopped eating vegetables in preschool that she started experimenting with color. Using spinach or beets in the dough resulted in brightly hued pasta, and Bentley learned that a rainbow of foods could be delicious.
Nicholson eventually developed recipes for more than 25 different colored doughs, from bright blues dyed with butterfly pea flowers and spirulina (a blue-green algae superfood) to shades of orange and yellow using harissa and turmeric. A longtime lover of fashion and art, she experimented further: first, with simple patterns such as polka dots and plaids, and now, with elaborate creations like a replication of Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” in noodles and an entirely edible outfit made from sheets of pasta.
Photographs by Alex Crook (black and white bow-tie pasta) and Linda Miller Nicholson.
“I really love the confluence of art and fashion and food as a textile,” Nicholson says. “Bringing that all together, that’s what I’m most interested in: feeding people, letting people eat, but also making people think.” Her book will begin with simple pasta basics—she insists her pasta only looks complicated—but will also include some of her more whimsical creations like emoji-decorated ravioli.
It’s worth mentioning that her art is not only gorgeous but delicious. (For lunch, Nicholson made us cacio e pepe, a simple |
ita to wear SK's shirt once again
Not all the players from the old Property team made the move to SK, though, as Christian "Spitfire" Schiölde and Jerry "xelos" Råberg are nowhere to be seen, while Joel "emilio" Mako, who recently attended Copenhagen Games with the Lemondogs mix, has been brought in.
"It feels great to once again be back in SK Gaming," Faruk "pita" Pita told SK's website. "I had a great stay here last time and I'm looking forward to representing this organization and its sponsors at the best possible level. "With SK Gaming we get the support we need in order to be able to fully focus on our performance. I want to give a big shoutout to Alexander for bringing us in, and also the sponsors of SK Gaming who believe in us! We won't let you down. Thanks!"
SK's CS:GO division consists of the following players:
Mikail "eksem" Bill
Faruk "pita" Pita
Joel "emilio" Mako
Alexander "SKYTTEN" Carlsson
Fredrik "Roque" Honak
Related videos:ISTANBUL — The public park at the center of last month’s antigovernment protests in Turkey, sealed off for weeks to keep demonstrators at bay, quickly became the scene of more unrest after reopening on Monday, offering a volatile reminder of how divided the government and its opponents remain.
Dozens of people were injured and at least 32 were detained after scores of them streamed back to the site, Gezi Park, after the governor announced its reopening around noon, news reports said. When a large group of people led by protest organizers marched toward the park, it was confronted by the police, who dispersed the crowd with water cannons and tear gas, detaining those who refused to leave.
The park, in Taksim Square, became a focal point of outrage in June that initially stemmed from concerns over a government-backed plan to redevelop the site, the only green area in the district.
But the harsh police crackdown that soon followed gave rise to protests in more than 60 cities, mushrooming into a broad movement against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and what critics call his autocratic style after his more than a decade in office.Now that Britain has voted to leave the European Union, it faces the daunting task of renegotiating a long list of trade deals as a newly independent entity: all the deals the EU already has with other countries, the ones the EU is currently negotiating, and a deal with the EU itself after it leaves the bloc.
This work will require millions of hours of work by seasoned negotiators with experience of the complex, high-stakes art of top-level government deal-making.
Britain is a bit short on those.
“Even if everyone who has ever negotiated a trade agreement in came back to London, they wouldn’t have enough staff to do this,” said Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, a fellow at the Open Political Economy Network, a London-based think tank, and an specialist on trade diplomacy.
Mark Ian Price, the UK’s minister for trade and investment, said the British government has about 40 trade negotiators, compared with 550 employed by the EU, the Telegraph reported. Over its 43-year relationship with the EU, Britain has outsourced its talent to Brussels, which negotiates on behalf of all member states.
Britain will likely look to replace all of the EU’s 50-odd free-trade pacts, and some will be easier than others. Deals which the EU has with other countries could be tweaked and grandfathered in for the UK, says Lee-Makiyama. But the deal with the EU itself will be a costly slog, as Germany, France, and other key member states may try to punish the UK for leaving, as a deterrent to others that are wavering and as a way to bolster domestic industries that compete with British companies (think banks). Lee-Makiyama dubs the costs the “Schaudenfraude payment”.
Equally complicated is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, an epically contentious trade agreement between the EU and the US. Talks began in 2013 and were set to conclude in 2014, but have been pushed back to 2019 or 2020—and that was before Brexit. There’s also a major EU-Japan deal on the horizon, which Britain will now have to forge separately.
These deals require experienced negotiators and an advanced understanding of human psychology, as no one ever wants to give up anything in exchange for access to the other side’s market. Peter Mandelson, a former EU trade commissioner, told the Economist that free-trade agreements “do not come free, do not cover all trade and take ages to agree.”
Says Lee-Makiyama: “Negotiations, like anything else, have rituals and mechanics. Half of trade strategy is with whom do you negotiate and the order you negotiate in.” Experience, it seems, matters.
In forging its own deals, Britain won’t come to the negotiating table as part of a trading bloc representing 500 million people, but an embattled island of 64 million with few trade negotiators, a shaky economy, and a total void of government leadership.
That said, on thorny negotiations with countries like China, the UK may be able to steal a march on the lumbering EU machine. “A pro-trade UK government would be able to embark on such an endeavor much quicker than EU ever could,” says Lee-Makiyama. But only if the British quickly hire huge numbers of trade negotiators. Ironically enough, following a Brexit campaign that centered on reducing immigration and discounting experts’ opinions, the UK is looking to hire foreign experts to fill these crucial roles.Looking for news you can trust?
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In July, to great fanfare, the Obama administration finally killed the F-22 fighter jet—an underperforming, overpriced Cold War relic that has never flown a combat mission over Iraq or Afghanistan. But all the breathless talk of Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ “sweeping reforms” obscures an unpleasant truth. While the rare defeat of congressional porkmongers offers a ray of hope, real reform will require a far more ambitious, persistent effort. And standing in the way is the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian official—handpicked by Gates and coming directly from a lobbying job for the giant defense contractor Raytheon.
William J. Lynn III is, after Gates, the most powerful person in the Defense Department, responsible for managing the entire building, including weapons acquisitions. His opposition to reform is well documented. During the Clinton administration, he rose to be the Pentagon’s comptroller, in charge of a system that was completely unable to account for the hundreds of billions it spent every year. Faced with this mess, Lynn’s major contribution during his tenure was to block fiscal accountability rather than promote it. In public testimony to a federal accounting board, Lynn requested that the Pentagon be exempted from a crucial part of the Chief Financial Officers’ Act of 1990, a reform requiring all federal departments to comply with accepted financial integrity standards. The board granted his wish. Next, he advocated for a notorious bill-paying system referred to by critics as “pay and chase” under which the Pentagon hands a contractor a quick payout for bills and later tries to figure out what the money was for. Today’s financial chaos and lack of accountability at the DOD stem in part from Lynn’s handiwork.
After Lynn left the Pentagon, he accepted a plush position in 2003 as chief lobbyist for Raytheon, the DOD’s fifth-largest defense contractor. Lynn spent the next five years pushing Raytheon moneymakers such as computers for the F-22 and the electronics for the Navy’s preposterously overpriced Zumwalt destroyer.
When Barack Obama took office, he introduced sorely needed new ethics rules to close the revolving door between government agencies and the private sector, particularly lobbyists. But within the month, he had waived those rules—specifically to permit Lynn to become deputy secretary of defense. Now that the lobbyist emeritus is back at the Pentagon, it’s clear that he hasn’t lost his aversion to reform.
In May, Obama proudly signed the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009—Congress’ answer to the Pentagon’s chronic procurement problems. It would surely be something to be proud of if Congress and the executive branch had finally discovered their political spines, after decades of sabotaging reform attempts. But that’s not quite what happened. The bill was written by the bipartisan leadership of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, and not one lawmaker voted against it—in itself a suspicious sign that the legislation wouldn’t upset the cozy relationship between Congress and the defense industry.
As originally written by senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), the measure was already disturbingly cosmetic. But according to numerous conversations with insiders in Congress, as well as a letter (PDF) Lynn sent to Levin outlining objections to the bill, Lynn, as the DOD’s point person for negotiations with Congress, worked assiduously to further widen the legislation’s many loopholes.
For instance, the legislation creates a new, independent Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation to replace the Pentagon’s existing in-house cost shop. In theory, this cost czar’s estimates were supposed to end the DOD’s use of phony, understated price tags to gain approval for weapon programs in their early stages—the ubiquitous “camel’s nose under the tent” stratagem. In truth, the Senate draft of the bill did not force the Pentagon to actually use the cost czar’s estimates. But even this was too much for Lynn, who sought to eliminate the new position altogether. Ultimately he failed. But he did push successfully to kill a House provision mandating the use of the cost czar’s estimates in the annual Pentagon budget. The result: DOD’s civilian and military decision makers remain completely free to ignore the new czar, just as they have been ignoring previous independent cost estimates for decades.
The bill also appears to require the Pentagon to buy competing prototypes of each new weapon. This practice has consistently resulted in better weapons at a lower price on the few occasions that it has been tried. Once again, however, Levin and McCain’s tepid wording provided the Pentagon’s weapons’ managers with a get-out-of-jail free pass, permitting them to waive the burdensome competition requirement simply by invoking “critical”—but undefined—”national security objectives.” Dissatisfied with this gaping loophole, Lynn successfully sought another that left program managers free to put just a subsystem up for competition instead of the entire weapon. And just in case even that was too onerous, he wrangled more wriggle room: If managers declare that contracting for competitive subsystems might increase costs, they can ignore the competition requirement altogether.
And there’s more. As originally written in the Senate, the bill actually ended the practice, now rife, of permitting contractors to conduct the Pentagon’s official reviews of their own programs. You can guess what happened next: Lynn objected. At his request, the Senate Armed Services Committee changed the text to allow a defense contractor’s subsidiary to do the DOD review of the parent company’s programs. The final wording discarded this embarrassingly obvious charade. As signed, the act instructs the Pentagon to write any contractor self-review regulation it pleases, subject only to the vaguest legislative guidance.
In essence, through waivers and loopholes, the legislation was reduced to a pathetic request for the Defense Department to fix itself. This sorry history holds two lessons: First, the Pentagon’s leadership is as hostile as ever to meaningful reform; second, instead of independently overseeing the nation’s defenses as required by the Constitution, Congress remains the willing anti-reform ally of the Pentagon.
There are other troubling signs of business as usual in Obama’s DOD. When Gates very correctly canceled Lockheed’s F-22, he simultaneously endorsed going ahead full speed with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, built by the same company. The F-35 is already overweight, sluggish, behind schedule, and growing in much the same manner as the F-22. But the plan approved by Gates and Lynn commits to more than 500 of them before the first definitive flight test report lands on the secretary’s desk. The F-35 program exemplifies why the Pentagon cannot be trusted to reform itself. By endorsing a program so obviously laden with the same old problems, Gates is ensuring a rerun of the F-22 fiasco.
Each of the other services is nurturing similar time bombs. The Navy has the obscenely expensive Littoral Combat Ship. The Army is busy defending the Future Combat Systems program, a baroque “system of systems” edifice intended to gather so many expensive technologies under one budget roof that it would become “too big to fail.” The Marine Corps is falling on its sword to protect the overambitious, technically hopeless Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. As each of these programs approaches its inevitable implosion over the next several years, reform-minded Pentagon and congressional staffers will be pressing for restructuring or cancellation. The traditional coalition of military and industry big-spending advocates, in lockstep with the masters of pork on the Hill, will close ranks to preserve business as usual. William Lynn won’t be far away.
Pierre M. Sprey, together with USAF fighter pilots John Boyd and Everest Riccioni, brought to fruition the F-16; he also led the design team for the A-10 and helped implement the program. He is one of a very small number of Pentagon insiders who started the military reform movement in the late 1960s.
Winslow T. Wheeler is the Director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information in Washington. He worked on national security issues on Capitol Hill for 31 years for US senators from both political parties and for the Government Accountability Office.
Both Wheeler and Sprey are contributors to the new anthology America’s Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress.YG producer Kush revealed he is receiving threats from his ex-girlfriend Ai Haneda.
On September 22, Kush opened up about his past relationship and shared his struggles via SNS. The post is as follows:
"Hello. As some of you may know from rumors, Mari (Ai Haneda) and I were a couple. I met her through a friend and realized she's a very nice person, and I wanted to teach her about a normal relationship. I wanted to show her that in Korea, there are different people than the ones who just want to drink and have sex. Some may call me dirty or gross and point fingers, but at that moment, Mari wasn't an AV actress, but a nice, cute girl to me. What's important now is Vivian, who I am currently meeting. Mari and I have clearly ended our relationship, but she is becoming a hinderance to my peers, threatening to send photos to reporters, Vivian, etc. To me, Ai Haneda was Mari. I'm not sure how gross you may think I am, but this is the truth and I'm going to try my best. I really want to be set free from stalking and threats. If love is a sin then you may call me a sinner."Chicago, which offers a striking nighttime skyline, is the nation's top destination for business meetings, according to a new report. (Photo11: Rob Grabowski / USA TODAY Sports)
Chicago has grabbed the top spot among U.S. destinations for where companies and associations are planning meetings and events, according to Cvent, a technology company that connects event planners with tens of thousands of venues.
Looking at its booking data from July 2013 to June 2014, the company found that Chicago had inched up to first place compared with the previous year, overtaking Orlando, which now is second, followed by Las Vegas.
"It's pretty significant,'' says Eric Eden, Cvent's vice president of marketing, noting that it's usually difficult for other U.S. cities to top Orlando and Las Vegas, which have large convention centers and hotels that on their own have millions of feet of meeting space.
But Chicago has seen extensive investment in its hotels, including major renovations of the Hyatt Regency Chicago and The Langham, he says. The fact that Chicago and other Midwestern cities are more centrally located also is appealing because they may be more convenient and affordable for attendees traveling from various cities.
"Chicago in particular is very attractive to association meetings as they're trying to draw their membership from around the country,'' Eden says. "It's not just the hotel rates that might be more competitive than some other locations. But because it's centrally located, the airfare and total cost for people to attend are lower versus if people have to fly from one coast to the other.''
Such cost consciousness shows that while meeting and event activity has bounced back after dropping significantly during the recession, businesses and organizations still are guarding their pursestrings, sometimes holding meetings in hotels near airports or in the suburbs to curb expenses.
"Meetings are how business gets done, so organizations need to continue to have'' them, Eden says. "But there is a lot of focus on being financially responsible.'''
Chicago was not the only Midwestern, or more centrally located, city to grow more popular in the past year. Dallas moved up a spot to No. 7, and Nashville jumped four sports to 10th.
"A lot of destinations that aren't as large are investing in interesting ways and doing a lot of marketing to attract business,'' Eden says. "Nashville is a good example... It's attractive to a lot of planners because you have new properties, there's a brand new convention center experience and it isn't as expensive as other, larger destinations.''
Convention centers, hotels and visitor bureaus are racing to buff up properties, boost entertainment options and offer incentives to event planners because hosting a meeting or corporate event can be vital to a city's and hotel's coffers.
"For most hotels, meetings and events are about one-third of their business, and overall, meetings and events are a big economic driver for a lot of cities,'' Eden says.
Meetings can be more lucrative for hotels than individual travelers because of the tabs accrued from catering and providing audio visual assistance along with other services.
For cities, "it's not just the hotel revenue,'' Eden says. "It's the revenue that goes to restaurants, shopping and entertainment.''
Tourism generates nearly $5 billion a year for the Nashville-area economy, and 40% of that revenue is from meetings and events, says Heather Middleton, spokeswoman for the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corporation.
"It's an easy city to host a meeting,'' she says. "and it has a culture.''
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1oqVzwxMore federal money is coming for Canadian cultural productions and exporting them abroad, Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly says.
But Ottawa is looking for big global tech players like Netflix and Facebook to chip in, too, she said Thursday.
She detailed some of her plans during a lunchtime speech in Ottawa, including securing a $500-million pledge by Netflix to fund Canadian productions over five years and to build a permanent production presence in Canada. Joly touted it as the biggest investment in Canadian content in the last 30 years from a foreign company.
And she said Facebook is teaming up with Toronto's Ryerson University to fund a digital news incubator there.
Heritage Minister Melanie Joly unveiled a new strategy for Canadian content in the digital age, which includes Netflix committing $500 million over five years to create a new permanent film and television production presence in Canada. 2:08
"This is a welcome first step," she said of the Facebook collaboration. "Our intention is to foster many more."
It's all part of Joly's revamped cultural policy, outlining what she thinks Canadian content and cultural industries should look like in the digital world. It comes after months of public consultations, held last year.
The reboot includes:
A federal boost to the Canada Media Fund as of 2018, countering the drop in money from the private sector.
Spending $125 million on a creative export strategy, which includes launching an export fund to get Canadian creators recognized abroad and starting a Creative Industries Council.
Updating funding programs like Canada Music Funding and the Canada Book Fund.
Reforming the Copyright Board of Canada and reviewing the Copyright Act, with an emphasis on protecting the rights of creators.
Joly said the Liberals will also launch a review to help update the Broadcasting Act and Telecommunications Act, something that hasn't been done in about 30 years.
No Netflix tax
With all the talk about Netflix, Joly reiterated that the Liberals would not impose a Netflix tax.
"We know that access and affordability of internet and wireless are real issues for many," she said. "We pay some of the highest rates in the world."
Heritage Minister Melanie Joly says the Liberal government won't impose a new tax on streaming services, such as Netflix. Joly unveiled a new strategy for Canadian content in the digital age, which includes Netflix committing $500 million over five years to create a new film and television production presence in Canada. 0:43
But there has been a bump in how much a Canadian Netflix subscription costs — something Netflix said is not related to the new $500-million investment.
Many in the cultural sector had hoped to see new broadcasting players like Netflix and YouTube become subject to the formal regulatory landscape for Canadian companies, which would require them to air certain levels of Canadian content and contribute financially to a fund to help develop it. That didn't happen.
Bell Media complained the Netflix contribution "will be a fraction" of what it has to pay and asked for a "level playing field for all participants."
And though Joly didn't mention Bell directly in her speech, she did bring up the role news outlets and broadcasters including the CBC should play in promoting Canadian culture; reiterating her support for a "strong public broadcaster." In their 2016 budget, the Liberals promised $675 million over five years in new funding for the CBC.
She touched on the difficulties and lack of funding elsewhere in the media industry, but didn't announce any new money. Canadian newspaper publishers have suffered as advertising revenues have fallen over the past decade, but there was no sign of help from the government.
Heritage Minister Melanie Joly says "the need for a strong, national public broadcaster has never been more clear." The 2016 Liberal budget pledged another $675-million over five years to help CBC/Radio-Canada adapt to new digital technologies. 0:58
"Our approach will not be to bail out industry models that are no longer viable."
Instead, she said, she would support innovation and experimentation at these outlets, and that includes the switch to digital.
"If we get this right, we will be a leader in the world," she said in closing.
Is this a 'one off'?
Cultural creator organizations were optimistic after hearing the announcement, with the heads of the Director's Guild of Canada, the Canadian Media Producers Association, the Writers Guild of Canada and the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) all giving their approval.
But there were unanswered questions, too. Parts of the plan are vague in saying how they will actually be implemented. Filmmaker Kevan Funk, who put out Hello Destroyer last year, found the whole announcement "underwhelming."
"There's not much policy in this policy announcement and I think that is problematic because policy is a more concrete way of making some of these things more permanent," he told CBC News. "I have a heavy degree of skepticism that a lot of people that they are counting on to execute that are obviously just going to act in their most immediate interest."
Canadian and Quebec content producers have mixed feelings about Netflix's promise to fund Canadian productions over five years. (Stephane de Sakutin/Getty Images)
Others are concerned about the Netflix deal in particular. There's uncertainty about how that investment will be spent and what it means for French-language content. It's not yet clear who will get to use it to create programming with Netflix.
"It's a step that Netflix has agreed to take and that's wonderful and we welcome that investment," said David Sparrow, the president of ACTRA's national organization. "[But] we need to create a level playing field that all our broadcasters and independent producers can benefit from, including Netflix and Hulu and Amazon Prime."
Brian Baker, the head of the Directors Guild of Canada, put it more bluntly. "Are we talking about Canadian programming, or American shows shot in Canada with American talent in all the top creative functions?" he said in a statement. "Is this Netflix announcement a one-off, or the first step towards a real policy?"
Take a more in-depth look at what's in the new policyAsk an Expert
How do cats purr, why and is it something other animals do as well?
They come in a range of shapes and sizes and seem to have their own individual personalities. But one thing cats share is their ability to purr.
Based on electromyography of the muscles of the larynx, scientists now think that the classic sound is produced by rhythmic contractions of the cat's larynx muscles and diaphragm, says Associate Professor Vanessa Barrs, feline medicine specialist at the Valentine Charlton Cat Centre with the University of Sydney.
The rhythmic contractions of the muscles and vocal chords open and close the glottis. As the cat breathes in and out, air hits the vibrating larynx muscles in the throat producing the purring sound.
"These contractions restrict the amount of air flowing through the larynx. The larynx relaxes again letting more air go though."
Each cat will purr with their own consistent pattern and at a consistent frequency usually between 25 and 150 Hz per second.
"The frequency is controlled by the autonomic nervous system, so it's sort of a muscular tremor rather than a human vocalisation," says Barrs.
"The nervous system also regulates the activity of the diaphragm during laryngeal constriction and relaxation, and thus contributes to the genesis of purring."
But despite the autonomic responses involved, Barr notes that cats do have a conscious control over purring.
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Why do cats purr?
When it comes to the reasons why cats purr, things get a lot more complicated. It's fair to say that ten different cats will have ten different reasons for purring, says Barrs.
We can be fairly sure that cats purr when they are happy.
"We know they purr when they're being patted by their owners. They can also purr when they're being fed or when they're nursing. In fact, that's probably the first time kittens purr."
But as many cat owners will have seen, cats also purr when they are anxious, feel threatened or are in pain, indicating that purring might be a comfort mechanism during times of stress, says Barrs.
"Some cats have even been known to purr when they're giving birth."
Recent research has also reported a type of purr that domestic cats use when they want to be fed — a soliciting purr. This variation on the usual purr contains a cry with a similar frequency to a human infant's.
Adding this high frequency cry into the usual low-pitched purr could subtly exploit humans, the UK researchers suggested, by tapping into an inherent'mammalian sensitivity' to such a cry.
Solicitous purring is one means of communication, but Barr points out that cats also communicate by vocalising or meowing.
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All cats purr
People used to think only small members of the cat family (known as Felis), such as the domestic cat, could purr.
However, Barrs says bigger cats (known as Panthera) such as tigers, lions, leopards, panthers, cheetahs and jaguars also purr. But they only do so when breathing out, unlike domestic cats who purr when they inhale and when they exhale.
"Interestingly Charles Darwin observed that as well as domestic cats, pumas, cheetahs and ocelots also purred. But he thought that lions, jaguars and leopards didn't."
The term "purring" has been used fairly freely to include sounds made by civets, mongoose, genets, bears, badgers, hyenas, rabbits, squirrels, guinea pigs, tapirs, ring-tailed lemurs, elephants, raccoons, and even gorillas when they eat.
But Barrs says using the strict definition of purring, only members of the cat family and two species of genets, which are somewhat related to cats, really purr.
Associate Professor Vanessa Barrs, feline medicine specialist at the Valentine Charlton Cat Centre with the University of Sydney, was interviewed by Stuart Gary.AURORA | Despite harsh words around the edges of the campaign for Aurora’s 6th Congressional seat, both candidates have started with a soft touch with their TV ads.
Democratic challenger Morgan Carroll released her first television ad Wednesday in her 2016 campaign to win the congressional seat from incumbent Republican Mike Coffman. In the ad, the former state Senate president touted her personal accomplishments in an effort to win over voters.
“I put myself through school with minimum wage jobs, and I started a business with my mom to help advocate for people with disabilities” Carroll says in the ad, titled “Why I Am Running.”
The ad will air on broadcast television and is part of a planned $1.4 million marketing campaign between now and election day, according to the Carroll for Colorado Campaign.
“We are extremely excited to kick off our first ad of this cycle,” said Carroll for Colorado campaign manager Jenny Donovan in a statement. “Morgan’s story is the story of thousands of people in this district, and that’s why they know that, when elected, she’ll fight for them in Washington to deliver real results on education, jobs, and veteran’s issues. The voters of this district recognize that they need someone in Congress who understands them, and we’re going to see the results of that this November.”
The ad, which mentions neither presidential candidate, is similarly low-key and introductory, but it stands in contrast to the one released by Coffman in August where he made national headlines as the first House Republican to use anti-Trump messaging in paid advertising.
In that video, Coffman said he would stand up to Trump if the New York billionaire were elected. Coffman also released a Spanish-language version of the ad. He’s never said that he won’t vote for Trump, however, something Democrats taunt him with regularly on social media.
Morgan Carroll has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, something the Coffman campaign and Republicans tie to her with the same fervor.
In June, the Coffman for Congress campaign launched its first video ad for television titled ‘One of Us.’ In that ad, a myriad of racially diverse voices emphasize the House Republican is “not like other Republicans.”
Nearly 6 percent of the 6th Congressional District is Asian, while a little over 20 percent is Latino and 9 percent is black. It’s the most diverse district in Colorado and regularly one of the most competitive House races in the country, evenly divided among Democrat, Republican and non-affiliated voters.
Coffman has been nationally recognized by his party for his ability to court diverse voters and keep his seat in a district that is minority-majority. He was first elected to CD6 in 2008 after the retirement of former Rep. Tom Tancredo, and he has so far been able to hold onto the district after it was redrawn in 2011 to include most of Aurora, and many more Democrats.
Working her way up to leadership positions in the both the state House and Senate, Carroll became Senate president as Democratic Majority Leader in 2013. Her career has focused on many measures protecting the rights of individual homeowners or residents at the expense of developers, homeowner associations, employers and government agencies. She said that mission has been her life’s work.
Carroll also practices law for the firm of Bachus & Schanker. She and her mother, Rebecca Bradley, owned their private practice for a decade, specializing in disability advocacy.
In her first video ad released in March where she announced her run for the seat, Carroll also touted the experiences of her family and her own experience working toward her goals without financial cushioning.
“I worked in gas stations, I worked in pizza delivery, I worked in fast food, and tried very hard to save money so that I might be able to go to college. I know what it was like to work for minimum wage,” she says in that ad.Paris, 2 may 2016 — In a joint letter, 73 organisations from 31 countries call on the European Telecom Regulators to uphold net neutrality in their current negotiations about the future of the Internet in Europe.
After 2 years the EU adopted a net neutrality law which leaves many core questions up for interpretation. The Telecom Single Market regulation was adopted in October 2015 in second reading in the European Parliament.
The Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communication (BEREC) and the 28 telecom regulators are currently negotiating guidelines that clarify the recently adopted ambigous European net neutrality law. The regulators have time until August 2016 to publish their final guidelines and will hold a public consultation in June to July.
Europe is in the final stages of the fight for net neutrality. Whether zero-rating, DPI and paid prioritization are allowed for half a billion people depends on the final guidelines that will be published late August 2016. Europe could either follow the global trend towards strong safeguards or set a dangerous precedent.
“This is important that BEREC’s guidelines lay the foundations for a neutral and open internet for the upcoming years. This is the only way to ensure fundamental freedoms” says Agnès de Cornulier, Legal and Policy Analysis Coordinator at La Quadrature du Net.
The letter from 73 NGOs calls on the telecom regulators to consider:
So called “specialised services” which risk becoming paid fast lanes that circumvent all net neutrality safeguards.They should be tightly defined to only cover services which are technically not possible over the open internet;
Interpreting the EU regulation as banning application-specific Zero-Rating because it is a harmful practice that restricts consumer choice, perpetuates less expensive low data volumes and distorts competition;
Traffic management should be as application-agnostic as possible. When telecom companies decide about the priority of data packages this risks discriminating against services, including encrypted traffic, harming user choice.
The legal text can be read to both allow and prohibit paid fast-lanes, zero-rating or privacy-intrusive traffic managment forms like Deep Packet Inspection. Basically the legislator kicked the can down the road and now the unelected regulators have to decide on the future of Europe’s Internet. This is essential to keep pressuring the telecom regulators in order to ensure the interests of European internet users and this despite the major failings of the process. Besides this public warning, La Quadrature du Net and the other organizations which signed this letter invite internet users to report violations of net neutrality they could have observed on the website respectmynet.eu and to take part in the public consultation available on the website savetheinternet.eu and this in order to alleviate the weaknesses of this European regulation and to enlight regulators.
Read also the letter of the 73 organizations addressed to the BEREC.
See also EDRI’s analysis.Scrap it: Pochettino wants to end the winter window (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)
Tottenham Hotspur boss Mauricio Pochettino has called for the January transfer window to be scrapped.
The Spurs manager thinks that the winter window is a headache that both coaches and players could do without, and feels the speculation adversely affects performances of people whose futures are uncertain.
The Express quotes Pochettino as saying: ‘Yes [January] is a difficult [month]. In football it always happens and you have players who want to play more or aren’t happy.
‘We need to keep players focused on their games and not worry about speculation. Maybe it is better to have one window, so you can manage all situations for players.
‘Players pick up injuries and there are some that get a lot of interest from various clubs. It is good for football fans but it doesn’t help the head coach.
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‘It’s not an easy period and in the future, we should propose for change. This needs to be raised.’
Spurs have been linked to a whole host of names this month – including Everton’s Kevin Mirallas – while Roberto Soldado and Etienne Capoue have been the subject of reported interest elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Kyle Naughton left to join Swansea City earlier this week.
More: Spurs plot player exchange for Everton starWithin the deluge of news in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting, one fact seems to have been lost: that America's bloodiest gun massacre in modern history - with at least 59 killed and over 500 injured - happened in the same city as the world's largest gun trade exhibition - the SHOT show.
Of course, some would say this is just a coincidence.
But then you find out the organisers of that trade fair are the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). And the NSSF's headquarters are in Newtown - the place where, in 2012, Adam Lanza murdered 28 people, including 20 children between six and seven years old at Sandy Hook's Elementary School.
And some say this is just a coincidence.
Then you read that the world's most armed nation - the US, with about 300 million guns in the hands of private citizens - has, of all developed countries, the most gun homicides per capita. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in fact, over one and half million Americans were killed or injured by guns between 2001 and 2015.
That's seen as coincidental, too. People deny the correlation: that more guns don't equate to more gun deaths. But, as these facts reveal themselves, you begin to wonder if there is something approaching cause and effect at play.
Let's take the Vegas "coincidence", for example.
OPINION: The gun lobby is global: From Yemen to Las Vegas
The SHOT show is a celebration of both the firearm and of capitalism. With about 65,000 attendees and 630,000 square feet of exhibition space, the visitor is confronted with row upon row of carbines and silencers, semi-automatics and revolvers. The mountain of guns for sale at the SHOT show reflects a country where there are few, if any, regulations governing the ownership of guns, and where guns are noted for their ubiquity.
If, for instance, China, Germany, and India were taken out of the equation, America would have more privately owned firearms than the rest of the world put together. A reality brought home with the knowledge that Stephen Paddock- the Vegas murderer - had at least 42 guns in his possession.
America's love affair with the gun also translates into foreign policy. So in love, indeed, that the US government believes they can export democracy down the barrel of a gun.
Of course, this does not prove cause and effect. There have been massacres all over America, and Paddock did not choose to murder people in Vegas because the SHOT show was there. But the profits made from that trade show, and the gun industry in general, enabled Paddock to carry out his murderous crimes.
Between 2004 and 2014, the domestic US production of guns increased by 192 percent (from 3,099 |
, and water is the flushing agent. When a jar is washed for canning, soap AND water are necessary to cleanse that jar so that it might be filled with good fruit. Likewise, blood and water are necessary to cleanse the human soul so that it may receive the Spirit of Christ, which is the Holy Ghost. This teaching was verified by Peter when he said, “Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). Repentance and baptism are both absolutely essential for the remission of sins!
Paul taught that the three steps of Calvary is the gospel that we should preach. In I Corinthians 15:1-4 he tells us,
“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I have preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”
Paul went on to say in II Thessalonians 1:7-8, “And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul told us that the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. How can we obey the death, burial, and resurrection? We obey by repentance, baptism, and receiving the Holy Ghost as we have previously explained. Notice that the Lord Jesus is to appear “in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel.” It is absolutely necessary for every human being to obey the gospel by being born again. Jesus told Nicodemus, “Ye must be born again.” (John 3:7).
The Old Testament Speaks of the Born Again Plan
Let us consider another biblical lesson given to us concerning this subject. The Bible teaches us that the things of the Old Testament were types and shadows of the things to come. When the priests of the law ministered by offering sacrifices, there were three major steps to their duties.
First they slew the animal to be offered on the brazen altar. The blood here was shed and caught into a container for use in the Holy Place. The flesh of the animal was to be consumed by fire. This teaches us the first step of salvation—repentance. When we repent, we present our bodies a living sacrifice, and our sins are covered by the blood of Jesus.
After the shedding of blood, the priests were ordered to wash at the laver and to cleanse themselves with water in preparation for entering the Holy Place. The laver, a round fountain-like structure, was overlaid in the bottom with a looking glass. When the priest bent over to wash, he was able to see himself so that he could be sure that he was clean. When an individual is baptized, he should examine himself to be sure that he is leaving the world behind once and for all.
We see then that the second step of the tabernacle ministry plainly teaches us of water baptism. Blood and water were used to cleanse and prepare them for entry into the Holy Place, even as blood and water cleanses us in preparation of receiving the Holy One into our lives!
After cleansing, the priest would take the fire from the brazen altar and enter through the veil into the Holy Place. The Holy Place had no doors or windows through which light could come. The only light would come from the golden candlesticks. These candlesticks consisted of seven wicks fed by oil from seven bowls. The wicks had to be lit with the fire brought by the priest from the brazen altar. The uniting of the oil and fire at the candlesticks to produce light is a perfect type of the Holy Ghost and fire promised to New Testament believers (Matthew 3:11). Without the light of the Holy Ghost we could not see to live in the Holy Place, which is where every Christian should live.
God spoke of His great plan of redemption in the Old Testament in types and shadows; and then in the New Testament He spoke plainly to us so that we would have no doubt of His will! Once again we recall the words of 1 John 5:8, “There are three that bear witness in the earth, the spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one.” This Old Testament lesson beautifully reaffirms to us the absolute necessity of the full born again plan in each life for salvation!
Common Misconceptions About Salvation
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
Acts 16:30-31 reads this way, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” Many have taken this scripture to teach that all that is required for salvation is to believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world; and from that point on the individual is saved. It is definitely true that an individual must believe that Jesus is the Savior in order to be saved. However, Paul, who spoke these words in Acts 16, has some further teaching on the subject in Romans 10:13-15.
Let’s consider the text: “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?” If we wanted to be absurd, we could take this thirteenth verse to teach that all an individual must do for salvation is to call out the name of Jesus one time and he has received salvation. Paul tells us they can’t call on him in whom they have not believed. Furthermore, he said that they couldn’t believe in him of whom they have not heard. We cannot merely believe. We must believe something about Christ. When Paul told the jailer in Acts 16 to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, he went on to speak unto him the word of the Lord (verse 32). The word which Paul spoke was apparently the gospel; for the result in verse 33 was that the jailer and all his house were baptized at midnight. That’s how essential baptism is for salvation. Paul took all these people out at midnight and baptized them!
Some would object here by saying that we are saved by faith alone. It is true that we are saved by faith, but it is also true that true faith always produces action on the part of the believer. Let’s study from James 2:14-22 to verify this point.
“What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or a sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works; shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thus how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?”
When an individual believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, what do they believe about Him? They believe the gospel, which is the death, burial, and resurrection (I Corinthians 15:1-4). James teaches us that faith without action is dead, or it is not really faith at all. When a sinner hears the true gospel and truly believes, he will obey the gospel. An individual obeys the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ by repentance, baptism in Jesus’ name, and the infilling of the Holy Ghost, evidenced by speaking with other tongues. (see our booklet “Tongues—Devilish or Divine?”). This is the salvation of Calvary! “Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?” (made complete).
If you are still having trouble conceding to this teaching because of the element of works involved, let’s reason concerning one more point. Being born again —repentance, baptism, and receiving the Holy Ghost is not considered by God to be a work. In Titus 3:5 we are taught, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost”. This scripture tells us that regeneration, which is being born again, is not a work of righteousness.
Concluding this matter, we will cite a familiar biblical example. In the great revival at Samaria in Acts 8:5-23, a sorcerer named Simon heard the preaching of Philip. He believed and was baptized and continued with Philip beholding the signs and miracles that were done. Many people would say that because Simon believed, he was saved. Yet the Apostle Peter said of him in Acts 8:23, “For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.”
It is impossible for anyone in the bond of iniquity to be saved; for the scriptures tell us, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). Simon believed and was baptized, but he had not received the Holy Ghost; therefore, he was not born again. We cannot be half-born and survive. The entire work of Calvary is necessary for our salvation.
The Thief on the Cross
Many have asked, “If an individual must repent, be baptized, and receive the Holy Ghost for salvation, how was the thief on the cross with Jesus saved?” (Luke 23:38-43). First of all, it was impossible for anyone to be born again at that time, for the born again plan was not yet complete. Jesus had not died, been buried, and risen again. God has always had a plan of salvation for each dispensation of time. In Noah’s day the only way of salvation was to get into the ark. In Moses’ day the only plan was the law. In the church dispensation, the only way to be saved is to be born again. Jesus told Nicodemus, “Ye MUST be born again.”
Conclusion
May we point out as we conclude this study that we have been given the first church and the Apostles after which to pattern our teaching and practices. In each recorded account of conversions under the Apostles’ ministries, the three steps of being born again are evident. In Acts 2:38 it was repentance, baptism, and the Holy Ghost. In Acts 8:12, Acts 10:44-48, and Acts 19:1-6, we find the born again experience taught and received. Why should we vary from this practice when we are to be built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the Chief Cornerstone?
Do not allow anything to turn you aside from this truth: you must be born again. If you haven’t as yet, you should do so today!
For more information on this subject, please call 1.866.310.5010. Or, if you would like to study this topic further, view our Salvation Package (consisting of four, 1-hour DVDs).
By Irvin BaxterWhen President Trump walks into the White House Rose Garden to announce whether he will have the United States withdraw from a multi-national pact on climate change Thursday afternoon, he won’t just be talking about the environment.
He could be announcing a new world order.
Trump has hardly been shy about his call to put "America First," but until today few here or abroad knew what Trump actually meant by this in terms of a worldview. Until now America First has simply been a phrase -- not unlike many campaign slogans.
After all, what is the practical difference between Trump’s slogan and John McCain’s 2008 Republican campaign motto of “Country First’?
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If the US walks away from the climate change agreement forged in Paris, we might have our answer. Not only would such a decision signal a huge shift in American foreign policy, it would signal a shift in how the US views playing the international policy game.
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As Trump’s one-time would-be US secretary of state Mitt Romney put it Wednesday, “Affirmation of the #ParisAgreement is not only about the climate: It is also about America remaining the global leader.”
Background
Until this point, there have been largely two schools of thought as to how nations should approach the world. There is the Realism school, which basically assumes that every country will be motivated by -- and act on -- base interests of military power and the accumulation of resources. In the Realism school, international politics is a zero-sum game: Either my country controls that oil field or island, or it doesn’t.
The main counter theory, Liberalism, suggests that nations can play the game less concerned with raw resources, and instead focus on exporting a country’s values around the world. Often associated with US president Woodrow Wilson, this worldview has been a popular one among American presidents since. The central mission of this foreign policy approach calls for getting other countries to accept American-style democracy. (Note: "Liberalism" in foreign policy means something different from what it means in American politics.)
In modern foreign policy, there are more nuanced takes on these two theories. For example, Harvard’s Joseph Nye helped develop the theory of “complex interdependence” that suggests what is actually going on is that alliances between nations are formed in many ways: geographically, culturally, and economically. In other words, it is a mix of both main theories.
What Trump is proposing if he leaves Paris Agreement
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So how does Trump fit into this puzzle?
Consider this fascinating op-ed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday from two of Trump’s top advisers, H.R. MacMaster and Gary Cohn. They essentially say that the US should be less concerned with influencing other countries. Put another way: Ask not what the US can do for the rest of the world, ask what the world can do for the US.
In other words, don’t look to the US to lead in fighting global terrorism unless there is a direct threat to US. Don’t look for this country to stand up for American values elsewhere -- free speech, or for the expansion of markets and democracy -- unless there is a direct and specific threat to the American way of life … in America.
If Trump is even consistent
Of course, all the above thoughts assume that Trump is consistently playing out some America First nationalistic philosophy. But consistency is a problem for Trump.
While he talked a lot about getting the US out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, he now says he just wanted to renegotiate it. He also said the US has been involved in too many wars. But the administration is now considering increasing troop levels in Afghanistan.
Gurinder Osan/Associated Press, file U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan.
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Heck, while there has been a presumption in the past 24 hours that Trump will walk away from the Paris agreement, White House advisers caution that he could easily just change his mind.A Wednesday shootout on the streets of Washington Highlands left a cop injured and a carjacking suspect dead. But before the suspect expired, he went on an unusual ambulance ride that involved moving him from one vehicle to another on the shoulder of Interstate 295. While this might appear to be another story of Fire and Emergency Medical Services dysfunction, the story is rather more complicated. As WUSA-TV explains, newer-model diesel engines are required by federal regulations to have emission-control features that, in some circumstances, require the motor to shut down for “regeneration” — a process in which the exhaust system burns off trapped soot. The need for regeneration can be unpredictable, and there have been calls in recent years to exempt emergency response vehicles from the federal requirements. Deputy Chief John Donnelly told Channel 9, “We’re not in a position to fight the EPA regulations, and we’re not even going to try.” The transfer to a second ambulance delayed 34-year-old Nathaniel McRae’s arrival at a hospital by seven minutes; FEMS insists the wait did not play a role in his death.
[Update, 7:50 p.m.: The Environmental Protection Agency last year modified its diesel emission regulations to specifically exempt emergency vehicles, though some equipment purchased prior to the change has not been retrofitted to avoid service interrupt. Furthermore, an EPA spokeswoman provided this statement: “A properly working and maintained vehicle should not shut down without adequate warning, and pollution control equipment does not have this general impact – as evidenced by the millions of vehicles on the road that have been operating with this technology for years."]
In other news:
Ginnie Cooper bids a slow adieu: “I’m going to read romance novels and eat bonbons” (Post, DCist)
Police could close shops trafficking in stolen goods under Tommy Wells proposal (Post, WRC-TV, WAMU-FM)
With 10 months until scheduled date, it’s still completely unclear when the primary election will happen (Post, WAMU-FM)
Ahead of Coast Guard headquarters opening, ground is broken on St. Elizabeths “gateway pavilion” (WBJ, WRC-TV, Examiner, WUSA-TV, WJLA-TV, DCist)
Despite all the “boomtown” talk, “we’re becoming less dependent on the feds than ever” (Housing Complex)
So far, sequestration impact of regional economy has been minimal (Post)
District Secretary is among those opposing Vincent Gray’s pet economic development project (WBJ)
Jack Evans: “I do not agree with the premise that developers use campaign contributions to control the votes of D.C. Council members” (Informer)
Yvette Alexander supports insurance-industry-backed delay to health exchange mandate (WBJ)
New York police contradict FEMS, say powdery letter sent to gun-control activist tested positive for ricin (Blade)
Time for the District to up its efforts on child mental health (Post editorial)
Controversial Connecticut Avenue apartment building gets its permits (WBJ)
Three options for connecting Georgetown with Union Station: Streetcar, streetcar or “premium bus” (Current via Dish)
Seventeen years in prison for Ellsworth Colbert, convicted of Penn Branch killing (Homicide Watch)
Plea negotiations underway for man accused of running over D.C. cop (Examiner)
Man found shot dead in 16th Street Heights alley (Post)
Another test tube found at Spring Valley chemical weapons site (WTOP)
Mom’s Organic Market commits to Hecht’s warehouse project (Housing Complex)
A lengthy takedown of Dana Milbank’s recent D.C.-themed column (City Desk)
Anacostia’s still waiting for that rebirth (GGW)
Induced-demand theory applies to restaurants, too (Young & Hungry)
$50 million in NoMa parks money will help build “Swampoodle Plaza” (Housing Complex)
Ibiza’s club liquor license, with nude dancing endorsement, could be yours for $4.5 million (PoPville)
Is Dupont still D.C.’s “gayborhood”? (Borderstan)
Gun march organizer will be getting high first (City Desk)
Among the best bars in America, per Esquire: Tabard Inn, Jack Rose Dining Saloon, the Raven (GOG)T.J. Dillashaw and Urijah Faber are two of the best bantamweight fighters on the planet who just happen to be training partners with Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, Calif.
No problem, according to UFC president Dana White.
White said Wednesday on UFC Tonight that Dillashaw and Faber would be down to fight each other. Dillashaw is the current UFC bantamweight champion and Faber is one of the very best in the division, undefeated in non-title fights throughout his illustrious career.
"That's possible," White said. "Those guys have made it very clear that they will fight each other. We'll see what happens."
Dillashaw-Faber might happen one day, but it won't be what is next for either one of them. White said last week that former champion Renan Barao will get the next title shot against Dillashaw following injuries to top contenders Dominick Cruz and Raphael Assuncao. As for Faber, White said the UFC has someone else in mind for him.
"That's not the plan right now here today, but it's definitely a fight I'd like to see," White said of Faber-Dillashaw.
Both men have not been as unequivocal about an intra-Team Alpha Male fight as White is. Dillashaw considers Faber a mentor and would prefer not to fight him. Faber said Monday on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani that it is not his desire to compete against Dillashaw at this juncture, but left the door open for a potential bout.
Cruz was set to get the next shot at Dillashaw before getting injured and needing a third ACL surgery. That would have been far and away the most interesting fight in the 135-pound division. Assuncao has also earned his spot -- he beat Dillashaw in 2013 by split decision.
Faber could end up facing a rematch with Francisco Rivera. The two met at UFC 178 in September and Faber accidentally poked Rivera in the eye, directly leading to Faber's neck crank submission finish. Rivera is challenging the result with the Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC) and will have his case heard Monday.Residents of the condemned West Bank outpost of Migron have appealed the High Court to stay the demolition of the settlement's illegal structures on Tuesday, claiming that they had recently purchased the land on which the homes were built.
However, a preliminary inspection of the purported sale reveals that the Palestinian whom the settlers claim sold them the land passed away in 2011, one year before the alleged transaction.
Citing what they said was their desire to keep the identity of the seller unknown, the 17 appellants, represented by Zeev Scharf, asked the High Court to submit the sale's documentation in a sealed envelope.
According to the appeal, the acquisition was conducted by the al-Watan development firm, which is owned by the Mateh Binyamin Development Company, who, in return, is owned by the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council in the West Bank.
Al-Watan officials have claimed to have bought Migron's lands in the past. However, a police investigation at the time revealed that the purchase was false, interrogating the firm's heads. The case was closed due to a lack of evidence.
The appellants claim ownership over Migron's lot 2 of block 7, as well as of lot 10 of block 26, who they said they purchased from "the registered owner in March 20, 2012."
The owner of these lots was part of the original 2006 High Court appeal against the outpost. However, the owner died in 2011, making it impossible to sell his lands in March 2012. Ownership of the land has been passed on to his sons.
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In addition, the appellants claim that they had purchased a part of lot 23 of block 26, which settlers claimed in back in 2004 to have purchased from Aber el-Ma’atan, who they said resides in the United States.
However, el-Ma’atan passed away in 1969, prompting the police to determine at the time that his signature on 2004 acquisition papers was forged.
Despite this, as part of the attempts to stave off the outpost's evacuation, al-Watan appealed the Jerusalem District Court, asking to register that lot to its name. Now, the same firm is turning to the High Court, citing what it says is a new acquisition of the same lot.
As a result, the firm is in effect leading two separate legal procedures in reference to the same exact tract of land, in each claiming a different purchase than in the other.
Regardless, even if these purchases will be found to be legitimate, they still do not constitute proof of settler ownership over 80 percent of Migron's lands, as residents have claimed in the past, but around 33 percent.
In the appeal, Scharf wrote that his clients wish to put an injunction on demolition work, planned next month, saying that "the evacuation of the said lands, before giving the court an opportunity to discuss and rule on the appeal, will injure the appellants' rights in a real and irrevocable way."
"We fear that the appellants will be taken out of their homes, and that structures in which they have lived with their children for years, will be demolished," he added.
Now, the ball moves to the State Prosecutor's Office's court.
On Thursday, the settlers sent a letter to the State Prosecutor's Office's as well as to the Defense Ministry, in which they announce the acquisition of lands.
On Tuesday, a meeting of legal experts is planned, assembled to discuss the state's position on the new appeal.
It’s expected that the settlers will continue to press politicians to stave off the demolition, until being able to verify the veracity of these documents as well as their possible consequences.
I should be noted that regarding the Givat Asaf, the state asked for a seven-month extension before demolishing the outpost, in order to inspect newly presented acquisition papers.
In response to the new appeal, left-leaning NGO Peace Now said that "just as it was a mistake to believe the claim by Migron residents that the land had no owners, thus one mustn't believe their claims regarding the allegedly legal acquisition of outpost land."
"The false appeal is meant to force the State Prosecutor's Office to ask for another delay of the outpost's evacuation, as was the case in other outposts, such as Givat Asad," he added.
Spokesmen for the outpost said that it could now "be confirmed that Migron residents purchased significant portions of Migron's land from the owners registered in the tabu."
"Yesterday, we turned to the High Court in order to try and reduce the ruling's execution. The appeal was placed under gag order, and so we won't refer to the details of the deal," adding that the "court is the only authority able to determine the rightness of our claim," and not Peace Now activists, who, like ideological outlaws, have chosen to explicitly defy a court order."Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) wants the Justice Department to hand over any information it might have about law enforcement agencies getting their hands on location data from cell phone companies.
Earlier in the year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case, United States v. Jones, that law enforcement agencies needed to first obtain warrants before using GPS devices to track people. In that case, the justices said law enforcement could not install tracking devices without a warrant, because that fell into the definition of a "search."
But in a letter yesterday to Attorney General Eric Holder (PDF), Franken pointed to recent news reports suggesting that state and local law enforcement agencies "may be working around the protections" set down by the courts.
"I am eager to learn about how frequently the Department requests location information and what legal standard the Department believes it must meet to obtain it," he wrote. Franken's position seemingly puts him at odds with the Obama administration -- as well as law enforcement agencies -- which have taken a harder line on using location data to track people. Before the recent Supreme Court ruling, the DOJ told a federal appeals court that the FBI as well as other police agencies don't need to obtain a search warrant to find out the locations of Americans' cell phones.
In his letter to Holder, Franken asked for the following:
How many requests for location information has the Department of Justice filed with wireless carriers in each of the past five calendar years and from January to April of this year? How many individuals' location information was asked for in these requests?
How many of these requests were complied with partially or entirely? How many individuals' location information did the Department receive as a result of these requests?
What historical and prospective (i.e. real-time) location information do you request from wireless carriers (e.g., cell site data, GPS data)?
What legal standard does the Department of Justice believe applies to a request for historical location data (e.g., subpoena, court order, warrant, etc.)?
Is this standard different or the same for prospective data?
Is the standard different or the same for GPS data as opposed to cell-site data?
Have these standards changed since the Jones decision? If so, how?
Have any of the Department's practices with respect to location information requests from wireless carriers changed since the Jones decision?
How much money has the Department of Justice paid wireless carriers to offset expenses for their retrieval of this data in each of the past five years and from January to April of this year?According Munich’s Haus der Kunst (House of German Art), where he has an exhibition coming up next month, the emergency operation was to repair damage to his brain sustained on August 12 during a police attempt to discourage his testimony in a Chengdu court.
“He is doing well and will remain in the hospital for the next few days, we’re not sure when he’s leaving yet,” Munich Municipal Hospital spokesperson Philip Kresserer told The Local on Wednesday.
The well-known artist has compiled the names of more than 5,000 school children killed in the Sichuan earthquake of May 2008 in his own investigation of alleged building corruption. He had planned to testify in favour of civil rights lawyer Tan Zuoren, who was on trial for beginning a similar investigation.
But at 3 am on the day he was to go to the court, he says some 20 armed officers broke into his hotel room and arrested him. While in custody, he was beaten.
A resulting head injury caused frequent headaches, and on Monday he sought the care of a doctor in Munich, Haus der Kunst press spokeswoman Sonia Szunke told The Local.
“They said he needed to be admitted to the hospital immediately,” she said.
Doctors operated on a haematoma on the right side of his skull.
“I feel much better,” the outspoken artist told news agency DPA on Wednesday morning. “I almost died, but everything is OK now.”
Ai said he had not received proper medical attention in China before coming to Germany for his exhibition, and German doctors said he had been close to falling into a coma.
“At least here I can get good medical care,” he told daily Süddeutsche Zeitung. “Thousands of fellow countrymen who are mistreated every year by police can’t get that.”
Ai’s Haus der Kunst exhibition “So Sorry” begins October 12.
Ai is known in Germany for his work at Kassel’s Documenta 12 contemporary art festival in 2007. He also collaborated with architects Herzog & Demeuron to build the iconic Bird’s Nest stadium at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
He is widely considered one of China’s most influential contemporary artists.Researchers sifting through the confidential material stolen from spyware developer Hacking Team have already uncovered a weaponized exploit for a currently unpatched vulnerability in Adobe Flash, and they also may have uncovered attack code targeting Microsoft Windows and a hardened Linux module known as SELinux.
Hacking Team documentation accompanying the Flash exploit said it targeted "the most beautiful Flash bug for the last four years," according to a blog post published Wednesday by researchers from antivirus provider Trend Micro. The use-after-free flaw resides in a Flash Bytearray object. Researchers at competing AV company Symantec have confirmed the existence of a Flash exploit that works against the latest version of Flash (18.0..194). They also have confirmed it works against people viewing content with Internet Explorer, and it's presumed it will work against other browsers as well.
"Symantec has confirmed the existence of a new zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Flash which could allow attackers to remotely execute code on a targeted computer," they wrote in a blog post published Tuesday. "Since details of the vulnerability are now publicly available, it is likely attackers will move quickly to exploit it before a patch is issued."
An Adobe spokeswoman said company officials are aware of the finding and expect to release a fix on Wednesday. The officials have no indication the vulnerability is being actively exploited at the moment. The zeroday was one of two Flash exploits Trend Micro researchers reported finding, with the other one targeting a vulnerability cataloged as CVE-2015-0349, which Adobe patched in April. Until a fix is installed, readers should consider disabling Flash, particularly when browsing websites they are unfamiliar with.
Separately, there was a report on Twitter from a well-known exploit broker of a separate zeroday in the Windows kernel. An English translation of a technical analysis of the exploit leaked from Hacking Team, which is available here, indicates the vulnerability is in every version of Windows since Windows XP. The so-called escalation of privileges exploit could be used in combination with another exploit to increase an attacker's access to a targeted machine.
Users on Reddit also reported finding a previously unknown vulnerability in SELinux and cited this Github repository, which appeared to suggest the exploit could be used against Android phones, which incorporate the Linux module. SELinux developers have yet to weigh in on the reports.
The exploits can be used to surreptitiously install Hacking Team surveillance software, or other types of malware, on vulnerable computers with little or no indication anything is amiss. If the exploits leaked from the colossal Hacking Team breach are limited to two or three unpatched vulnerabilities in Flash, Windows, and SELinux, the resulting damage will be much less severe than it might have been. Still, with 400 gigabytes of data to digest, there may yet be other surprises to find.Uganda is willing to give up all international aid to keep its new anti-homosexuality law and “save gays from damnation”, its ethics minister said as the World Bank followed other donors and froze a £60 million new loan to the country.
“We will not shy away from this, we want to rid this country of homosexuality and if that means these people - Obama, Hague, you name them - want to stop their aid then let them,” Simon Lokodo told The Telegraph.
“We don’t need it, we won’t die poor, and we will at least be able to save these gays from damnation.
“Homosexuality cannot be accommodated in our culture. We have taken that position as a government because this is a democracy and it is what the people want.”
Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s president of 28 years, signed the new Anti-Homosexuality Act into law on Monday, immediately prompting outrage from Western nations.
The World Bank announced on Thursday it would suspended £60 million in new loans for health services while its experts analysed whether the new legislation “adversely affects” development strategy.
Denmark, The Netherlands and Norway have all frozen aid to Mr Museveni’s government. Washington was “reviewing its relationship” with Uganda over the law, which John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, compared to Nazism and apartheid.
But Mr Lokodo, a former evangelical Christian pastor whose support for the anti-gay laws helped win him the job as Mr Museveni’s minister for ethics and integrity, was unapologetic.
“Why should we apologise? This is our choice, not that of some outsiders,” he said in his first interview with Western media since the act was signed into law on Monday.
“We have asked respected experts and scientists and they have found homosexuality is not there by birth - it is learned, it is chosen, therefore it is nurtured by someone.
“Those who recruit minors, children, to their homosexuality with promises of gifts and money, they are intolerable, and the law is there now and we will arrest them all. They will be in prison for life.”
President Obama and Mr Kerry were “inconsistent” for supporting gay rights but not themselves being gay, said Mr Lokodo, who has said that he would “rather die than kiss a man”.
“These Western people - Obama, Kerry - they are married to women, yet they want to tell us our men should marry men. If that is so important, why does Obama not marry a man?
“Do not come into my house and tell me how to live, what food to cook, what to do, as I do not come to your house and tell you what to do. Is that not logical?”
A DFID spokesman: “The UK is strongly opposed to discrimination and we are deeply disappointed that Uganda’s Bill has been signed.
“A country will never truly escape poverty unless it upholds human rights and creates an equal society.
“The UK ended all its direct budget support to the Ugandan government last year. The UK only provides direct support to other governments when they meet a specific set of principles, including upholding human rights.”
Some activists in Uganda’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community have cautioned against stopping aid.
“Aid cuts affect all Ugandans, but they will blame the LGBT people for it,” said Sam Ganafa, head of Spectrum Uganda, a gay rights organisation. “It can cause us more problems.”The Meyer Law Office released two videos on Tuesday, May 6, that show that agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement are continuing to arrest suspected undocumented immigrants in and around Denver's courthouses, despite the City of Denver sending ICE a letter on April 6 asking that agents stay away from "sensitive locations" such as courthouses and schools.
The law office had previously captured a video of ICE agents inside the Lindsey Flanigan Courthouse on February 16, and that documentation was part of what prompted the city to ask ICE to cease the practice. At the time that the city sent its letter, in early April, the City Attorney's Office revealed that four cases had to be dropped because witnesses, fearing encounters with ICE agents, refused to show up to hearings.
Similar concerns were raised by Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, who wrote in a March 16 letter to Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly and Attorney General Jeff Sessions: "Enforcement policies that include stalking courthouses and arresting undocumented immigrants, the vast majority of whom pose no risk to public safety, are neither safe nor fair. They not only compromise our core value of fairness, but they undermine the judiciary |
war fought on Pakistan’s North-Western border and its repercussions for the rest of the country are exaggerated to justify various ends.
A brief review of how people perish in Pakistan might put things into perspective.
From a strictly numbers approach, we are losing far more innocent lives to health issues than to terrorist activities. According to intelligence agencies, in 2013, we had lost 49,000 people to the ‘war on terror’ since 2001 – that’s approximately 4000 casualties every year.
Now I do not wish to discount the trauma or suffering of those who lost loved ones to terrorism but just as we follow acts of violence, it’s equally important, if not more, to note that over 200,000 newborns die on their very first day in Pakistan every year. Furthermore, approximately 250,000 additional innocent children die through water borne diseases every year.
Are these children less important or less innocent than anybody else? If not, why does the state not declare a medical emergency to save their lives? It’s because we apportion these deaths to the will of God and without further investigation we leave the subject aside as though nothing can be done about it. It’s because these children die quietly in their homes, without a blast or an attack or any other kind of spectacle that demands attention. It’s because neonatal demise isn’t exactly breaking news. Bomb blasts, on the other hand, with all the excessive animation and sound effects to elaborate every attack are.
When the whole world talks about the lack of security in Pakistan, it’s easy for us to use that premise as a scapegoat to justify the exodus of bright minds from the country. But then again some cities like Karachi have more than one brand or flavor of violence and the many layers of crime can be overwhelming for any sane person. In contrast, cities like Islamabad and Lahore have seen far less conflict and the collective mindset in these cities may be less nervous than others.
Indeed, we all deal with trauma differently and if getting mugged will scar you for life then perhaps you should find abode elsewhere, in safer, securer pastures. If not, chances are that at some point or another some poor thief will probably rob you so that he can feed his own kids. Unfortunately, if we continue to divest from Pakistan, jobs will further diminish and in response crime will most certainly rise. There really is no end to this vicious cycle, unless we check the exodus now.
While the relatively unskilled expatriate ventures abroad for purely monetary benefit, the highly skilled expatriate is also looking for security and an exit strategy if and when the chips are down. Both groups lack the vision to realize how economic prosperity through new investment can reduce crime and gradually begin to solve problems directly stemming from poverty.
Moving on, ‘corruption’ is also often quoted in drawing room conversations as a deterrent to progress: a bogus reason to refrain from new business ventures. Everywhere, across the globe, where business and politics overlap, money is siphoned to line greedy pockets. A recent report of the European Commission estimated that the European economy is losing 120 billion Euros to corruption every year and apparently multinationals enjoying tax relief through investments in not-for-profit foundations contribute more towards this amount than the collective sum of corruption attributed to European governments.
If you want to run your business without greasing any wheels, you may have to wait in line a little longer before your efforts come to fruition because you didn’t get that NOC exactly when you thought you would, but your business will not come to a standstill. There are hugely successful entrepreneurs who no-one will point a finger at or question the integrity of. Ask these entrepreneurs about their journey and learn from their vast experience of doing business in a country like Pakistan.
In reality, establishing an unpopular opinion – an idea almost entirely antithetical to populist sentiment – requires more than fifteen hundred words in a weekly column. It needs legs to move forward; legs only people with significant means and clear intentions are able to provide.
So for those of you who have the time, energy and resources to invest, don’t wait for someone to spoon-feed you with an exhaustive list of opportunities in Pakistan. Take the initiative. Prove the skeptics wrong.An Honest Approach to Simplifying Corporate Income Taxes
Dean Baker
Truthout, November 13, 2017
See article on original site
The Republicans are trying to pitch their tax cut plan as being a major step toward simplifying the tax code. While there is little doubt the plan will mean large tax cuts for corporations and their shareholders it is not clear that there will be much simplification. Corporations will still be able to have large tax savings by hiding profits overseas and other tricks.
However, it is possible to envision a change to the tax code that would genuinely simplify the system. Suppose that instead of paying income taxes each year, corporations were required to turn over a portion of their stock to the government, let's say 25 percent, in the form of non-voting shares.
The rule would be that these shares are treated just like other shares of the company's stock. If the company pays a $2 a share dividend to holders of its regular shares, it also pays a $2 dividend on each of the government's shares. If the company buys back 10 percent of its outstanding shares at $100 per share, it would also buy back 10 percent of the government's shares at $10 each. If another company wants to take over the company, buying up shares at $150 each, the company also has to buy the government's shares at $150 each.
The only difference between the shares owned by the government and the stock held by other shareholders is that the government would have no voting power associated with its shares. This is not an effort to get government control over the means of production. It is simply an inescapable route to its tax revenue.
This should be a path that both liberals and conservatives can embrace, even if they disagree on the best tax rate. Under the current system, or the Republican proposal, companies can achieve large tax savings by gaming the system. As a result, they spend tens of billions of dollars on tax lawyers and accountants who develop sophisticated schemes to limit their tax liability.
Everyone agrees this is a complete waste of resources. From an economic standpoint, we don't want to see highly skilled people waste their efforts trying to find ways to circumvent the tax code. Nor do we want the IRS to have to spend large amounts of resources trying to prevent this sort of gaming. It would be much better if these people's skills were used towards some productive end that made people's lives better.
Moving from corporate taxes to government ownership of non-voting shares should go far towards eliminating this waste. Once this system is in place, there is no way to cheat the government out of its claim to the company's profits unless the shareholders are also cheated.
Moving profits to Ireland or Bermuda doesn't save the company any money, the IRS still has its 25 percent stake. It is a very simple matter for the IRS to keep track of dividend payments and share buybacks. It just has to ensure that the payments to its own shares are the same.
One neat aspect of switching to a non-voting share system is that we can even make the first step voluntary. Suppose we gave companies the option to permanently avoid any tax liability by giving the government a 25 percent stake in the form of non-voting shares.
Companies that already pay roughly this amount in taxes or more should jump at the opportunity. While there would be little change in their tax liability, the company could lay off the accountants and tax lawyers needed to game the system. It could also focus on conducting its business in a way that maximizes its growth prospects, without having to worry about its future tax liabilities.
A voluntary option would also be beneficial to the IRS since the companies that opted not to take advantage of it would be signaling their intention to try to game the tax code. The IRS could then redeploy its resources to focus on these companies while paying minimal attention to the companies that take the share deal. Also, after the public has seen that owning non-voting shares is a viable way to collect taxes without interfering in the ways companies do business, there will be more support for making the share ownership route mandatory.
In short, we can get to a simplified corporate income tax system that raises the same amount of revenue with much less waste. And, the first step in the process can be entirely voluntary. To paraphrase a line conservatives have said in other contexts, what's wrong with giving corporations a choice?“Hamilton” is coming to Boston, but you’ll have to wait until September of 2018 to see the national touring company's production of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s highly acclaimed, mega-successful blend of hip-hop, history and musical theater. Broadway in Boston announced its season schedule Monday night at the Boston Opera House, where “Hamilton” and the rest of the 2017-’18 season will be staged.
Miranda wrote the music and lyrics as well as the book, which is based on Ron Chernow's biography of the founding father. The stay for “Hamilton” will be a relatively lengthy one by touring-show standards — Sept. 18 - Nov. 18 of 2018, which normally would place it in the following year’s season. But Broadway in Boston is including “Hamilton” in this year’s subscription series, which is on sale now. Single-ticket sales will be announced at a later date.
“Hamilton,” which won 11 Tony Awards (one short of the record held by "The Producers"), isn’t the only acclaimed musical coming next season. “Fun Home,” which won the previous year’s Tony, arrives in October of 2017. Jeanine Tesori, one of Broadway’s great musical composers (“Caroline, or Change”) teamed with Alison Bechdel to bring her graphic memoir to the stage, with three different actors playing Bechdel at different stages of her life. The “Fun Home” in question is a funeral home run by the artist's loving, closeted father.
Alessandra Baldacchino as Alison with Pierson Salvador and Lennon Nate Hammond as her brothers in "Fun Home." (Courtesy Joan Marcus)
“Waitress” (Feb. 20 - March 4, 2018), with music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles, began life at the American Repertory Theater before heading to Broadway and now returns to the Boston area.
And then there’s Andrew Lloyd Webber with not one, but two phantoms. The original opens the season Sept. 13 - Oct. 1 and is followed by the sequel, “Love Never Dies” (Jan. 30 - Feb. 11) in which our not so friendly Phantom is hanging around Coney Island in 1907, still pining for Christine Daaé.
The Broadway in Boston schedule also includes “On Your Feet!” — about Emilio and Gloria Estefan (April 17 - 29); “Disney’s Aladdin” (July 3 - Aug. 5); and the return of “The Book of Mormon” (Aug. 14 - 26). While Broadway in Boston has an all-musical lineup, the Boch Center announced last week that the touring production of another acclaimed Tony winner, Stephen Karam's "The Humans," will play the Shubert Theatre March 13 - 25.
Follow The ARTery on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for our upcoming newsletter.It might sound like the stuff of science fiction dreams, but a Japanese construction company has announced that it will have built a working space elevator by 2050. Where can I join the queue?
According to the The Daily Yomiuri, construction company Obayashi Corp has announced it will have built a space elevator capable of shuttling passengers 36,000 kilometers above the Earth by 2050.
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The company plans to use carbon nanontubes, which are 20 times stronger than steel, to produce the cables required for the elevator. Those cables will be stretched to a counterweight 96,000 kilometers above our planet, about one-fourth of the distance between the Earth and the moon.
The terminal station, 36,000 kilometers above Earth, will be reached by cars that can carry 30 people and travel at 200 kilometers per hour. An Obayashi official said:
"At this moment, we cannot estimate the cost for the project. However, we'll try to make steady progress so that it won't end just up as simply a dream."
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I can estimate the cost: ridiculously, needlessly expensive. But I don't much care: I mean, it's a space elevator. Whether this claim can actually become a reality is up for discussion—but they're not the only horse in the race. I just hope it happens in my lifetime. [The Daily Yomiuri; Image: Michael Evans]Senate passes legislation requiring expats to repay outstanding HECS, HELP debts
Updated
Australians who move overseas will be required to repay their higher education debts from 2017 onwards, following the Senate's passing of new legislation closing the loophole.
For the past 26 years, Australians living overseas have not been required to repay their HELP or HECS debts.
That will change from July 2017, when the loophole will close.
The Federal Government claims the move will save more than $150 million over the next decade and help ensure the sustainability of the university sector.
When the measures were first announced in May, then-education minister Christoper Pyne said the changes would also make the system fairer.
"No government has ever tackled this obviously unfair situation — it's been in the too-hard basket," he said in a statement.
"Our plan will enforce the same HECS repayment obligations on Australians living overseas that apply to those who remain on our shores.
"There is no good reason why someone working as a banker in London or New York and earning over the threshold shouldn't pay back what they owe Australia."
Labor has supported the legislation, which will be applied retrospectively for anyone who has lived overseas for more than six months.
It will apply to approximately 46,000 people, but only if they meet the same income threshold that applies in Australia, which is currently set at $54,126 a year.
Topics: government-and-politics, tax, university-and-further-education, education, australia
First posted.
Chapter 5: Mantis Forest
(Ariel)
Ariel swam through the warm seawater, her red hair flowing freely behind her, her tail beating through the still sea causing currents to ripple through the water behind her. The sea was her home and she loved being in the water, but she also enjoyed being up on the surface—floating on the water with the sun beating down on her, the cool ocean air flowing over her wet skin and shimmering tail. How could any merfolk resist wanting to be where the ocean met the sky? Of course, it helped that Ariel had a truly valid reason to enjoy the surface.
Elsa is so wonderful! Who knew my prince would turn out to be such a pleasant, wonderful, and beautiful young woman. Ariel grinned as she thought of her new blonde friend. I hope I can find something deserving of Elsa. She certainly deserves something more than just the plain mackerel and tuna fish swimming around here.
The sun's golden glow beat down on the water, warming the surface and causing the sea to sparkle all around the young mermaid. Fish darted out of Ariel's way as she made her way through the water. A pod of dolphins swam overhead, their silvery bodies glimmering against the sunlight. Ariel had noticed that she had swum a long distance from Elsa's boat. It had to have been almost an hour since departing the blonde, Ariel figured. In that time she had foraged the shallow seabed for clamshells large enough for her breasts, but all of the nice ones were too small. The ones that were large enough had been cracked or broken already.
As Ariel continued her search for a clamshell, she noticed the rumblings of hunger beginning to settle in her stomach. The sea was getting deeper the farther she traveled, the light becoming less and less. Up ahead, a thick forest of kelp rose from the bottom of the seabed. She stopped and thought about turning back and just telling Elsa that she couldn't find anything suitable for her bust. Why Elsa was so embarrassed at seeing her bare-breasted anyways was beyond the mermaid.
But she gets so embarrassed seeing my breasts, Ariel told herself. It makes no sense. They're just breasts. We use them to feed our babies. Don't the humans use theirs for similar functions? Maybe their breasts are strictly for show? Maybe they can't use them for feeding? Ariel pondered the thought a few moments.
Hovering idly over the vastly expansive forest, Ariel stared down into the thick kelp. It was dark beyond the deep green kelp leaves, pitch black. Though the ocean floor had surely been limned in sunlight at one time, the kelp needed the sunlight to thrive. The higher the forest rose, the more sunlight each kelp tree would absorb; and with each tree battling for nourishment via the sunlight the more the ocean floor had become shrouded in darkness. Ariel was aware that traveling the forest alone could be potentially dangerous. She straightened her spine, furrowed her brow, and took in a deep breath. Determined to find a new bra, Ariel made her way into the green, underwater forest.
As she descended; the sunlight diminished as the kelp forest grew thicker, turning the bright sea into a dark abyss. Her dark-sea vision enabled her to see everything below her clearly. With the water darkening, fewer fish darted away from Ariel. She certainly had the upper hand if she were to opt for fish for lunch.
All around her were thick, kelp leaves swaying gently in the soft, sea currents flowing through the forest. She was careful not to move too fast she didn't want to disturb any of the creatures unknown to her that may be living in the forest. The last thing she wanted on her quest to find a bra was trouble.
As Ariel reached the floor of the underwater forest, her tail settled against the seabed knocking up loose dirt and dust along with mollusks and shrimp. She plucked a shrimp from the water and shoved it in her mouth. Shrimp had always been her favorite and it was always so plentiful and easy to find. She grinned as a shiver went down her spine, her growing hunger being slightly sated. Eating one little shrimp won't spoil my appetite. She plucked another shrimp from the dirt cloud and shoved it in her mouth. A wicked grin crossed her lips as she ate another shrimp.
The dirt cloud settled as did the floating snacks. Looking ahead of her, she noticed several large rocks between the gangly stalks of kelp all with algae growing on them. There were also several clams and mussels and empty shells sitting on the seabed, but still there were none that would fit Ariel's breasts. She hovered over the seabed, with her hands on the seafloor pulling herself along while her tailfin slithered through the water like a snake, up and down.
As Ariel inched her way through the thick forest, she came across a conch shell that was roughly three times the size of her own hand. She picked it up and marveled at it. It was smooth on the surface with several sharp, pointed spires near its apex. It was masked in a green hue due to her dark-sea vision, but considering most conch shells were beautiful when in direct sunlight, she had no reason to believe that this conch was any different. I wonder if Elsa would like this? It seems pretty enough to match her beauty. Ariel turned it over and fingered the opening, finding that it was empty inside. She can hold it up to her ear and listen to the sea tell her its secrets, Ariel thought as she put the conch near her ear.
At first the conch was silent, but then it whispered, "Beware of the Queen." Ariel furrowed her brow. She pulled the conch away from her ear and stared at it. "Who's the Queen? I'm not a Queen." Ariel put the conch next to her ear again, but unfortunately it was silent this time. She shrugged off the conch shell's message and holding it in her hand, she then continued her search for a clamshell for her bosom.
Ariel made her way through the green underwater foliage—the slick, smooth kelp leaves tickling her belly and her tail as she swam. Knowing she would need something to tie the clamshells together with when making her bra, Ariel moved over to a thin, barely-grown stalk of kelp—a stipe—and broke it off near its base. She stripped the long, narrow stipe of its tiny leaves and then wrapped it around her hand so it wouldn't dangle behind her, possibly getting caught on something. She continued her trek, swimming through the kelp forest admiring the forest as a whole.
A plethora of thick, lush seaweed covered the seabed. Algae covered almost everything at the bottom of the sea. Sea urchins of all colors, Ariel imagined as everything was green to her in the dark, lived anywhere they could and fish swam alongside Ariel, unafraid of what they couldn't see. Starfish rested on the algae-covered rocks at the seabed casually awaiting their next meals as several octopi had settled themselves in the dirt, hoping the mermaid wasn't craving cephalopod for dinner. Ariel passed over the sea creatures, though, despite her hunger beginning to return to her.
As she moved through the dark forest, she could see what looked to be a clearing up ahead. Ariel batted her tail through the water and rushed forward, excited at finding a clearing amid the thick kelp trees. As she swam faster and faster between the tall, thick kelp trees coming closer to the edge of the forest, she came to an abrupt stop upon seeing the cause of the clearing.
Tall, thick kelp trees had been smashed to the seafloor in what looked to be a trail of some kind as if something had rampaged through the forest. The trail went on for as long as Ariel could see in either direction and the width from one side of the forest to the other was a few fathoms long, at least. Ariel slowly swam out of the thick brush, jaw hanging agape, as she marveled at the trampled kelp trees.
She hovered just above the seabed examining the seafloor. The kelp trees hadn't just been bent or severely stunted upon growth, they had been broken at their bases and even uprooted. Looking back at the forest she had just come out of and examining the sheer density of each healthy kelp trunk, Ariel could only imagine a creature the size of a whale having the strength to do this much damage to a forest.
I don't think whales come into forests, though—or at least not this far into forests. Often times you run into a forest to escape a whale.
Never had Ariel seen anything like this before. Then again, never had she been in a forest by herself, either. When she was younger, she had always been warned by her sisters to never venture into the forest outside of Atlantica for fear of devious, ravenous sea witches that often prayed on young merfolk such as herself. Of course, she had always suspected those warnings as being myths and fables conjured up to scare young merfolk as children. Never did she believe in them until she learned that her own aunt had in fact been a sea witch.
Ariel's pulse quickened as she could feel it rising in her throat. She shifted quickly from side-to-side keeping an eye out for any and all danger. Whatever caused this destruction is sure to return, Ariel told herself. Figuring she'd be safer in the forest rather than following the clearing, at least until she found a clamshell of a comfortable size, Ariel beat her tail and swam back into the thick brush. She beat her tail hard, wanting to swim as quickly as possible away from the flattened kelp trees.
Once she was a good distance away from the clearing, she slowed her speed and floated with the gentle currents. The large, thick kelp leaves rustled serenely in the water and brought a bit of calmness to Ariel and her fluttering heart.
She continued floating with the current until her attention was seized by the sound of a loud pop! She recognized the sound almost immediately. The only thing in the water to make such a loud popping noise like that was the very thing she loved to eat most—shrimp. Unfortunately, this wasn't any normal shrimp. Based on the loud popping noise, Ariel knew right away that this was the fiercely dangerous mantis shrimp.
Seizing her full attention and her curiosity, Ariel vacated the gentle current drifting through the forest and darted between troves of seaweed, following the sound. She found the stomatopod laying in a barren part of the forest with a large shell in its grasp. She perked up at seeing the shell. It was possible that it would fit her breasts, but without examining it closely, she wasn't entirely sure. Ariel decided right then that she had to have the shell. It was her only way of knowing whether or not it was big enough to fit her bust.
Not wanting to startle the mantis shrimp, she nestled herself in the green seaweeds all around her and did her best to blend in with the forest. Her green tail was great for camouflage in the forest, but her peach, fair skin wasn't. Ariel studied the large shrimp quietly, meticulously.
It was facing the opposite direction as Ariel so she wasn't concerned with the stomatopod seeing her. If she had to guess, it was probably as long as her forearms, if not longer. It was most definitely wider than her forearms, though, which meant that she wasn't dealing with a young mantis. On top of that, being surrounded by the darkness didn't bother mantis shrimp either. Like Ariel, mantis shrimp could see in the dark. If she went at it unprepared, she would certainly lose the fight and the shell—and possibly her life.
Ariel had heard stories of other merfolk trying to take on adult-sized mantis shrimp with deadly results. She had always been told to never get in a tail-to-claw fight with mantis shrimp should she ever come across one, because their best tactics when dealing with merfolk were to pierce the merfolk's skin or scaly tails with their claws, which were used for spearing, stunning, and dismembering prey or as an act of defense, causing the merfolk to bleed profusely. Then, the shrimp would burrow under the seabed and wait for something larger such as a shark to sense the blood and finish off the injured merfolk. Ariel's best chance at surviving this encounter was to use distance. It was her only way to win the battle.
Growing up as the youngest of six older sisters, Ariel had often times been the center of her sisters' bullying. Aquata, the unofficial sporty sister, had eventually taken pity on Ariel and had taught her how to physically defend herself. As time went on, Ariel and Aquata had grown closer—though not in the same way that Attina and Andrina had grown closer—and the red headed princess learned a few tricks when it came to self-defense, and not just from her sisters, but from predators as well. Being an avid explorer, despite her father's disapproval, Ariel had learned all that Aquata had taught her had really helped when it came to keeping herself safe.
The mantis shrimp cracked its claws at the shell again, attempting to smash it open. If the shrimp was successful, Ariel would be without a suitable shell to wear should it prove to be large enough for her breasts. She had the choice of leaving the shrimp alone and potentially finding another shell large enough for her bust deeper in the forest, but whatever had caused the clearing in the other part of the forest still frightened the young mermaid. She wanted out of the forest as quickly as possible and if that meant taking on a single mantis shrimp to get her shell, then so be it.
For as much as Ariel loved to eat shrimp, she had never dared to take on a mantis shrimp before. Today would be her day, though. Not only could she possibly get her bra, but Elsa was hungry and delivering a mantis shrimp to her would surely show Elsa just how much Ariel admired her. When other merfolk would take their dates out to eat on romantic evenings, mantis shrimp was considered a prime delicacy and an excellent way of showing affection because mantis shrimp are so deadly to acquire, thus making them rare and pricey.
Ariel pondered this for a moment.
Am I seriously thinking of giving Elsa a mantis shrimp? Other merfolk do it as a way of showing their affection. Am I showing my affection for Elsa by doing this? Ariel's heart fluttered in her chest, causing a warm tingling feeling to disperse through her chest and into her tail. She giggled as the tingling sent a shiver down her spine. I'm just being friendly. It's a friendly gesture. Elsa will understand.
Nonetheless, the thought brought a grin to Ariel's face.
Laying low in the kelp, Ariel thought about how she should approach this situation. Going in with melee attacks was obviously not ideal or smart. Feeling the bound stipe tighten around her clenched fist as she thought up a plan, suddenly brought an idea to her mind. With the seaweed wrapped in one hand and the conch shell in the other, Ariel realized she could use what she had learned from Aquata growing up to make a makeshift flail.
Aquata had taught Ariel how to wrangle seahorses using the stipe of seaweed and turning it into a lasso. It just may actually work, she thought. Besides, it's just one mantis. She unwound the stipe from around her hand and tied one end around the conch. She tied the stipe in a double knot and swung the weapon above her head, the conch not coming loose. It wasn't a lasso, but hopefully she could use it in a similar fashion. I've already saved a beautiful young woman; I might as well do something else great today.
Unfortunately, the currents caused by the swinging of her newly-crafted weapon alerted the mantis shrimp of Ariel's presence. The shrimp let loose of the clamshell, quickly turning toward Ariel, readying itself to put up a defense. Thinking fast, Ariel swam out of the foliage and swiped her hand through the dirt of the seabed, causing a brown, cloudy mess of dirt and debris to blind the stomatopod. She swung her conch flail through the water and brought it down hard where the shrimp had been. When the dirt and dust settled, the shrimp was gone as was the clamshell.
Ariel's eyes widened with panic.
Where'd it go?
"Where did it go?" she screamed, reiterating her thoughts.
She dropped to the seabed and began digging through the dirt aware of how dangerous this could be should she come in direct contact with the shrimp's claws. Dirt and dust plumed in the water behind her as she dug. Suddenly, the seabed gave way as Ariel had unearthed a whole nest of mantis shrimp. She shrieked and quickly beat her tail, lifting herself out of range of all of the shrimp claws bursting through the water at her.
The shrimp began propelling themselves into the sea and swimming after the young mermaid. Ariel shrieked again. She swung the conch flail and hit one of the mantis shrimp, knocking it against an algae-covered rock, its hard exoskeleton cracking. More and more shrimp swam at Ariel. She did her best to put up a fight, but with her flail she was only able to strike one shrimp at a time. Thinking on her fin, Ariel used her best asset: her tail.
Ariel flipped onto her back and began beating her tail with ferocity. It was a maneuver that Aquata had taught her in order to keep opponents at bay. The currents she caused knocked the shrimp back, dispersing them. She swung her weapon above her head and aimed at an oncoming mantis. The conch crashed into the shrimp, a loud crack ringing through the water as the shrimp's exoskeleton cracked upon impact. It sunk to the seabed and Ariel's small victory was short-lived as more shrimp made their way toward her.
She began taking one shrimp out at a time. Soon the many shrimp that she had unearthed became only a few. Her tail was growing tired and despite the currents that it was creating, she was forced to stop beating it. Her heart beating in her chest and her chest and cheeks flushed, she swung her weapon again and hit another shrimp. Ariel surveyed the nest roughly two fathoms below her and noticed the clamshell she had wanted, unprotected and just sitting in the dirt. With only a few shrimp left alive, Ariel decided to try and out swim them.
She grabbed the conch hanging at the end of her flail and beat her tail against the water. With several shrimp coming at her, she darted forward, narrowly missing the shrimps' claws. They turned toward the mermaid and made their way back to the nest. Fortunately, for Ariel, she proved to be quicker than the deadly shrimp. She grabbed the shell, holding it between her left arm and her left breast and then grabbed one of the carcasses of the mantis shrimp.
For Elsa, she thought.
With her hands now full, she quickly made her way out of the destroyed nest and back into the kelp forest. The shrimp followed Ariel as quickly as they could. She darted around several troves of thick seaweed and then settled to the floor of the forest, finding a hiding spot under a large, fuzzy, algae-encrusted boulder. She remained silent and still for several minutes unsure of whether the other mantis shrimps had followed her or not. As she poked her head out from under the rock, she noticed the water was clear and calm. All danger seemed to be gone, so she came out and rested upon the fuzzy boulder.
Ariel pulled the clamshell from between her arm and chest and stared at it. It was green in the dark, and while it had a few cracks from the mantis shrimp beating at it, it appeared perfectly suitable to wear. Ariel dug her fingernails into the clamshell and pried it open. Inside was the soft tissue that made the clam what it was. Ariel dug into it with her nails and viciously ripped out the soft, slimy center. She stared at it, contemplating eating it. I don't want to ruin my appetite, especially since I have this delectable mantis shrimp for Elsa and I. Ariel shoved the clam meat in her mouth, savoring the slimy, soft texture along her tongue. No sense in wasting what can be eaten, she thought. Plus, that little fight really burned away the other two shrimp I had eaten earlier so it all equals out.
She pulled the clam apart, tearing it from its hinge. Holding both pieces of the shell in her hands, she held it up to her breasts. They fit perfectly, more so than the old clamshell bra she had from when she was a teenager. Ariel took the stipe that was knotted around the conch shell and chewed it free. She sat it down on the boulder and then proceeded to tie the two halves of the clamshells together until she had a bra. She tied the stipe behind her back and positioned her breasts comfortably inside the shells.
Staring down at her breasts, she sighed. She enjoyed being bare-breasted, but for whatever reason it seemed to fluster Elsa. They're just breasts, Ariel thought, again. Then again, remembering her time as a human, everyone always covered up. It was a human thing that Ariel had never understood, and an odd human thing at that, she thought. She shrugged her shoulders and grabbed the conch shell and the dead mantis shrimp. For Elsa, she thought once again.
As Ariel lifted herself from the rock she noticed a wooden sign similar in design to that of a human's that had been attached to one of the kelp trees. She swam over to it and carved into the wooden sign were words written in Merl—the native language of all merfolk. The sign read, 'Mantis Forest. Beware of the nest of mantis shrimp and the Mantis Queen. Enter at your own risk.'
Ariel stared at the sign with a blank face. "Yeah, thanks," she said bluntly, her voice showing her annoyance. "It would have been great to see you earlier when I thought there was only one shrimp!" She held up the shrimp she currently had with her. Ariel grinned. "I still got the prize, though."
Feeling victorious, Ariel beat her tail, ascending to the surface with the conch shell in one hand and the shrimp carcass in the other. It was going to be a long swim back to Elsa, but dinner would certainly prove to be worth it.Female Muslim TV hosts are beginning to make a delicious habit of their uppity insolence.
Last month we enjoyed the spectacle of a Saudi TV host losing her composure and laughing in a male guest’s face when he proposed something absurdly sexist and offensive.
Now it’s the turn of interviewer Rima Karaki of Lebanon’s Al-Jadeed TV. When she attempts to rein in her loquacious, time-wasting guest, London-based Islamist Hani Al-Sibai, the man quickly goes from irritated to upset to nasty.
This version of events says that in the end, she had his mic turned off, presumably terminating his appearance, but the video doesn’t exactly show that. Still, kudos to Karaki for not taking guff from this disagreeable cretin.
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BONUS: This happened on Egyptian TV in 2013. Skip to 0:18.Riitta Excell wore a pair of homemade wool socks: white with red floral patterns and rounded blue toes. Around her were women sipping tea and enjoying plum pastries and chicken feta pie. They wore homemade wool socks, as well.
It was nearly 3 o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon, and Pirkko Fihlman’s living room on the outskirts of Helsinki was filled with black-and-white family photos, porcelain figurines of angels and birds, and embroidered rococo chairs. The clink of tea cups fell silent, and then Excell squeezed her eyes closed, clenched her fists, and began to sing a lament in Finnish.
“I took pills for my depression
just to smother my emotions.
Doctors said that I would need them,
but I learned to cry without them.
So I stopped taking the tablets,
then I let my feelings rise up
for my mother when she passed on,
for my marriage when he quit me,
left me as a single mother,
with a hard job and no weekends.
Now I weep without taking pills,
yet I still feel very angry,
and the fury seems well-founded,
but the feelings will not hurt me.”
Excell’s lyrics may be modern, but the style of singing comes from an older place.
“Lament [singing] is a very |
on rotation changes.
And although Atkinson wouldn’t talk about rotations, expect Caris LeVert to fill his spot in the backcourt to develop chemistry with Russell. It was supposed to be the backcourt of the future. After Wednesday night, it’s the backcourt of now.Italian poet Gabriele d’Annunzio was rumored to have pleasured himself orally
Long before I knew very much about anything regarding sex, I did what many young males do, which of course is to place an empty paper-towel roll over my penis and suck hopefully upon the cardboard end. Okay, perhaps not everyone does this; I was a little confused about the suction principle. And now I’m a bit embarrassed by the story, although it’s been a full year since the event and I’m much better informed on the subject of fellatio today. Oh, settle down, I’m only joking.
Well, kind of. I did actually attempt this feat, but I was 12 or 13 at the time, which, to give you a clearer sense of my unimpressive carnal knowledge at that age, is also around the time that I submitted to my older sister with great confidence that a “blow job” involves using one’s lips to blow a cool breeze upon another’s anus.
So to avoid similar confusion, let us define our terms clearly. Autofellatio, the subject at hand—or rather, not at hand at all—is the act of taking one’s genitals in one’s mouth to derive sexual pleasure. Terminology is important here, because at least one team of psychiatrists writing on this subject distinguishes between autofellatio and “self-irrumatio.” In nonsolo sex, fellatio sees most of the action in the sucking party while irrumatio has more of a thrusting element to it, wherein the other person’s mouth serves as a passive penile receptacle. (Hence the colorful and rather aggressive-sounding slang for irrumatio—”face-f*cking,” “skull-f*cking,” and so on.)
In any event, my paper-towel-roll act was simply a “Plan B” at that puerile age, a futile way to circumvent the obvious anatomical limitations to oral self-gratification. And by all accounts, I wasn’t alone in hatching Plan B. Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues reported in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, in fact, that, “[a] considerable portion of the population does record attempts at self-fellation, at least in early adolescence.” Sadly, given our species’ pesky ribcage and hesitant spine, Kinsey estimated that only two or three of every 1,000 males are able to achieve this feat. There’s the story of the Italian decadent poet, Gabriele d’Annunzio, who is said to have had a bone removed to facilitate the act, or that old Saturday Night Live skit in which Will Ferrell enrolls in a Yoga class only to become flexible enough to fellate his own organ. But truth is often stranger than fiction. In 1975, the psychiatrist Frances Millican and her colleagues described the real case of a “very disturbed” patient who learned Yoga precisely for this reason.
Now, you may think that being one of the ultrabendable 0.25 percent of the population is all fun and games. (We’ve all heard those quips about never having to leave the house.) But think again. There’s a long and unfortunate history of pathologizing this behavior; psychiatrists have described its practitioners as being sexually maladjusted, stuck in an infantile state of suckling dependency, or even motivated by repressed homosexual desires. Take the case described by psychiatrists Jesse Cavenar, Jean Spalding, and Nancy Butts, who wrote in 1977 of a lonely, 22-year-old serviceman who’d been fellating himself since the age of 12. He was driven mad, “by the fact that he could physically incorporate only the glans, and wanted to be able to incorporate more.” Honestly, it must have been so—oh, what’s the word I’m looking for … it’s right on the tip of my tongue—frustrating, for this poor soldier. This is the ultimate cock tease, its being so close yet so far away.
Since the days of Freud, psychoanalysts have gone to town on the subject of autofellatio. In a 1971 article by psychiatrist Frank Orland, we see the typical jargon-filled language used in dissecting the “symbolic” bases of autofellatio, which is conceptualized as a virtual “ring of narcissism”:
… autofellation represents a recreation of the early infantile state in which the intrapsychic representatives of external objects are separated from the self-object, with a coexisting parasitic symbiosis with the external object. Through the autofellatio phenomenon, the ego re-establishes the necessary mastery over the external object representative as a defence against object loss and to restore the parasitic fusion with the nipple-breast.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is unadulterated psychobabble—and I tell you this as a psychologist. Sometimes, people are motivated to lick their own genitals because it just feels good. Of course, there are always going to be those, such as the dubious Yoga master, who take it a bit too far and for whom autofellatio contributes to mental illness. The foregoing soldier, who couldn’t take it far enough, got so frustrated by his semifulfilled fantasy that, when he masturbated the old-fashioned way, he could achieve climax only by imagining himself fellating himself.
The very first published psychiatric case of autofellatio, appearing in the American Journal of Psychiatry way back in 1938, was also one of the most outrageous and pathological. The patient was a 33-year-old store clerk who, prior to being referred to Yale psychiatrists Eugen Kahn and Ernest Lion, had just completed a 60-day jail sentence for sexual assault. “Among his perverse practices,” explain the authors, “were pedophilia, cunnilinguism, homosexual acts (fellatio, sodomy and mutual masturbation), exhibitionism, transvestism, fetishism, algolagnia, voyeurism and peeping.” But never mind all those vanilla paraphilias. The man’s psychiatrists were especially intrigued by his more unusual habit. He seems a devious wee character, this patient of theirs. The authors describe him as being somewhat effeminate in posture, gait and mannerisms; he stood only 5 feet 2 inches tall—”somewhat thin and with wide hips,” they wrote, with “a female pattern of distribution of his pubic hair” and “his gag reflex is very sluggish.”
The patient was the third-oldest of eight children and grew up in a strict, religious family, which the physicians felt he rebelled against by egregiously breaching their high moral standards. In recounting to the psychiatrists the origins of his interest in autofellatio, the troubled clerk recalled being invited at the age of 14 by a “cripple boy” to engage in oral sex with him. The patient, being shy, had refused this offer, but the thought of it simmered and, lacking the courage to approach anyone else, he took matters upon himself: “He kept trying night after night, managing to bend his back more and more until he finally succeeded in August, 1923.” (The 89th anniversary of this event is coming up, in case you want to mark it on your calendar.) It turns out he liked it—so much, in fact, that even amidst the long litany of perversions he enjoyed, self-irrumatio instantly became his favorite autoerotic act.
In an odd Pavlov’s dog sort of way, the authors even describe how the man’s sexual arousal had since then been accompanied by a “constricting feeling in the throat.” That must be a terribly annoying feeling, I’d imagine, and apparently also one not easily resolved. “He has attempted to secure substitute gratification,” say the authors, “by smoking, or by stimulating his pharynx with a banana, vaginal douche or a broom handle. These have yielded various degrees of satisfaction.” And he did apparently get over his adolescent shyness and lack of confidence, too—he particularly enjoyed fellating himself in front of a shocked audience.
Since this initial case report by Kahn and Lion, a handful of others have trickled in over the years, with subsequent investigators attempting to find a set of common personality denominators in those who prefer autofellatio over other forms of sex. In a 1954 article in Psychoanalytic Review, for instance, William Guy and Michael Finn saw a theme beginning to emerge. “In all of the clinical descriptions,” observe these authors, “one finds repeatedly such phrases as sensitive, shy, timid, effeminate, and passive.” This is code for “queer,” I believe, and in fact other writers have more expressly noted the often-suppressed homosexual desires in these autofellators.
In fact, judging by the scant literature, one of the big psychoanalytic questions yet to be resolved satisfactorily seems to be the extent to which engaging in autofellatio—or perhaps simply the desire to do so—signals a latent erotic attraction to the same sex. I suspect, however, that the overrepresentation of gay men in the antiquated case reports is simply a reflection of the cultural ethos of those times. The most recent psychiatric investigations on autofellatio date to the late 1970s (around the time that Freud’s particular grip on psychiatry lost its tenuous hold), and the earlier ones to the 1930s, so as a rule the men described therein faced baseless moralistic proscriptions against homosexuality. This meant other men’s penises were very hard to come by. So it’s not terribly surprising that those too frightened to perform fellatio on another man would develop severe neuroses after indulging in their own penises.
A 1946 article from the American Journal of Psychiatry exemplifies this phenomenon. The case involves a 36-year-old, highly intelligent, personable, but virginal staff sergeant (not to be confused with the military man we met earlier) with closeted homosexual desires. According to the official record, he’d first performed autofellatio at age 13, but he became so frightened by this “impulse” that he resisted ever doing so again—that is, until a month prior to arriving at the psychiatric ward of the hospital. After giving himself head in private, the sergeant became intensely paranoid that the other soldiers somehow knew of his autofellatio, and that every little snigger, whisper, or averted glance concerned this transgression. He suffered a nervous breakdown on hearing the word “cocksucker” floating about so casually and playfully in the military barracks, convinced it was meant just for him.
It’s a rather sad ending for him, too, because despite his responding well to the doctors’ reassurance that he was being overly paranoid, the sergeant was discharged for being “no longer adaptable within the military service.” The therapists assigned to the case, Major Morris Kessler and Captain George Poucher, reached a rather strange conclusion, one that I have a hunch you might disagree with: “Sexual self-sufficiency,” they write, “either by masturbation or autofellatio, is tantamount to having an affinity for one’s own sex.” In other words, if you were a fan of manual masturbation in 1946, my heterosexual male friends, you’d have been branded a secret homosexual pervert who likes penises so much that he gives himself hand jobs. This would have made autofellatio a devil of a case under the Clinton-era “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban on gays in the military had it arisen then. And, seriously, good riddance to those ignorant days of yore. To each his own—quite literally in the case of autofellatio.
I know, I know, I didn’t even get a chance to talk about autocunningulism in females. Given the even more serious anatomical hurdles in lacking a protruding reproductive device, such behavior in women may not even be possible. I confess I don’t know; and there’s no mention of it in the scientific literature. The closest female comparison to autofellatio I stumbled upon is the case of women who suckle from their own breasts, for sexual or other purposes. One therapist writes of an especially self-sufficient female patient who had a habit of doing this. When he asked her why, she merely replied, “I’m hungry.” But that’s another article for another day.“There is no appetite to be nice on the day after,” said Camille Grand, the director of the Foundation for Strategic Research in France. “Whatever the British say or feel, there will be a price to pay, if only to prevent further attempts to exit the E.U.”
The French message, Mr. Grand said, is like Mr. Schäuble’s: “If you leave, you leave. And we won’t grant you the benefits of the single market. You won’t move to an à la carte membership.”
The Germans and the Dutch, Mr. Grand said, “might be tempted to be more flexible, but in Paris, it’s a divorce, and we must be tough with the British to prevent the Czechs or whomever from trying to make their own deals.”
But it may be the political aspect of a British exit that worries Europeans the most, coupled with the expected financial shock, said Guntram Wolff, the director of Bruegel, an independent research institution in Brussels.
“Populists throughout Europe will celebrate this as a ‘feast of democracy,’ where finally the citizens get their say over the elites,” Mr. Wolff said. “Populists all over Europe will gain in strength. And markets could react by saying, ‘The first brick is out of the wall, and now let’s bet on another brick.’”
The next brick, Mr. Wolff said, could be economically troubled Italy, and that “could set in motion a domino effect,” with the euro dropping sharply in value along with the pound. So the European Central Bank would have to be prepared to prop up the banks and the euro against market pressure, just as the Bank of England would have to prop up the pound.
No one in Germany thinks it would be good if the British left, said Daniela Schwarzer, the director of the Europe program at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin. “If the European Union is not able to prove that membership is worth having, and that in the end emotion wins over rational debates, this not only tells you something about public sentiment in Britain, but will have a contagion effect in other nations,” she said.Garuda 1 is an Indonesian communications satellite which is operated by ACeS. It was constructed by Lockheed Martin and is based on the A2100AXX satellite bus. It has two very large antennas, each measuring 12 meter in diameter. Launch occurred on 12 February 2000, at 09:10:54 GMT. The launch was contracted by ILS, and used a Proton-K/DM3 carrier rocket flying from Site 81/23 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
At the time of its launch, it was the heaviest commercial payload to be launched by a Proton. During its launch, the Block DM3 upper stage made three burns instead of the usual two. This was the first time that the Block DM had used a three-burn ascent profile.
Following its launch and on-orbit testing, it was placed in geostationary orbit at 123° East, from where it provides communications services to Asia. It is equipped with 88 transponders, allowing it to cover the entire continent with 140 spot beams. The satellite is controlled by ACeS Satellite Control Facility situated in Batam island, Indonesia.
The Garuda 1 was originally to be supplemented by a second satellite (Garuda 2), but the plan never materialized.
An anomaly with some of the antennae was discovered in September 2000, and significantly reduced the satellite's communications capacity. A few years later more anomalies were found, further reducing its capacity by more than 50%. Several curative actions have been taken by ACeS engineers to salvage the satellite and it is expected to survive another 5–7 years.[citation needed]
In mid-2015, the satellite experienced another malfunction, making it in unusable state. After the malfunction, the satellite was finally retired and was moved into a graveyard orbit.
References [ edit ]Much as it hurts me to my heart to say this as a Florida fan, Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston is going to be one of the most fun college football players of 2013 and beyond. The glorious quotes that come out of his mouth are only part of why.
Today, at an FSU media availability, Winston, a redshirt freshman who sat behind EJ Manuel in 2012 and became a phenomenon with tremendous spring play, opined on rainy days, "Manziel disease," robot tight ends, cheese balls, and black church, and generally wooed everyone paying attention. (The "Manziel disease" bit was prompted by a question.)
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Then he literally dropped the mic:
But Winston isn't just a funny dude (he wants to be a throat doctor), and he's equally entertaining outside the confines of the controlled media environment.
Oh, and he's pretty fucking good at sports, and at quasi-sports things. (Throwing a ball over a house, not baseball, is the quasi-sports thing here.)
Winston's first name is pronounced JAY-miss, so Famous Jameis is almost too obvious, but you're going to hear it a lot this fall, as FSU tramples another underwhelming schedule. Please remember to enjoy him, instead of ruining him.
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Photo: Stacy Revere/GettyPeyton Manning has struggled to recapture his greatness. Can he pick up his play against the Chiefs Thursday night? (Joe Mahoney/AP Photo)
Peyton Manning just finished the worst four game stretch of his career. For a player who has started 281 career games, that’s a pretty bold statement. Then again, few quarterbacks have reached the incredible peaks that for years Manning turned into his permanent residence. That said, consider Manning’s numbers in his last four games, including the playoffs, per ProFootballReference.com:
Opp Cmp Att Cmp% Yds TD Int Rate Y/A ANY/A CIN 28 44 63.64 311 2 4 61.8 7.07 3.48 OAK 21 37 56.76 273 0 0 80.1 7.38 7.11 IND 26 46 56.52 211 1 0 75.5 4.59 4.58 BAL 24 40 60.00 175 0 1 59.9 4.38 2.39
With the exception of a solid performance against a terrible Raiders team, these games represent a wild departure from Manning’s normal level of production.
The best simple metric of passing performance is a metric known as Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt (ANY/A), which is calculated using yards per attempt as a starting point. From there, the formula provides a 20-yard bonus for passing touchdowns and a 45-yard penalty for interceptions, while also incorporating sack data. Manning has always been exceptional in this category, finishing above average in each season since his rookie year, and ranking first or second in ANY/A in seven of 15 seasons from 1999 to 2014. But over the last four games, Manning’s numbers — and play — have dropped significantly.
Against the Bengals in late December last season, Manning averaged 3.48 ANY/A (largely due to four interceptions) against a good Bengals defense that allowed 5.33 ANY/A to opposing passers (the league average in 2014 was 6.14). The next week, he averaged 7.11 ANY/A against Oakland, but the Raiders allowed 7.12 ANY/A to opposing passers in 2014; in other words, Manning fared about as well as you’d expect an average quarterback to fare against Oakland.
The ugliness continues in the playoff game, where Manning fell far short of expectations, averaging 4.58 ANY/A against an Indianapolis defense that allowed 6.28 ANY/A to opponents in the regular season. And on Sunday, Manning averaged an anemic 2.39 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt against Baltimore — that was his worst average in a single game since a poor performance in Cleveland back in 2008.
We don’t know how well the Ravens pass defense will play this year, but as a placeholder, let’s use Baltimore’s 6.09 ANY/A average allowed to opposing passers last year (early returns suggest that the Ravens will be quite a bit better though, this year). If we take a simple rolling, four-game average of Manning’s ANY/A in each game relative to the average ANY/A allowed by the opposing defense in that game, Manning’s last four games would rate as the worst of his career:
Here’s a closer look on his recent performances, namely in games since the start of the 2014 regular season:
Here, the numbers confirm the eye test: Manning has never looked worse than he has in his last few outings. But does this mean he is washed up? Well, this week will mark should provide a great litmus test.
Over the last three years, no quarterback has dominated the Chiefs like Manning: The Broncos are 6-0 against Kansas City since 2012, while Manning has thrown for 1,736 yards, with 16 TDs and just 3 INTs in those games. That translates to a whopping 9.26 ANY/A, nearly three full yards per attempt above the 6.34 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt average allowed by the Kansas City defense the past three years.
So Thursday Night may provide the best medicine for a struggling Manning … or be the most convincing sign that at 39, Manning is washed up. Just three passers have posted above-average ANY/A metrics at age 39 or older: Brett Favre, Warren Moon and Jim Plunkett. On the other hand, Manning has spent most of his career playing better than just about every one in the NFL, so historical comparisons have limited value.
Pinpointing the problem
Since Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt is a metric designed to encompass many facets of quarterback play, it makes sense to figure out which variable is truly sinking Manning’s numbers. And that’s pretty clear: against Baltimore, Manning completed 24 passes but for only 175 yards, which puts Manning in some pretty poor company. That translates to an average of just 7.3 yards per completion, the lowest average by Manning in any game (minimum 20 attempts) since his rookie season (Manning also averaged just 8.1 yards per completion against the Colts; at the time, that was his second lowest average in any game he’s had since joining the Broncos in 2012). While yards per completion is not necessarily an indicator of quarterback ability, it is a pretty good indicator of quarterback style, and Manning has generally been slightly above league average in this metric.
So if Manning’s yards per completion average is dropping, that could be a big indicator that this older version of Manning is a very different quarterback than the Manning of old. But at least in Week 1, it may not have been all his fault. Manning’s average completion went for 4.58 yards in the air — which is not particularly notable, since it ranked 20th among all quarterbacks in Week 1. What is notable is that Manning’s teammates averaged just 2.71 yards after the catch, the lowest rate of any team on Sunday.
While Manning didn’t have a good game on Sunday, he wasn’t being helped by his wide receivers Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders, nor running back C.J. Anderson. According to Pro Football Focus, Broncos players broke just two tackles on those 24 completed passes.
As always, we should be careful before piling on too much praise, or heaping on too much criticism, to just the quarterback. Given that Manning and the rest of the Denver offense is working under a new offensive under Gary Kubiak, a little more patience should be given. But if Manning struggles against Kansas City, he won’t be entitled to the benefit of the doubt for much longer.
Chase Stuart writes about the historical and statistical side of football at his site, FootballPerspective.com.This week brings a few new pieces to help get your creativity going. Fall is almost here, and this is the time of year that I personally feel the most charged to get out and shoot new work. Seasonality not withstanding, if you are needing a little direction in your creative pursuit, check out the 12 creative challenges we shared a couple days ago!
Low Season
Low Season, ©Vincenzo Caniparolli 2016
Vincenzo Caniparoli is the Italian photographer who captured this wonderful beach season, using his homemade 4×5 camera with Fomapan 100. It’s a truly wonderful example of the medium, having captured the spirit of the day. He has a great deal more excellent pinhole and lensed work on his personal website and on his Flickr page.
Twenty Eight Point Five
Twenty Eight Point Five, ©Eric K.F. Li 2016
This is the second time we’ve shared work by Eric Li, who has an exceptional eye for great photos. Previously we shared one of his pieces on the 7/18 inspiration posting. I highly recommend checking out the rest of his work on his Flickr page.
6
6, ©Konstantin Murashev 2016
Konstantin Murashev is a talented photographer out of Murmansk. In this scene, he captured a portion of time with 6 of his friends as they gathered in a Moscow apartment. Konstantin has an excellent way of seeing, and I encourage you to look more on his Flickr page, or follow him on Facebook.The planet is warming at an unprecedented rate, and reducing emissions of greenhouse gases alone is not enough to remove the risk.
Last year’s historic Paris climate agreement set the goal of keeping global temperatures no higher than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. Emission reductions will be central to achieving that goal, but supplemental efforts can further reduce risks.
One drastic idea is solar geoengineering — injecting light-reflecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere to cool the planet. Researchers know that large amounts of aerosols can significantly cool the planet; the effect has been observed after large volcanic eruptions. But these sulfate aerosols also carry significant risks. The biggest known risk is that they produce sulfuric acid in the stratosphere, which damages ozone. Since the ozone layer absorbs ultraviolet light from the sun, its depletion can lead to increased rates of skin cancer, eye damage, and other adverse consequences.
Now, researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have identified an aerosol for solar geoengineering that may be able to cool the planet while simultaneously repairing ozone damage.
The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“In solar geoengineering research, introducing sulfuric acid into the atmosphere has been the only idea that had any serious traction until now,” said David Keith, the Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at SEAS and professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, the first author of the paper. “This research is a turning point and an important step in analyzing and reducing certain risks of solar geoengineering.”
This research fundamentally rethinks what kinds of particles should be used for solar geoengineering, said Frank Keutsch, the Stonington Professor of Engineering and Atmospheric Science at SEAS and professor of chemistry and chemical biology, a co-author of the paper.
Previous research focused on ways to limit the ozone-damaging reactions produced by nonreactive aerosols. But Keutsch and Keith, along with co-authors Debra Weisenstein and John Dykema, took a completely different approach, targeting aerosols that are highly reactive.
“Anytime you introduce even initially unreactive surfaces into the stratosphere, you get reactions that ultimately result in ozone destruction, as they are coated with sulfuric acid,” said Keutsch. “Instead of trying to minimize the reactivity of the aerosol, we wanted a material that is highly reactive but in a way that would avoid ozone destruction.”
In order to keep aerosols from harming the ozone, the particles would need to neutralize sulfuric, nitric, and hydrochloric acid on their surface. To find such a particle, Keutsch turned to his handy periodic table. After eliminating the toxic elements, the finicky and rare metals, the team was left with the alkali and alkaline Earth metals, which included sodium and calcium carbonate.
“Essentially, we ended up with an antacid for the stratosphere,” said Keutsch.
Through extensive modeling of stratospheric chemistry, the team found that calcite, a constituent of limestone, could counter ozone loss by neutralizing emissions-borne acids in the atmosphere, while also reflecting light and cooling the planet.
“Calcite is one of the most common compounds found in the Earth’s crust,” said Keith. ”The amounts that would be used in a solar geoengineering application are small compared to what’s found in surface dust.”
The researchers have already begun testing calcite in lab experiments that mimic stratospheric conditions. Keith and Keutsch caution that introducing anything into the atmosphere may have unanticipated consequences.
“Stratospheric chemistry is complicated and we don’t understand everything about it,” Keith said. “There are ways that this approach could increase global ozone but at the same time, because of the climate dynamics in the polar regions, increase the ozone hole.”
The researchers emphasize that even if all the attendant risks could be reduced to acceptable levels, solar geoengineering is not a solution to climate change.
“Geoengineering is like taking painkillers,” said Keutsch. “When things are really bad, painkillers can help but they don’t address the cause of a disease and they may cause more harm than good. We really don’t know the effects of geoengineering, but that is why we’re doing this research.”
The research is supported by the Fund for Innovative Climate and Engineering Research and the Star Family Challenge for Promising Scientific Research.
Keith and Keutsch are among several faculty who will be part of the Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program, a University-wide, interdisciplinary research effort that will be launched in the spring. Housed within the Harvard University Center for the Environment, it will be one of the largest and most visible solar geoengineering research initiatives.Boy group Topp Dogg will be making their comeback with another song from their fourth mini-album. They recently promoted their title track “The Beat” and will now follow up with the song “O.A.S.I.S” in January.
Fans were able to see their sharp dance skills and new concept with “The Beat.” The group embraced a more rebellious hippy and hipster style. All 10 members captured audiences’ attention with their different charms.
Meanwhile, “O.A.S.I.S” features lyrics that express their love for a special lady. The sensual lyrics and catchy chorus is especially notable. This song will show a different appeal from “The Beat.”
Topp Dogg will also be holding concerts in Japan on January 16 and 17.
*A previous version of this article stated the group would be making a comeback. Topp Dogg will not be making an official comeback; they will be promoting their follow-up song through radio shows.
Source (1)Visit our Re-post guidelines This article is copyrighted by GreenMedInfo LLC, 2018
The root cause and potential cure for cancer is ignored by virtually all conventional oncologists despite an accumulating body of research that we already have the answer
From the perspective of conventional cancer treatment a diagnosis of multi-drug resistant cancer is equivalent to a death sentence. By the time such a diagnosis occurs, the patient's body has been irreversibly damaged by chemotherapy and radiation, and an even more aggressive cancer has emerged to take the place of the original one.
Tragically, these treatments do not simply fail, but make the cancers more malignant. This fact is effectively concealed by the name multidrug resistant cancer which makes it seem as if the cancer was so exceptionally resistant and malignant that the normally effective drugs used to treat it just couldn't do the job.
But wouldn't it be more accurate to call this multi-drug failed cancer, putting the responsibility back on the medical establishment, as it should be, in recognition of the impotence, or worse, cancer-promoting nature of its treatment choices?
In other words, instead of blaming the treatment failure on the patient's body – or a set of virulent gene mutations within their cancer – it is time we look more closely at why conventional chemotherapy and radiation-based treatments breed multidrug resistance within the cancer of patients, who ultimately succumb to the effects of the treatment and not the cancer they were originally diagnosed with.
How Conventional Cancer Treatment Creates Greater Malignancy
Multidrug resistant cancer is the byproduct of cancer doctors (oncologists) throwing the chemical and radiological kitchen sink at the patient and not only failing to improve their condition, but significantly worsening it. How so? In order to understand how conventional treatment drives the cancer into greater malignancy, we must first understand what cancer is.
Tumors are actually highly organized assemblages of cells, which are surprisingly well-coordinated for cells that are supposed to be the result of strictly random mutation. They are capable of building their own blood supply (angiogenesis), are able to defend themselves by silencing cancer-suppression genes, secreting corrosive enzymes to move freely throughout the body, alter their metabolism to live in low oxygen and acidic environments, and know how to remove their own surface-receptor proteins to escape detection by white blood cells. In a previous article titled "Is Cancer An Ancient Survival Program Unmasked?" we delved deeper into this emerging view of cancer as an evolutionary throw-back and not a byproduct of strictly random mutation.
Because tumors are not simply the result of one or more mutated cells "going rogue" and producing exact clones of itself (multi-mutational and clonal hypotheses), but are a diverse group of cells having radically different phenotypal characteristics, chemotherapy and radiation will affect each cell type differently.
Tumors are composed of a wide range of cells, many of which are entirely benign.
The most deadly cell type within a tumor or blood cancer, known as cancer stem cells (CSCs), has the ability to give rise to all the cell types found within that cancer.
They are capable of dividing by mitosis to form either two stem cells (increasing the size of the stem population), or one daughter cell that goes on to differentiate into a variety of cell types, and one daughter cell that retains stem-cell properties.
This means CSCs are tumorigenic (tumor-forming) and should be the primary target of cancer treatment because they are capable of both initiating and sustaining cancer. They are also increasingly recognized to be the cause of relapse and metastasis following conventional treatment.
CSCs are exceptionally resistant to conventional treatment for the following reasons:
[1] CSCs account for less than 1 in 10,000 cells within a particular cancer, making them difficult to destroy without destroying the vast majority of other cells comprising the tumor.
CSCs are slow to replicate, making them less likely to be destroyed by chemotherapy and radiation treatments that target cells which are more rapidly dividing.
Conventional chemotherapies target differentiated and differentiating cells, which form the bulk of the tumor, but these are unable to generate new cells like the CSCs which are undifferentiated.
The existence of CSCs explains why conventional cancer treatment has completely missed the boat when it comes to targeting the root cause of tumors. One reason for this is because existing cancer treatments have mostly been developed in animal models where the goal is to shrink a tumor. Because mice are most often used and their life spans do not exceed two years, tumor relapse is very difficult, if not impossible to study.
The first round of chemotherapy never kills the entire tumor, but only a percentage. This phenomenon is called the fractional kill. The goal is to use repeated treatment cycles (usually six) to regress the tumor population down to zero, without killing the patient.
What normally occurs is that the treatment selectively kills the less harmful populations of cells (daughter cells), increasing the ratio of CSCs to benign and/or less malignant cells. This is not unlike what happens when antibiotics are used to treat certain infections. The drug may wipe out 99.9% of the target bacteria, but.1% have or develop resistance to the agent, enabling the.1% to come back even stronger with time.
The antibiotic, also, kills the other beneficial bacteria that help the body fight infection naturally, in the same way that chemotherapy kills the patient's immune system (white blood cells and bone marrow), ultimately supporting the underlying conditions making disease recurrence more likely.
The reality is that the chemotherapy, even though it has reduced the tumor volume, by increasing the ratio of CSCs to benign daughter cells, has actually made the cancer more malignant.
Radiotherapy has also been shown to increase cancer stem cells in the prostate, ultimately resulting in cancer recurrence and worsened prognosis.[2] Cancer stem cells may also explain why castration therapy often fails in prostate cancer treatment.[3]
Non-Toxic Natural Substances Which Target and Kill CSCs
Natural compounds have been shown to exhibit three properties which make them suitable alternatives to conventional chemotherapy and radiotherapy:
High margin of safety: Relative to chemotherapy agents such as 5-fluorouracil natural compounds are two orders of magnitude safer Relative to chemotherapy agents such asnatural compounds are two orders of magnitude safer Selective Cytotoxicity: The ability to target only those cells that are cancerous and not healthy cells The ability to target only those cells that are cancerous and not healthy cells CSCs Targeting: The ability to target the cancer stem cells within a tumor population.
The primary reason why these substances are not used in conventional treatment is because they are not patentable, nor profitable. Sadly, the criteria for drug selection are not safety, effectiveness, accessibility and affordability. If this were so, natural compounds would form an integral part of the standard of care in modern cancer treatment.
Research indicates that the following compounds (along with common dietary sources) have the ability to target CSCs:
Resveratrol (Red Wine; Japanese Knotweed) (Red Wine; Japanese Knotweed)
Parthenolide (Butterbur)
Additional research found on the GreenMedInfo.com Multidrug Resistance page indicate over 50 compounds inhibit multidrug resistance cancers in experimental models.
Don't forget to register for the groundbreaking documentary, The Truth About Cancer, featuring Sayer Ji in all but one episode. He will be speaking about cancer stem cells and their role in cancer and healing.
References
[1] Human acute myeloid leukemia is organized as a hierarchy that originates from a primitive hematopoietic cell. Nat Med. 1997 Jul ;3(7):730-7. PMID: 9212098
[2] Long-term recovery of irradiated prostate cancer increases cancer stem cells. Prostate |
s’ support staff in recent years but joins the Tigers in November for pre-season training.
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SHARKS SWOOP ON SEA EAGLE
Manly backrower Jesse Sene-Lefao will join Cronulla next year on a two-year deal.
Last week the 25-year-old was released by the Sea Eagles from the final year of his contract with the Sharks swooping in.
“While the club is disappointed to lose Jesse, it’s important that he is given every opportunity to fulfil his potential with another professional rugby league team,” Sea Eagles CEO Joe Kelly said.
“He has been a solid clubman and ambassador for the Sea Eagles and we wish him all the best for his future in the game.”
Sene-Lefao has played 38 NRL games after making his debut for the Sea Eagles back in round one of the 2013 season
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FILIPO TO FLY?
Marvin Filipo with former Knight Timana Tahu. Source: News Limited
Newcastle utility Marvin Filipo is eyeing a move to England.
Unsigned for 2016, the centre-backrower has attracted interest from the Super League and at least one Sydney-based NRL club.
Filipo, who has played four NRL games for the Knights, will make a decision on his future shortly and could attempt to mirror the move of former Knights teammate Zeb Taia.
Taia, a fellow New Zealander, left the NRL for a stint in England before signing with the Titans for 2016.
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LATEST RUMOURS
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MANLY EYE DRAGONS DISCARD?
Manly are believed to be eyeing sacked St George Illawarra forward Addin Fonua-Blake.
The Dragons fired the promising prop for breaching his contract in January.
The 19-year-old was fined and hit with a 12 month suspended sentence for allegedly assaulting his former partner.
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EARL THE EEL?
There are whispers on social media that the Eels are keeping an eye on Sandor Earl.
The 26-year-old faces a four-year ban for trafficking after facing the anti-doping tribunal last month.
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PENRITH VETERAN TO RETURN?
Tony Puletua playing for Salford. Source: Getty Images
Could Tony Puletua be gearing up for one last stint in the NRL with Penrith?
The 36-year-old forward retired a few weeks back after completing his contract with Hull KR and is set to turn to Australia.
But the prop told the Hull Daily Mail last week he may dust off the boots for one more season in the NRL.
“I’m going to get home, settle in then set up some meetings with clubs I played at back in the day,” Puletua said.
“Nothing’s cemented but I’ll see what I can get when I get back home.
“I had mixed feelings about finishing up. I kind of wanted to get away from the game but there’s loads of people telling me to stay in it.”
Puletua enjoyed 12 seasons with the Panthers where he won a premiership in 2003 before moving to England for stints with St Helens, Hull KR and Salford.
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If you have heard a rumour you want to share with us, tweet us: @FoxNRL, @Nath_Ryan or email Nathan.Ryan@news.com.au
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OFF CONTRACT LIST FOR 2015
BRONCOS
New deal: Josh McGuire (2 years), Andrew McCullough (2 years), Kodi Nikorima (1 year), Joe Ofahengaue (2 years), Carlin Anderson (1 year), Jordan Kahu (2 years), Alex Glenn (2 years), Sam Thaiday (3 years), Francis Molo (1 year)
Leaving: Mitch Garbutt (released — Super League to Leeds on three-year-deal), Marmin Barba (released), Todd Lowrie (Knights — 1 year), Ashley Taylor (released — Titans on 2 year-deal), Justin Hodges (Retiring), Matt Parcell (Manly — three years), Jayden Nikorima (Roosters — 3 years), David Stagg (Retiring), Mitchell Dodds (Warrington — 1 year), Daniel Vidot (leaving), Jon Green (retiring), Zach Strasser (Redcliffe)
RAIDERS
Jack Ahearn, Glen Buttriss, Mitchell Cronin
New deal: Jarrad Kennedy (2 years), Jeremy Hawkins (2 years), Elliot Whitehead (joining from Catalans Dragons in 2016 — 2 year deal), Jordan Rapana (2 years), Blake Austin (extended until end of 2018)
Leaving: Dane Tilse (Mid-season release — Hull KR), David Shillington (Titans — 2 years), Luke Page (Mid-season release to Dragons for rest of the season), Bill Tupou (Mid-season release — Wakefield), Mitchell Cornish (Eels — 1 year), Kyle O’Donnell (Retiring), Joel Edwards (Tigers — 2 years), Mark Nicholls (Storm — 2 years), Josh McCrone (Dragons — 2 years)
Bulldogs hooker Damien Cook is tackled. Source: News Corp Australia
BULLDOGS
Damien Cook, Pat O’Hanlon, Tyrone Phillips
New deal: Sam Kasiano (3 years), Dane Chisholm (1 year), Chase Stanley (2 years), Sam Perrett (2 years)
Leaving: Frank Pritchard (Super League — Hull FC on three-year-deal), Trent Hodkinson (Knights — 3 years), Corey Thompson (Super League — Widnes on two-year deal), Jacob Loko (released)
SHARKS
Tinirau Arona, Nathan Gardner, Saulala Houma, Pat Politoni, Sami Sauiluma, Anthony Tupou
New deal: Paul Gallen (1 year), Ricky Leutele (3 years), Junior Roqica (1 year), Chris Heighington (1 year), Sam Tagataese (1 year), Matt Prior (2 years)
Leaving: Michael Gordon (Eels — 1 year), Blake Ayshford (Warriors — 2 years), Josh Addo-Carr (Tigers — 1 year), Jeff Robson (Warriors — 1 year), Kyle Stanley (Retired)
TITANS
Caleb Binge, David Crampton, Jamie Dowling, Jamal Fogarty, Christian Hazard
New deal: Kane Elgey (2 years), Karl Lawton (2 years), James Roberts (2 years), Eddy Pettybourne (2 years), Agnatius Paasi (2 years), Zeb Taia (2 years from Catalans in Super League)
Leaving: Aidan Sezer (Raiders — 3 year deal), Nate Myles (Sea Eagles — 3 years), Mark Ioane (Mid-season release to Dragons for rest of the season), Dave Taylor (released to Super League club Catalans), Ben Ridge (Retiring), Matt White (released — Storm for 1 year), Brad Tighe (retired), Beau Falloon (released), Kalifa Faifai Loa (Dragons — 2 years)
SEA EAGLES
Tyson Andrews, Siosaia Vave
New deal: Steve Matai (2 years), Matt Ballin (2 years), Jake and Tom Trbojevic (contract extension until end of 2017), Daly Cherry-Evans (6 years with 2 year option), Tony Santi (1 year), Brett Stewart (contract extension until end of 2017)
Leaving: Kieran Foran (Eels — 2 years), Ligi Sao (Warriors — 2 years), Geoff Toovey (sacked), Jack Littlejohn (Tigers — 1 year), Michael Chee Kam (Tigers — 1 year), Justin Horo (Super League club Catalans — 2 years), James Hasson (Eels — 1 year), Dunamis Lui (Dragons — 2 years), Clinton Gutherson (released), David Williams (released), Willie Mason (released), Cheyse Blair (Storm — 1 year), Jesse Sene-Lefao (Sharks — 2 years)
Easts Tigers player Shaun Nona. Source: News Corp Australia
STORM
Hymel Hunt, Shaun Nona, Travis Robinson
New deal: Jordan McLean (signed until end of 2017), Felise Kaufusi (2 years), Dean Britt (2 years), Joe Stimson (2 years), Billy Slater (2 years), Richie Kennar (1 year)
Leaving: Ryan Hinchcliffe (Super League — Huddersfield on three-year-deal), Kurt Mann (Dragons — 2 years), Dayne Weston (English second-tier — Leigh on two-year-deal), Mahe Fonua Super League — (Hull FC for 3 years), Matt Duffie (rugby — 2 years),, Tom Learoyd-Lahrs (Retiring)
WARRIORS
New deal: Ben Matulino (2 years), Konrad Hurrell (3 years), Manu Vatuvei (3 years), Tuimoala Lolohea (Contract extension until end of 2018), Solomone Kata (Contract extension until end of 2018), Sam Lisone (Contract extension until end of 2018), Toafofoa Sipley (2 years), Albert Vete (2 years), Jonathan Wright (1 year), Nathaniel Roache (2 years), Marata Niukore (1 year), Ben Henry (1 year), Ken Maumalo (1 year), Mason Lino (2 years), Henare Wells (1 year from Queensland Cup), Raymond Faitala-Mariner (1 year)
Leaving: Sam Tomkins (Super League — Wigan), Sam Rapira (Super League — Huddersfield), Suaia Matagi (released — Roosters until end of the year), Api Pewhairangi (Connacht — Ireland rugby), Nathaniel Peteru (released — Titans until end of 2016), Chad Townsend (Sharks — 2 years), Brad Abbey (Bulldogs — 3 years), Siliva Havili (Dragons — 2 years), Ngani Laumape (Rugby union), Dominique Peyroux (St Helens in Super League), Nathan Friend (Titans — 1 year), Glen Fisiiahi (Rugby union), Sebastine Ikahihifo (Dragons — 2 years)
KNIGHTS
Kerrod Holland
New deal: Korbin Sims (2 years), Tyler Randall (2 years), Chanel Mata’utia, Pat Mata’utia, Sione Mata’utia (3 years), Dane Gagai (2 years), Jake Mamo (2 years), Kade Snowden (2 years), Mickey Paea (2 years — Joining from Hull FC), Luke Yates (2 years), Jeremy Smith (1 year), Damian Sironen (midyear for remainder of 2015), Lachlan Fitzgibbon (2 years), Danny Levi (end of 2018), Jack Cogger (end of 2018), Jaelen Feeney (2 years), Nathan Ross (end of 2017)
Leaving: Beau Scott (Eels — 3 years), Kurt Gidley (Super League — Warrington), Joey Leilua (released — Raiders for remainder of 2015), Chad Redman (released — Titans for remainder of 2015), Carlos Tuimavave (released — Hull FC), Rick Stone (sacked), Clint Newton (retiring), David Fa’alogo (retiring), Tyrone Roberts (released — Titans on two-year-deal), Adam Clydsdale (released — Raiders 2 years), James Elias (released), Pat Vaivai (Raiders — 2 years), Marvin Filipo (released)
COWBOYS
Hezron Murgha, Zac Santo
New deal: Jason Taumalolo (2 years), Michael Morgan (3 years), Ethan Lowe (1 year), John Asiata (2 years), Paul Green (3 years), Ray Thompson (2 years), Ben Spina (2 years), Gideon Mosby (2 years), Scott Bolton (2 years), Ben Hannant (1 year), Jahrome Hughes (1 year from Townsville Blackhawks)
Leaving: Cameron King (Eels — 1 year), Glenn Hall (retiring), Robert Lui (Salford — 2 years)
EELS
Will Hopoate
New deal: John Folau (2 years), Brad Takairangi (2 years), Bureta Faraimo (1 year), Danny Wicks (1 year), Pauli Pauli (2 years), Peni Terepo (2 years), David Gower (2 years), Kaysa Pritchard (1 year), Vai Toutai (1 year), Joseph Ualesi (1 year), Luke Kelly (1 year), Daniel Alvaro (1 year), Ryan Morgan (2 years), Brad Arthur (end of 2017)
Leaving: Ben Crooks (Super League — Castleford on three-year-deal), Adam Quinlan (released — Super League, St Helens), Chris Sandow (Warrington — Super League on two-year-deal), Darcy Lussick (Manly — 3 years), Beau Champion (Retiring), Reece Robinson (rugby)
PANTHERS
New deal: Dallin Watene-Zelezniak (1 year), Tyrone Peachey (until end of 2017), Waqa Blake (until end of 2017), Jeremy Latimore (2 years), James Fisher-Harris (2 years), Josh Hall (2 years from Gold Coast Suns AFL), Will Smith (1 year), Leilani Latu (2 years)
Leaving: Brent Kite (Retiring), Nigel Plum (Retiring), Lewis Brown (Manly — 3 years), Apisai Koroisau (Sea Eagles — 3 years), Sika Manu (Super League — Hull FC), Kieran Moss (Eels — 1 year), David Simmons (Retiring), Shaun Spence (released), Sam Anderson (released), Adam Docker (released), Isaac John (released), Ben Murdoch-Masila (England — Salford)
Joel Reddy of Souths is tackled. Source: News Corp Australia
RABBITOHS
Kirisome Auva’a, Joel Reddy
New deal: Adam Reynolds (2 years), Luke Keary (1 year), David Tyrrell (2 years) and Thomas Burgess (1 year), Darren Nicholls (2 years), Cameron McInnes (2 years), Alex Johnston (2 years), Paul Carter (2 years), Chris Grevsmuhl (1 year), Aaron Gray (2 years), Kyle Turner (2 years), Bryson Goodwin (2 years)
Leaving: Issac Luke (Warriors — 3 years), Sione Masima (Released — Ron Massey Cup), Ben Lowe (Retiring), Glenn Stewart (released — Super League), Daryl Millard (released)
DRAGONS
New deal: Mike Cooper (2 years), Leeson Ah Mau (3 years), Ben Creagh (1 year), Jake Marketo (1 year), Will Matthews (2 years), Jason Nightingale (2 years), Peter Mata’utia (2 years), Mose Masoe (Joining from St Helens in Super League — 2 years), Mark Ioane (Joined midyear from Titans for rest of the season), Luke Page (Joined midyear from Raiders for rest of the season), Yaw Kiti Glymin (2 years), Tyrone McCarthy (Hull KR — 2 years)
Leaving: Trent Merrin (Penrith — 3 years), Kris Keating (released), Dane Nielsen (released), Beau Henry (released), Addin Fonua-Blake (released), Charly Runciman (Released — Widnes in Super League), Dan Hunt (Retired), Nathan Green (Sea Eagles — 1 year), Rory O’Brien (Eels — 1 year), Eto Nabuli (released — rugby), Justin Hunt (Tigers — 1 year), George Rose (released), Heath L’Estrange (Retired), Shannon Crook (released), Shannon Wakeman (released)
ROOSTERS
New deal: Aidan Guerra (2 years), Jared Waerea-Hargreaves (2 years), Dylan Napa (2 years), Siua Taukeiaho (2 years), Shaun Kenny-Dowall (2 years), Joe Burgess (Joining from Wigan in 2016 — 3 years), Omar Slaimankhel (Joined mid-season until 2016), Lopini Paea (joined midyear for rest of the season), Latrell Mitchell (Extended contract until end of 2019), Mitchell Frei (Joining from Wynnum Seagulls — 1 year), Daniel Tupou (2 years), Brendan Elliot (2 years), Blake Ferguson (2 years)
Leaving: Roger Tuivasa-Sheck (Warriors — 3 years), Nene MacDonald (released — Titans until end of 2017), James Maloney (Sharks — 3 years), Willis Meehan (released), Nathan Stapleton (Super League — London Broncos), Lagi Setu (released), Suaiai Matagi (Panthers — 1 year),
Samisoni Langi (released), Matt McIlwrick (released), Jack Siejka (released), Willie Manu (released)
TIGERS
Dene Halatau, Joel Luani, Keith Lulia, Kurtis Rowe, Brenden Santi, John Sila
New deal: Matt Lodge (2 years), Kevin Naiqama (2 years), Tim Simona (2 years), Watson Heleta (2 years), Marion Seve (1 year), Jesse Parahi (Australian Rugby union — 1 year), Kyle Lovett (2 years), Jordan Rankin (Super League — joining on 2 year deal), Ava Seumanufagai (2 years), Rod Griffin (Ipswich — 1 year), William McConnachie (Ipswich — 1 year), Jack Buchanan (1 year)
Leaving: Shannon McDonnell (Released — to join Super League club St Helens), Pat Richards (Super League — Catalans for 2 years), Te Maire Martin (Panthers — 3 years), Keith Galloway (Released — Leeds in Super League), Tim Moltzen (Sea Eagles — 1 year)She tied herself up and locked herself in a closet.
A Texas woman was found guilty on Wednesday of first-degree murder for the 2012 murder of her husband.
On Thursday, 57-year-old Sandra Melgar was sentenced to 27 years in prison for stabbing Jaime Melgar 31 times and then trying to stage the murder scene as a home break-in, People reports.
Prosecutors claimed that Sandra killed Jaime in their Houston-area home just one day before the couple’s 32nd wedding anniversary. After she killed her husband, she tied her hands and ankles behind her back locked herself in a closet.
Prosecutors pointed to a cloudy fingernail on Sandra’s hand, which they said was caused by bleach used to tidy up the murder scene. Then, they claim, she tried to claim a $500,000 life insurance policy. Prosecutors also said that because Sandra was a Jehovah’s Witness, a divorce would have resulted in being shunned by her community.
When the verdict was read in court, Sandra “let out a howl” and put her hands over her face, according to the Houston Chronicle.
“Sandra Melgar hacked the life out of her husband … and for that she will spend the balance of her life on a cell block,” Harris County, Texas, Assistant District Attorney Colleen Barnett said in a statement.
[Photo: Harris County Sheriff's Office]Her books are without a doubt some of the best edited books I have read so far. There were so few of the miss used found from auto-spellcheckers that I can't even remember if I found one in the three books I've read of hers so far, and I am a pedant when it comes to editing. Story elements flow nicely, and there are some especially nice surprises when the author finally gets around to adding some relevant information about some story elements which don't seem to fit at times. I recommend reading it for the story alone and doubly recommend it from the perspective that it appears to be void of poor grammar, lazy spell-checker replaced words changing the entire meaning of sentences and paragraphs, and sudden changes in concepts, sizes and heights of characters from book to book. Its amongst the most smooth flowing dreamy, (grammatically), novel reading I have come across thus far. At the time of this review writing, I can't think of any examples from other authors who wrote this smoothly, that includes Robert Jordan, David Weber, R.A. Salvatore, David & Leigh Eddings, Raymond E. Feist, Kevin J. Anderson, and some others who are writers with some of the better edited novels I've read from.Upon purchase (July 2011): This watch is just the way I hoped it would be. It is BIG (52mm) and cool......all in all awesome. Amazon had shipped it quickly with no problem. Totally satisfied. On the main picture there is a stop watch button which is not shown on the other picture on on my watch, but no biggy.
Follow up (Jun 2012): I have had this watch for a year now and it works without any problems. I am very satisfied with the size of the watch, I wanted a big watch and my Russian Diver delivered. I tend to swing my hands wide as I walk and as a result I had hit the concrete wall with my watch few times, it still works fine, no scratches. This was my first Invicta and as I was satisfied with it I bough another one Invicta Sea Spider and I am satisfied with that one as well. I should mention that I payed for my watch with shipping and everything $130 (now it goes around for $170+shipping) and that just adds to my satisfaction. Regarding the comfort my Sea Spider is more comfortable than my Russian Diver yet I wear my Russian Diver almost every day so the comfort is not that bad.
I have one comment on size, some people buy a 50mm+ diameter watches and then complain that they are too big and then give these watches a 1/5 rating as the result. A bit of an advice, take a ruler and see what 50mm looks like on your hand, or Google for images and see what it looks on someone else. I am a 6'2" 250lbs with a thick bones and a solid build so on me this watch looks awesome. I recommend this watch to any fellow who likes a comically looking big watch. If you like classically sized watches than maybe you should look at a different model.You might think that creatives as diverse as Internet entrepreneur Jack Dorsey, industrial design firm Studio 7.5, and bestselling Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami would have little in common. In fact, the tenets that guide how they – and exceptionally productive creatives across the board – make ideas happen are incredibly similar.
Here are 10 laws of productivity we’ve consistently observed among serial idea executors:
1. Break the seal of hesitation.
A bias toward action is the most common trait we’ve found across the hundreds of creative professionals and entrepreneurs we’ve interviewed. While preparing properly as you start a new project is certainly valuable, it’s also easy to lose yourself in planning (and dreaming) indefinitely. We must challenge ourselves to take action sooner rather than later. The minute that you start acting (e.g. building a physical prototype, sharing a nascent concept with your community), you start getting valuable feedback that will help refine your original idea – and move forward with a more informed perspective.
2. Start small.
When our ideas are still in our head, we tend to think big, blue sky concepts. The downside is that such thinking makes the barrier to entry – and action – quite high. To avoid “blue sky paralysis,” pare your idea down to a small, immediately executable concept. Can you trial the idea of a multi-day festival with a smaller performance series? Take an idea for a skyscraper and model it in miniature? Work out the flow of an iPhone app by sketching on paper? Once you’ve road-tested your idea on a small scale, you’ll have loads more insight on how to take it to the next level.
3. Protoype, prototype, prototype.
Trial and error is an essential part of any creative’s life. As Ze Frank says, usually when we execute an idea for the first time, it kinda sucks. The important thing is to synthesize the knowledge gained during the process to refine the idea, and create a new-and-improved version. Serial idea-makers like Jack Dorsey, Ben Kaufman, and Studio 7.5 all attest: Prototyping and iteration is key to transforming a so-so idea into a game-changing product. Rather than being discouraged by your “failures,” listen closely and learn from them. Then build a new prototype. Then do it again. Sooner or later, you’ll hit gold.
To avoid ‘blue sky paralysis,’ pare your idea down to a small, immediately executable concept.
4. Create simple objectives for projects, and revisit them regularly.
When working on in-depth projects, we generate lots of new ideas along the way. This can lead to a gradual expansion of the project’s goals, or “scope creep.” This insidious habit can make it impossible to ever really complete anything. The best way to avoid it is to write down a simple statement summarizing your objective at the start of each project. (If you have collaborators, make sure there is agreement about the objective.) And then – this is the part we overlook! – revisit it regularly. When scope creep starts to happen, you’ll notice.
5. Work on your project a little bit each day.
With projects that require a serious infusion of creative juice – developing a new business plan, writing a novel, or just learning a new skill – it’s incredibly important to maintain momentum. Just as when you run everyday, the exercise gets easier and easier, the same thing happens with your brain. Stimulate it regularly each day, and those juices start to flow more freely. As Jack Cheng argues in a great blog post, “Thirty Minutes A Day”: “the important thing isn’t how much you do; it’s how often you do it.”
6. Develop a routine.
Part of being able to work on your project a little bit each day is carving out the time to do so. Routines can seem boring and uninspiring, but – on the contrary – they create a foundation for sparking true insight. In his recent memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, famed Japanese author Haruki Murakami writes about how a rigorous routine – rising at 5am and going to bed at 10pm every day – is crucial to his impressive creative output. (In a side note: Alex Iskold derives a series of lessons for start-up entrepreneurs from Murakami here.)
7. Break big, long-term projects into smaller chunks or “phases.”
To help manage expectations and stay motivated for year-long or even multi-year endeavors, break each project into smaller chunks that only take a few weeks or a month to complete. The dual benefit of this approach is: (1) making the project feel more manageable, and (2) providing incremental rewards throughout the project. It’s crucial to pause periodically to take stock of what has been accomplished – even if there’s a long way to go.
With projects that require a serious infusion of creative juice, it’s incredibly important to maintain momentum.
8. Prune away superfluous meetings (and their attendees).
Few activities are more of a productivity drain than meetings. If you must meet (and this should be a big “if”), make sure everyone knows what needs to be accomplished from the outset. If people are present who don’t help out with achieving that objective, let them leave. Qwest COO Teresa Taylor, recently interviewed in the NYT‘s Corner Office, starts her meetings with the question, “Do we all know why we’re here?” and then follows with, “Does everyone need to be here?” To trim the runtime of internal meetings, you can also try the standing meeting.
9. Practice saying “No.”
Creative energy is not infinite. Seasoned idea-makers know that they must guard their energy – and their focus – closely. Take author Jim Collins for example. His books Built to Last and Good to Great have sold millions of copies. His business acumen and insights are in demand. Yet, “even though Collins demands over $60,000 per speech, he gives fewer than 18 per year.” More than that and Collins wouldn’t have enough time to focus on the research and writing that yield those bestselling books. When you’re in execution mode, keep in mind that “unexpected opportunities” also mean distraction from the work at hand. Saying no is an essential part of the productivity equation.
10. Remember that rules – even productivity rules – are made to be broken.
Did we say develop a routine? This and other tips here should only be followed as long as they are working. If forward motion has become impossible with your current routine, try something else. Whether it’s taking a long distance trip, popping into the art museum, walking around the block, or talking to a perfect stranger, make sure you occasionally shake up your normal routine. Breaking habits offers new perspective and helps recharge us to head back into the fray. — How About You? Is there an idea you could break the “seal of hesitation” on and start executing right now? Are there other rules of thumb you’ve found particularly useful for making ideas happen?Let's set the stage here for a second. It was a beautiful 27 degree spring day in southwestern Canada. The sun was blazing, cotton ball clouds spattered the skyline, the wind was low, and the hype was high. This event marked the start of what we know as spring, and it was better than a rocket pop on a sweltering summer day! Compared to the common late season snow, rain, and excessive gloom days this spring has been a blessing, so it was self explanatory, we would be there to catch not only the audible reminder our cars aren't done, but the visual update of how successful others off seasons have been. Grass Roots drifting is back upon us, but let's set some standards real quick here. To avoid pointing the blame finger harder than your 3rd grade teacher that caught you passing notes we will withhold the name of said track, and its location. However, this is a common issue I've seen at more than one venue.
GrassRoots commonly consist of three groups of individuals. Drivers, pit crew, and spectators. Now that we've labeled almost everyone at said track during this gorgeous day, each one has a very specific role to play, and none should be ignored. Starting at the core the drivers are there to perform, learn, and spin some tires legally. Clearly at the GrassRoots level full service sponsorship isn't a common offering, so these drivers are often surviving off a smooth blend of week old mixed nuts, a bag of Lay's Original chips, a 3 day old Pepsi that's now 50/50 mixed with water and a mars bar, all while driving a car that could commonly pay my own mortgage payment for 12+ months. They have put their all into building this car, and deserve to be out punishing tires and reaping their rewards! Drivers are fairly self explanatory, but it's the crossover between spectator and pit crew that creates an evident issue.
We are car enthusiasts, simply put. I personally refuse to attend an event where I can't at the LEAST investigate the fabrication behind these drivers' vehicles. I find enjoyment in speaking with these drivers, building a bond, meeting their team, and sharing valuable knowledge. Unsure if you recall, but before Facebook, forums and FAQ's we had to communicate in person to learn these 'tricks of the trade'. At the rate of technology advancement we are becoming more and more reliant on the world wide web to provide the information required, and the common bond created around a simple conversation about wheel fitment is getting lost in the mix. I am not one to sit in the stands, patiently awaiting the next run while sipping my 8$ soda and 12$ smokey. Not only that, but the knowledge I hold may aid your buddy in linking corners 2 and 3, or source him another set of tires from a potential out of the running driver. This is where the overlap comes into play, and why It needs to be reviewed by the track managers.
A Spectator (spec·ta·tor) is defined as'a person who watches at a show, game, or other event', and the giveaway word in that sentence is 'watches'. This doesn't include touches, sits in, drools on, rubs against or any other common activities completed by the pit crew. A spectator belongs in the stands, and the pit crew belongs in the pits. Why do I say this? stick with me here.
You're driver just came back from 3 hot laps around the track, balls to the walls, top end of 3rd gear, nearing the wall without contact and the hype is real! He whips back into the pits, hollers at you to change tires and lower the PSI by 5 in the rear. He goes off to his pickup to catch a glimpse of shade, fresh air, and to recoup from the adrenaline rush while preparing for the next one. You as part of the pit crew grab the impact, jack up the back end, and start going to town changing wheels out. Time is of the essence! Just as you get the car back down on the ground you hear a scream from the engine bay. A young boy has decided he wanted a Mishimoto tattoo on his forearm, blessed by the 200 degree exposed radiator on your drivers car. In his panic from the smell of scorched skin and arm hair, he managed to yank a coolant line off the overflow tank, and now it's puking boiling hot H2O all his brand new Nike Air Jordan's, and splashing on those gorgeous drilled and slotted rotors. Your driver hears all this commotion, comes running over to the rescue, knocking one of his rear wheels on its face, and drenches said boys arm with the last 200ml of his personal drinking water.
So this outlines a worst case scenario, but you can see why we need a definition between spectator and pit crew. How does that factor down to the track? Charge pit crew and extra $5 on their ticket fee. Yeah, it means they probably won't be purchasing one of your concession overpriced snacks, but it also protects your track's reputation. Not only does it ensure these cars hit the track faster, but it's another set of eyes in and around the pits watching out for incidents like this exact one. As a spectator, I am assuming you're unsure of truly what is hiding under these hoods, which would make even the strongest of knees weak at some times. Not only that, but your uneducated helping hand could very well damage something very expensive over a very minimal issue. It's a common comment, if you don't know, ask!
Rarely do we have issues with being a pit crew, but this is a very valid argument when venues are having issues keeping track of stamped sweaty palms and wrist bands. Quite commonly the pit crew had been around for much of the drivers build, or at least understands what he is running and the way to act around his car, hints why he/she is included in the pit crew. How big should a pit crew be? Big enough that your drivers car is ready to go by the time he is. Typically 2 people could handle this task quite simply, but in some cases more people are required. The moral of the story is moving forward I personally would LOVE to see the addition of a Pit Pass, allowing us as enthusiasts to indulge in the pits and share some laughs regardless of what track it is!
Drifting in Canada has come an incredible distance to date, and looking forward its growth is promising. We are introducing more and more competitive drivers into the Formula D circuit, and with everyone's support and enthusiasm we can continue to do so! Who knows, maybe one day a Koncept Industries FD car will be running the circuit! However, looking forward, we need to ensure the definition behind dead weight, and a helping hand is clearly evident. Allowing pit crews would speed up turn around time, allow for a more exciting day for your spectators, and ensure these drivers are obtaining the maximum possible seat time available.
For now, keep pushing hard out there guys! We are gaining traction on a global stage, and for that we tip our hats at all of you enthusiasts, pit crew, drivers and spectators!Class over nation? A left argument for independence.
In a typically thoughtful piece (Short Cuts), Rory Scothorne argues that the Scottish Labour left have seized the moment, and that the 2014 enthusiasm for independence can be diverted from a managerial SNP to a Labour movement which has moved left.
The SNP do indeed remain centrist and managerial on many fronts, and centralising in ethos, but the most recent programme for government (‘A Nation with Ambition’) showed some indications of movement in a more social democratic direction. Notably this included the prospect of progressive tax increases. The SNP’s initial proposals were cautious, but now may end up more radical than Labour’s own plans. Labour sought increases for everyone, including in the lowest tax brackets, whereas the Greens, for example, proposed cuts for lower earners and sharper increases for high earners, up to a 60% rate on earnings over £150,000 (see chart 6 on p29 here). The SNP will soon set out where they want to go on this, and perhaps Labour will be proved right. We shall see.
Another notable proposal, one of those relatively unusual examples where SNP arguments about the limits of devolution do hold, was to do research into a basic income for Scotland. Although implementation would require Westminster’s consent, this would clearly outflank Labour from the left and require the largest redistribution from rich to poor ever delivered in Scotland.
Labour – and Scothorne personally – continue to be sceptical about basic income, with the notable exception of the Shadow Chancellor. The party’s historic association with the unions, although typically more performative than real in government, often means a kind of “workerism” where concern about low pay is accepted as valid but concern about those without work fades away. This trend applies across the party, from Rachel Reeves’ March 2015 assertion that “We don’t want to be seen, and we’re not, the party to represent those who are out of work”, through to Scothorne himself, who wrote about it a month earlier without even mentioning unemployment. His piece calls for a “workers’ government”, again putting the unemployed, students, carers, and all those who cannot work just out of earshot. Basic income not only |
hit yet this season with star guard Mike Conley the latest to land on the injury list.
The Grizzlies announced Tuesday that Conley will miss at least six weeks after being diagnosed with fractures of the transverse process bones in the vertebrae of his lower back. Conley will be re-evaluated in four weeks.
The guard signed a five-year, $153 million contract in July to stay with the Grizzlies.
Conley was hurt Monday night during the third quarter of a 104-85 loss to Charlotte after taking a charge from Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. He went down hard on his back and stayed on the floor in obvious pain before leaving the game. He did not return.
He is Memphis' leading scorer. He is averaging 19.2 points and 5.7 assists and has helped the Grizzlies to an 11-7 start putting them fifth in the Western Conference. Memphis plays at Toronto on Wednesday night.
Memphis also announced that Vince Carter strained his right hip flexor in the game against Charlotte. Carter left early in the fourth quarter and didn't return. He travelled with the Grizzlies to Toronto and is questionable for Wednesday night's game.
This is the franchise that set an NBA record using 28 players last season as injuries piled up, causing the Grizzlies to limp into the post-season as the No. 7 seed in the West before being swept by San Antonio. First-year coach David Fizdale has been busy mixing and matching lineups with a variety of injuries already this season.
The Grizzlies already had been playing without their top free agent signee this off-season with Chandler Parsons, who Memphis announced Nov. 20 would miss at least two weeks with a bone bruise in his left knee. Parsons, signed to a $94 million contract in July, has played only six games for Memphis and is averaging 7.7 points in those games.
Forward Brandan Wright had arthroscopic ankle surgery Nov. 15 to clean up his left ankle with no timetable for his return. He played only 12 games last season in his first with Memphis, and he hadn't played in a game since Oct. 6 in the preseason.
Zach Randolph hasn't played since his mother died on Thanksgiving Day, and is on personal leave. Forward James Ennis has not played since straining a calf muscle Nov. 21 in a win at Charlotte.
___
AP Basketball Writer Jon Krawczynski contributed to this report.Locales
Uno de los detenidos por los incidentes en el juzgado de Rivera pidió a la Policía que lo disculpara. Deberá cumplir estudios en UTU.
El Nuevo Código del Proceso Penal prevé que -en algunas situaciones- las partes involucradas en un problema penal se junten y se pidan disculpas.
La pasada semana, cuando ciudadanos de Rivera esperaban afuera del juzgado de la ciudad la salida de los dos detenidos por el crimen Valentina Walter, se registraron algunos incidentes. Por estos enfrentamientos con la policía, dos sujetos fueron detenidos, además de que un funcionario policial resultara herido.
La Fiscalía dispuso que los detenidos ofrecieran sus disculpas públicamente, como medida sustitutiva al proceso penal. Solo uno de los dos -Miguel Ángel Suárez- se presentó en la "audiencia" pública.
"Buenos días a toda la audiencia", comenzó. "Mi nombre es Miguel Ángel Suárez, tengo 21 años, y estoy muy mal por lo que pasó. Estoy arrepentido", siguió. "Mi conducta no es esa. Pido mis disculpas al comisario, al jefe y a toda la policía de Rivera. Bueno, mi conducta no esa", sentenció, según recoge Telemundo.
El jefe de Policía de Rivera aceptó las disculpas y expresó su deseo "de que no se reitere este hecho". "No contribuye, sino que, al contrario, entorpece el trabajo policial. Hay que dejar que las autoridades públicas cumplan con lo que tienen que cumplir. Hay un ordenamiento jurídico, y nosotros tenemos que adaptarnos para convivir en paz. No podemos estar uno en una vereda y otros en otra", dijo.
Montevideo PortalBarely two days after the tragic death of Australian international cricketer Philip Hughes due to an injury on the head, an Israeli cricket umpire and former captain Hiller Awasker lost his life on Saturday in an amateur league game in Ben Gurion Park in Ashdod. He was brought in a critical condition to Ashdod’s Barzilai Hospital, where he breathed his last. However, there were some contradictory reports about how he died, with some saying that he was hit in the face, others said that he suffered a heart attack after being hit in the chest.
According to one of the Ashdod players, “A fast delivery from the bowler came off the bat of the batsman, hit the wicket and then struck the umpire in the chest.
The umpire fell and apparently suffered a heart attack. Several of the players attempted to resuscitate him, taking telephonic instructions from the local MDA station, during the 10 minutes it took for the paramedics to arrive on the scene.”
Kobi Weiss, a senior umpire who attended to the injured man, said, “When I got to the pitch, I saw a man of about 50 who was unconscious. The people there said that he had been hit by the ball in the course of the match and collapsed.
“We immediately began resuscitation procedures, including medications. When his pulse returned and his condition stabilized a bit, he was taken to the hospital.”I’ve recently had some fun writing a browser quicksort.
As part of a recent project, I had to implement a Knockout table component that could sort and filter its entries in realtime. This would normally have been straightforward, except for a handful of use-cases where the table would contain upwards of three thousand entries – possibly more. Calling a native array sort() on such a large set with a particularly complex comparator would force IE8 to freeze for several seconds and throw a long running script error.
Server-side sorting was awkward for various reasons, and we weren’t terribly keen on the complications that AJAX imposed. What we really wanted was a non-blocking JavaScript sort.
Investigating the long running script exception
If you’ve done any heavy lifting with JavaScript in IE8, you’ve probably seen the following exception:
The exception is triggered by a maximum statement count. When the IE8 JavaScript engine executes over five million statements as part of an event thread, it tells the user that “A script on this page is causing Internet Explorer to run slowly”. The user is invited to stop the thread and resume control. Stopping the thread doesn’t throw an error, so anything relying on the sort completing is left hanging.
Stopping it from appearing
The real purpose of the exception is to stop JavaScript operations from hogging the UI thread in an environment where all events and user actions need to run in serial. This is a goal we should respect. So the most obvious solution would be to find a way to perform the sort asynchronously, yield the thread periodically and effectively only run the sort whilst the UI thread was idle.
Actually, that’s a lie – the most obvious solution would be to double check that we really needed to perform such a massive operation on the client and see if we could pass it to the server instead. But for us this was undesirable, if not impossible, and it seemed worthwhile to try and solve the problem just through client-side JavaScript.
My immediate thought was to write a quicksort.
Asynchronous quicksort
Quicksort is particularly suitable for non-blocking code, because it can be implemented recursively, and recursion calls are a great opportunity to yield the thread. It’s fast, fairly well-understood and relatively easy to understand.
The idea is simple: we perform a ‘partition’ operation on an array, taking its last member as a ‘pivot’ and iterating through the others left to right, comparing each to the pivot as we go. If the member is larger or equal to the pivot, we put it to the right hand side. If not, we leave it on the left and try the next member. What we’re left with is an array where all the items lower than the pivot are to its left and all the items larger are to the right. We can then partition the left and right sets recursively until our set is completely sorted.
(A handy animation straight from Wikipedia)
Technically, this isn’t the only way to perform a partition – it’s the Lomuto Partition, and you can find others documented online, but the basic algorithm doesn’t differ: partition the array, then partition the sub-partitions in turn until there’s no more partitioning to be done.
We can write our partition as follows:
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function partition(array, partitionSliceStart, partitionSliceEnd, valueComparator) {
// Partition a sub-array for e.g. a quicksort
//
// We start processing from the leftmost element (I), and use the rightmost as the pivot (P). We also track the item to
// the left of the pivot (L), such that we end up with
// I... L P
// We then compare I with P. If I is less than P, we leave it where is and increment the processing index, so that we have
// < I.. L P
// (where'// Then, if I is larger than P, we swap the positions such that
// < L.. P I
// We then continue processing from L,
// < I.. P >
//... and continue until we end up with all lower elements on the left, all greater than / equal elements on the right
// < < < P > >
// Doing it this way means we can partition our array in-place, which makes things a lot more performant.
var pIndex = partitionSliceEnd;
var iIndex = partitionSliceStart;
var lIndex = pIndex - 1;
var pValue = array[pIndex];
var iValue = array[iIndex];
while (iIndex < pIndex) {
if (valueComparator(iValue, pValue) === -1) {
// If I < P, leave I where it is and move the I index further right
iIndex++;
} else {
// If I >= P, move I to the right of P, and put L in I's original place.
// We swap I and L, then L and P. We don't increment I's index; we process L next instead.
arraySwap(array, iIndex, lIndex);
arraySwap(array, lIndex, pIndex);
pIndex--;
lIndex--;
}
// Update values based on changed indices
iValue = array[iIndex];
pValue = array[pIndex];
}
return pIndex; // return the pivot point so we can recursively process the left and right hand sides
}
Forgive me for the C-like variable prefixes; it simply seemed the easiest way to associate the variables with the ‘diagram’ in my comments.
Once we had the partition operation, it was just a matter of finding a way to yield the UI thread between the operation calls.
process.nextTick in the browser
If you’re a Node.js developer, you’ve likely encountered process.nextTick(). It yields the thread, allowing other queued callbacks to fire, before we resume our operation. Historically client-side JavaScript developers have emulated this behaviour with a zeroed setTimeout :
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function yieldingOperation(fn) {
window.setTimeout(fn, 0);
}
This works well enough for ocassionally yielding a thread in the middle of a long operation, but it fails when we pass a high volume of callbacks, because the timeout value doesn’t really end up being zero. In prctice, most browsers don’t run the callback in less than 10 milliseconds.
This restriction is partly down to the HTML5 specification throttling the timeout to no less than 4ms [1], but also partly down to the way the browser relies on the OS’ default system timer, as explained at length by Nicholas Zakas. Windows’ timer has a granularity of 15ms – that is, the timer is only updated every 15ms – so it’s possible for a setTimeout to wait the full length of that period.
When each operation takes a millisecond and then waits 14 milliseconds to spawn its child operations, that’s grossly inefficient. Profiling the sort confirmed these suspicions – Chrome would make excellent headway whilst processing the larger partitions, but then slow to a crawl as it processed the long tail of small subpartitions.
setImmediate to the rescue
But not to fear! setTimeout is not the only option we have. A new API, window.setImmediate, was introduced by Microsoft through Internet Explorer 10 and 11. It works much like process.nextTick – we pass a callback, yield the thread, run any queued events and pick the callback up again as soon as possible. There’s no 15ms throttling.
setImmediate isn’t a standardized API yet, though, and isn’t implemented in Gecko or Webkit [2]. Fortunately, a Katochimoto’s setImmediate shim is available that provides the same functionality in other browsers, and even fixes certain bugs in IE10/11’s native setImmediate [3].
It now becomes possible to recursively partition our array in a non-blocking way:
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function nonBlockingQuicksortOperation(array, subArrayStart, subArrayEnd, valueComparator) {
var sortedAreaLength = (subArrayEnd - subArrayStart) + 1;
if (sortedAreaLength > 1) {
var pivotLocation = partition(array, subArrayStart, subArrayEnd, valueComparator);
// Process elements to the left of the pivot
var lowPartitionEnd = pivotLocation - 1;
setImmediate(function(){
nonBlockingQuicksortOperation(array, subArrayStart, lowPartitionEnd, valueComparator);
});
// Process elements to the right of the pivot
var highPartitionStart = pivotLocation + 1;
setImmediate(function(){
nonBlockingQuicksortOperation(array, subArrayStart, highPartitionStart, valueComparator);
});
}
}
There’s just one problem – now we’ve made the function asynchronous, how do we know when it has finished?
Monitoring progress
Whenever we complete a partition, we know that we’ve finalized the position of the pivot. We only further process its neighbours. So we can trigger a finalization callback that increments a counter, and when the counter reaches the length of the array, we know that the array is stable.
We could perhaps implement this like so:
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function nonBlockingQuicksortOperation(array, subArrayStart, subArrayEnd, valueComparator, onElementLocationFinalized) {
var sortedAreaLength = (subArrayEnd - subArrayStart) + 1;
if (sortedAreaLength > 1) {
var pivotLocation = partition(array, subArrayStart, subArrayEnd, valueComparator);
// Process elements to the left of the pivot
var lowPartitionEnd = pivotLocation - 1;
setImmediate(function(){
nonBlockingQuicksortOperation(array, subArrayStart, lowPartitionEnd, valueComparator, onElementLocationFinalized);
});
// Process elements to the right of the pivot
var highPartitionStart = pivotLocation + 1;
setImmediate(function(){
nonBlockingQuicksortOperation(array, subArrayStart, highPartitionStart, valueComparator, onElementLocationFinalized);
});
// The pivot's location is finalized, so we can trigger the event
onElementLocationFinalized();
} else if (sortedAreaLength === 1) {
// Only one item, so we skip the partition and just trigger the event
onElementLocationFinalized();
}
}
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7
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9
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function nonBlockingQuicksort(array, valueComparator, onFinishCallback) {
var finalizations = 0;
var arrayEnd = array.length - 1;
nonBlockingQuicksortOperation(array, 0, arrayEnd, valueComparator, onElementLocationFinalized);
function onElementLocationFinalized() {
finalizations++;
if (finalizations === array.length) {
onFinishCallback();
}
}
}
Prioritizing native sort
The nonBlockingQuicksort we’ve written is great, but it’ll always have the disadvantage of not being native code. Granted, many browsers implement their sort directly through JavaScript (you can see how Chrome does it in plain JS in the V8 source), but browser developers will always have the advantage of being able to optimize for their own engines and drop into compiled code where necessary. So whilst our quicksort rids us of our IE8 woes, it’s still better to prefer native sort for smaller sets on more modern browsers.
Our approach was simply to prefer the native implementation unless working in IE8 or with arrays over a thousand items.
Lessons learned
If nothing else, writing a non-blocking quicksort was a great educational exercise. The key points being:
Doing heavy lifting with JavaScript in IE8 is just not fun. If you’re going to have to do it, be mindful of UI responsiveness and see if you can write your procedure in a non-blocking manner, using setImmediate and its shims where necessary Sorting algorithms aren’t black magic and don’t have to be scary if you don’t have a CS background (like me) setTimeout and browser timing are deceptive and shouldn’t be wholly trusted
At some point, I’ll probably rewrite an open source version of the code above, with a few performance tweaks and optimizations. I’ll probably post about it when I do so.
Notes
[1] Apparently, this is because running a timer with high resolution means the CPU can’t enter low power modes. This was determined to be a problem for battery life in mobile devices, so the 4ms was agreed as a compromise between efficiency and accuracy.
[2] Currently it faces some opposition from Google and Apple. It’s possible that the API might be deprecated in future, so using the setImmediate shim is probably a good insurance policy in case MS ever withdraws the API.
[3] You can find out how it actually performs the shim in the project’s README. It’s quite interesting.A wonderful 3rd person tactical turn-based RTS shooter that was - and still is - grossly underrated although it has a small but devoted fanbase. The followings are my general impression of the game:
WHAT THE GAME DOES NOT DO SO WELL:
- Designed to Grind: This is, by far, my strongest criticism. If you stick to the main campaign, eventually, you will encounter an enemy elite trooper, and you will realize that you are hitting a stone wall - both figuratively and literally. At this time, the only course of action in order to move forward is to turn to the skirmish battles to grind... and grind some more... to get the XP to train your troops and to upgrade their equipments and weapons to meet new challenge. Granted, this is generally the normal situation for virtually any game, but the difficulty level here just spike up too steep and too fast. What this game needs are either more campaigns or more skirmish maps (so you don have to play the same ones over and over) - preferably both - to balance the difficulty surge.
- Time Flies... In good and bad way. Sure, time flies when you are having fun. However, without the ability to save game in the middle of a campaign, time turns into dead flies should you need to break from the game for an important task. Yes, I realize that not having manual save can make the game more challenging and perhaps even more tactical as intended by the developer, but for an adult with a full time job with long commute and limited game time, it's always a drawback.
WHAT THE GAME DOES REALLY WELL:
- Cel Shade in Spade: Admittedly, this is a personal preference, but I just love cel shaded graphics. For those who are not familiar, cel-shaded graphics look like a water color painting, with the Borderlands series being the most recognizable examples. Furthermore, beside the personal aesthetics appeal, being a relatively low level graphics requirement, cel shaded graphics compels the developer to scale back focus on photographic eye-popping candy vision and to concentrate on graphic design/details, story development, and the gameplay instead. In addition, the cel-shaded graphics perfectly matches the story book style presentation of the game.
- Ace of Turn-Base: This is turn base done right and done extremely well; that is, the most common - and accurate - criticism of turn-based combat is that 'the enemies - or you - just stand there while being attacked...Well, not so in this game. With the exception of the sniper or lancer (anti-tank and heavy weapon specialist) classes, running around aimlessly within the enemies' firing range is simply a very bad idea -- You really have to plan your approach and engagement. Likewise, placing your own troops in strategic location will repel oncoming enemy charges even when it is not your turn to move.
-Story and History: It's not really much more than a re-imagination, or an alternate history, of World War 2 (IE. what if Nazi Germany had attacked a neutral Switzerland) with some ancient mythology thrown in for good measure; however, it is very well told in a comic book format where each panel unfolds into either a campaign or a cut scene that propels the story forward. But more than that, it's a compelling story of young men and women finding themselves involved in a cataclysmic event where youthful exuberance and aspiration are tempered by harsh wartime realities.
- Characters Development and Interaction: In conjunction with the story as it unfolds, over the course of time, you grow to care for the main characters and all of the supporting characters. In addition, as a CO (Commanding Officer) in charge of the platoon, you'll get the chance to play a subtle but complex mini-game of putting together the best possible fighting unit while taking into account each individual's strengths and weaknesses - and there are many of those to deal with.
In conclusion, I may have seemed harsh on my criticism of the game, but that is mainly due to the fact that I am a long time and hard core gamer on many gaming platforms and like to over-analyze video game (thank you for reading, BTW) rather than the game's shortcoming. As is, my only lament is that there are not enough RTS games like Valkyria Chronicles these days - especially on consoles.Tap here to access our NBA Tracker, which includes offseason rumors, trades and signings.
Not one, not two, but three All-Stars in Cleveland next season?
In addition to their pursuit of unrestricted free-agent forward LeBron James, the Cavaliers are also set to make a second move for Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love, should James sign.
Cavaliers are pursuing a Kevin Love trade with Minnesota, contingent on the signing of LeBron James, league sources tell Yahoo Sports. — Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) July 9, 2014
Adding Love would likely command a ransom from the Cavaliers, which shouldn't be a problem given their bounty of assets. In addition to a number of lottery-picked prospects from recent drafts, the Cavaliers also hold most of their picks in future drafts, which can also contribute to a Love deal. The asking price is said to be high, with the return starting with number one overall pick Andrew Wiggins.
If Cleveland were to land both Love and James, the team would add a pair of All-NBA forwards to shore up their front-court. One also assumes that the possibility of playing with Love would also factor positively into LeBron's free-agency decision.
Pairing Love and James, with point guard Kyrie Irving manning the point should easily rank the Cavaliers as favorites to win the Eastern Conference next season.MATCH REPORT: Liverpool - AFC Wimbledon (FA Cup)
Anfield, Round 3 Replay
Liverpool Starting XI: Mignolet; Kelly (Agger 105’), Touré, Škrtel, Cissokho; Gerrard [c], Allen (Lucas Leiva 59’); Sterling, Pacheco, Coutinho (Henderson 84’); Suárez
Liverpool Substitutes: Agger, José Enrique, Lucas Leiva, Aspas, Sturridge, Jones, Henderson
AFC Wimbledon Starting XI: Brown; Fuller, Bennett, Frampton, Kennedy; Porter, Pell, Sweeney (L. Moore 90’), Bamba; (Other) Green [c], (Bald) Green
AFC Wimbledon Substitutes: Worner, Fundingsrud, Sheringham, L. Moore, Arthur, White, Strutton
Every so often a game comes along that becomes the stuff of legend. Supporters down pints down the pub and wax nostalgic for it for decades. People save their match programmes, preserving them like family heirlooms (which, I suppose, they are). More people claim to have been there than actually were. It forms part of a shared history. A shared mythology. A shared suffering and triumph.
Most clubs have one. Sutton United’s stunning upset in the FA Cup against Coventry. Liverpool coming back from 3-0 in the Champions League Final against AC Milan. Manchester City scoring two goals in stoppage time on the last day of the season to steal the Premier League title from Manchester United. And, yes, Wimbledon FC’s shock win over Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup Final.
What happened tonight in the rain at Anfield is one of those games. There will be cold winter days in decades hence when AFC Wimbledon supporters huddle in pubs after a disappointing result, and one of the old timers- maybe you- will bring up, to perhaps a few groans for having to hear this tired old story again, that one night. That one unforgettable night.
Tonight’s third round replay comes after Liverpool’s B-squad couldn’t get the job done on our home ground. This time they came out with one of the stronger sides they could have fielded, including, to every Wimbly Wombly supporter’s collective gulp, the Premier League’s leading goalscorer and future Ballon d’Or winner Luis Suárez. For this squad, fielding players with varying degrees of match fitness against top flight opposition, the ask could not have been bigger.
Which made Wimbledon’s early strike both a joy and a relief. After a chippy opening few minutes, Yousef Bamba slipped past Liverpool’s high line and bombed down the left flank and into the box totally unchallenged. He sent a nearly perfect ball over the heads of Škrtel and Cissokho to a lurking Other John Green, who snuck the ball behind his marker and underneath Simon Mignolet for an opening goal that sent shivers throughout Anfield. The away supporters exploded then and, for the rest of the game, were at least as loud as (and sometimes louder than) the Kop.
After the goal, Wimbledon did what any fourth tier side would do having gained a lead over top flight opposition- dug in for a siege. Liverpool threatened quickly when Suárez collected a through ball from Coutinho and slipped behind the back line to bound in on goal- thankfully, Fuller managed to catch up with him on the edge of the box and get the ball away. Wimbledon, for their part, put together some promising chances of their own; on 32 minutes Bald John Green bolted towards goal but the pitch conditions prevented him from balancing himself to shoot, and Kolo Touré knocked the ball towards Mignolet. Liverpool counterattacked immediately, won a free kick at the half way line, and the resulting ball found Suárez hovering over the penalty spot. But the soggy pitch absorbed most of the force from his shot and Seb Brown scooped up the ball with only a hint of nerves. The rest of the first half played out similarly, and when the referee blew for half time the fans all took a few moments to catch their collective breaths before shuffling out for tea and bovril.
Wimbledon played much more defensively in the second half- partly because of their tenuous position, partly because of fatigue settling in to several key players. The Dons put together some threats here and there, but for the most part they focused on possession and defending. For the most part they availed themselves well, though there were some nervy moments; not the least of which being a Steven Gerrard free kick- we’ll give you a moment to digest that bit of panic- in the 82nd minute from 25 yards out, which, thankfully, drifted just wide. Even when the referee inexplicably tacked on five minutes of stoppage time, there was reasonable hope that Wimbledon could hold on and get out of Anfield with a 1-0 win and a ticket to the Fourth Round.
The song You’ll Never Walk Alone is often criticised among football supporters for being overwrought, sentimental, and more than a bit schmaltzy. What few people mention- apart from opposition players who come to Anfield- is how utterly terrifying the song can be. If you’re at Anfield and losing, or holding on to a very tenuous lead, hearing that song ringing through the Kop at the start of stoppage time can chill the blood and stop the heart. No one talks about YNWA being a taunting battle-cry. I mention this not to excuse but perhaps explain the catastrophe that came in the dying seconds of the 90. Utterly depleted, it was perhaps only a matter of time before someone unfolded the backline. Deep into stoppage time, late substitute Jordan Henderson collected the ball unmarked just inside the box; he turned, sidestepped some onrushing and panicking defenders, and fired a magnificent strike through traffic and past a harried Seb Brown. The Kop erupted, the away supporters stood in shock, and the Cinderella story seemed to be coming to an end.
But nobody told the Wimbly Womblys the party was over. Exhausted, assailed by the howling Kop, and facing a surging Liverpool side, the Dons went into extra time with quiet determination. They would get the result; failing that, they would hold on long enough to force a penalty shootout, where anything can happen. Other John Green had an amazing chance soon after extra time kick off, but once again the soggy pitch intervened and his shot rolled slowly into Mignolet’s hands. Liverpool parried immediately when Raheem Sterling bounded on down the flank before winding his way into the box; he surely would’ve sent in a killer pass had Alan Bennett not intervened at the last second. Some tense back and forth continued, but for the most part it didn’t look like either side had a goal in them.
And then came that moment. The moment that, as hinted before, will come to form part of the very mythology of AFC Wimbledon. Bald John Green laid the ball off in midfield to Harry Pell, who managed to slip past the back line. Utterly worn out, Pell put everything he had and more into his run and galloped off alone on goal. 15 yards out, he found himself one on one against Mignolet. A fake, another fake, followed by a high ball that curved around the Belgian goalkeeper and sailed into the back of the net as the Kop looked on in horror. There was a peculiar look on Harry Pell’s face while he celebrated the goal- joy, yes, but also a bit of ‘why me?’ in his eyes. As if not understanding his own role in what just transpired- wondering if fate had conspired to bring him to that place, that moment, and score that goal. It could have been anyone on the team. But it was him. Pell almost seemed embarrassed, like he didn’t feel worthy of the moment. I’m sure he’s not the first person at the center of something tremendous to feel that way, nor will he be the last.
Liverpool panicked and pressed hard to find a late equalizer, but the Dons held on, barely. The rain fell hard, the Kop fell silent, and the mighty Reds fell from grace. The referee blew three times. The inexplicable had become the almighty truth.
This is the part where we talk about what the game means- where Wimbledon go from here, what comes next, how do we build on the advantage, how do we bounce back from this setback, etc. If it’s quite alright with you, we’re going to skip that part right now. There will be plenty of analysis and punditry in the days to come. For now, know that your AFC Wimbledon defeated the once-great Liverpool, former Champions of England and Europe, on their home ground. The fourth round of the FA Cup beckons. Who knows what happens next.
Liverpool 1-2 AFC Wimbledon A.E.T.
Scoreline: Other Green (WIM) 8’, Henderson (LIV) 90’+3, Pell (WIM) 112’
Discipline: n/aThe government has been battling complaints over the demolition of houses in the inner west to make way for the WestConnex and the impact of construction of light rail in George Street in the Sydney CBD. The government is also preparing to partially privatise the NSW electricity network and expects to have $20 billion to spend on projects including a second Sydney Harbour rail crossing. Mr Baird noted that his father, former NSW transport minister Bruce Baird, received death threats when the M2 motorway was being built. He said the government "can't dismiss concerns that are raised as projects are delivered. You have to listen very carefully". He conceded that governments including his need "to do a better job in terms of community engagement".
"But at the same time it is the new world," he said. "And the new world is: if you want to build the infrastructure that we need, there will be significant disruption. It will cause inconvenience." The Premier said some people's reaction was: "Well that must be stopped and fixed immediately!" "Well it can't be," he argued. "It can be minimised, it can be managed and that's what we'll be focusing on over the next few years. "But the message for Sydney and NSW is: expect the inconvenience to come," he warned. "Because all of these projects will cause disruption, they will cause inconvenience. But we have to take the long term view.
"And the long term view is that how does this city look when the infrastructure is completed? And that's the exciting thing." Mr Baird highlighted the difficulties experienced building the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House. "And no one would question those now." During his address Mr Baird reflected on his success at taking the unpopular electricity privatisation policy to the March election and winning. "This is the message to every government – at the core if you are actually fighting for what you believe in [and] you know is right for the state, then you are fighting in the interests of the people you are there to serve," he said.
Mr Baird said he believed that voters valued "an honest discussion" about difficult reforms. "My sense is, you do the right thing in the long term the politics will take care of itself," he said.An "outpouring of love and support" has rolled in for a Syrian refugee family after vandals ransacked over 2000 painstakingly-grown plants that were to be sold at market, leaving just an eighth salvageable.
Khaled Al Jouja was a specialist gardener in now war-torn Syria, but resettled in Lower Hutt last year where he grows food for children through the charity, The Common Unity Project Aotearoa.
He recently launched a pop-up nursery so he could be self-employed.
Khaled Al Jouja with his plants before vandals ransacked his backyard. Source: Facebook/The Common Unity Project Aotearoa
He's tasked with the production of food that is then turned into meals "for those who need it most," says founder Julia Milne, which is fitting for a man who has his "heart and soul in growing".
She said Mr Al Jouja had finished perfecting the plants about a month ago, with with many taking about a year to develop.
Over 2000 plants had carefully grown. Only 250 could be saved after the vandals were done with his backyard on Tuesday.
Ms Milne posted on Facebook asking for any donations of potting mix "to help to rebuild, regrow and restore his faith in his new homeland".
But Mr Al Jouja's story turned into an "enourmous outpouring of love and support" for the family.
Donations of soil, seeds and money have begun pouring in, with Ms Milne keeping the final dollar amount a surprise until Saturday, where they are hosting a community event to help "get Khaled growing again".
Source: 1 NEWS
"This is kind of the worst of times and the best of time for Khaled," Ms Milne said.
"People from all around the world have been donating and getting in touch."
Donations are even coming in from pre-schoolers, who have been growing seeds from their New World Little Garden kits.
She said it's turned into a celebration of refugees and migrants in the community, "and really recognising their value and importance and the work they do to integrate themselves".
"New Zelanders have beautiful, generous, gorgeous hearts," Ms Milne said.A Toronto student who was dining in a Bangladesh café when it was attacked by Islamist militants and later detained as a suspect is now safe at his parents' home in Dhaka after being acquitted of terrorism charges, according to his brother.
Police said Sunday that Tahmid Hasib Khan, 22, was acquitted of the charges and released on bail. His brother, Talha Khan, who is in Toronto, told CBC News he doesn't know the circumstance of Tahmid's release, calling it "complex." But he said he's "relieved" after hearing the news from his cousins in Dhaka and London.
Khan's cousin Ali Faiyaz, who lives in Dhaka, confirms the Toronto student is faring well and is with his parents while out on bail.
Khan was at the Holey Artisan Bakery on the evening of July 1 when it was stormed by militants, beginning a 12-hour siege in which 20 hostages, mostly foreigners, two police officers and six suspected attackers died |
)" to wuxia (1166)
++ 1. receives "Piñata (475)" from Wheatie
++ 2. receives "Onirim (2909)" from Kengi CLEVELAND, OH, USA
++ 3. receives "One Night Revolution (2681)" from raberjr
++ 4. receives "Castle Panic (1419)" from kldonnelly
++ 5. receives "Defenders of the Realm (2604)" from jrp_atg POTSDAM, NY, USA
++ 6. receives "The Ares Project (2017)" from IQTom
dtmulhol : (5 trades of 19, 26%)
-- 1. gives "Ghost Stories (1079)" to jjrodriguez (1116)
-- 2. gives "Valley of the Kings (1088)" to jondodd82 (1131) CORAOPOLIS, PA, USA
-- 3. gives "Mage Knight Board Game (1078)" to jsharp (2186) COLUMBUS, OH, USA
-- 4. gives "Maximum Throwdown (1091)" to PhoenixPez (2291)
-- 5. gives "Smash Up: Monster Smash (1090)" to purplemosh (2646) BLACKLICK, OH, USA
++ 1. receives "World of Warcraft: The Adventure Game (2155)" from trevlix AKRON, OH, USA
++ 2. receives "Blueprints (2511)" from matrixrenegade ZANESVILLE, OH, USA
++ 3. receives "Hegemonic (630)" from madaxer
++ 4. receives "Pagoda (382)" from spcleddy
++ 5. receives "Acquire (47)" from bigchief SHAWNEE MISSION, KS, USA
Ducttape2021 : (3 trades of 7, 42%) BLOOMINGTON, IN, USA
-- 1. gives "Slapshot (318)" to drpaj (553) OXFORD, OH, USA (97.4 miles)
-- 2. gives "Runewars (320)" to niftykracker (441) BALTIMORE, MD, USA (525.4 miles)
-- 3. gives "Mythotopia (1835)" to OSUnut (1042) SPRINGBORO, OH, USA (125.1 miles)
++ 1. receives "Uchronia (492)" from Wheatie
++ 2. receives "Glory to Rome (1626)" from Lewk1700
++ 3. receives "Age of Industry (94)" from bkunes
DylanP : (1 trades of 2, 50%)
-- 1. gives "Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game (424)" to Bjordgamer (2757) HUNTSVILLE, AL, USA
++ 1. receives "Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game (727)" from jjrodriguez
EclipsedHalo : (30 trades of 63, 47%)
-- 1. gives "Carnival (1176)" to 5thAce (3134)
-- 2. gives "Dogs of War (1175)" to Bearfarmer (1887)
-- 3. gives "Railways of the World: The Card Game (523)" to benfriedberg1981 (115) WINONA LAKE, IN, USA
-- 4. gives "One Night Ultimate Werewolf (592)" to bkunes (102)
-- 5. gives "Battle Sheep (514)" to brumbams (1932)
-- 6. gives "Champions of Midgard (1174)" to bsilver (943) PLAINFIELD, IN, USA
-- 7. gives "Black Fleet (593)" to Buffalostomp (2814)
-- 8. gives "Dragon's Gold (510)" to crackbone (1697)
-- 9. gives "Code 777 (1182)" to DeadVoltaire (2267)
-- 10. gives "New York 1901 (521)" to Deroche (3071) LOUISVILLE, KY, USA
-- 11. gives "Witness (529)" to destro (837)
-- 12. gives "Formula D (516)" to djsudlow (704) WEST CHESTER, OH, USA
-- 13. gives "Cargo Noir (1184)" to djsudlow (705) WEST CHESTER, OH, USA
-- 14. gives "Sylvion (1177)" to doom_of_the_people (681) COLUMBUS, OH, USA
-- 15. gives "Francis Drake (534)" to drpaj (542) OXFORD, OH, USA
-- 16. gives "Lords of Scotland (1178)" to elmsley4 (1344) CHICAGO, IL, USA
-- 17. gives "Rialto (1190)" to jasonc213 (1864) HUNTINGTON, WV, USA
-- 18. gives "King of New York (535)" to jrp_atg (2618) POTSDAM, NY, USA
-- 19. gives "The Big Book of Madness (1173)" to Kengi (2943) CLEVELAND, OH, USA
-- 20. gives "Lost Legacy: Second Chronicle – Vorpal Sword & Whitegold Spire (1188)" to kldonnelly (989)
-- 21. gives "Onward to Venus (594)" to Lewk1700 (332)
-- 22. gives "20th Century (539)" to matthan (2073) SUFFOLK, VA, USA
-- 23. gives "Florenza: The Card Game (517)" to musicedteacher (1776)
-- 24. gives "The Rivals for Catan (560)" to paladinelliott (1321)
-- 25. gives "Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre (573)" to sovietdancnbear (636)
-- 26. gives "Spookies (1181)" to spcleddy (380)
-- 27. gives "The Great Fire of London 1666 (1172)" to Suspension Engineer (915) MASON, OH, USA
-- 28. gives "Welcome to the Dungeon (595)" to ukphitau97 (947)
-- 29. gives "Faces (520)" to Wheatie (466)
-- 30. gives "The Game of 49 (528)" to Wheatie (474)
++ 1. receives "Guns & Steel (2256)" from nekobat ONTARIO, CA, USA
++ 2. receives "Merchants & Marauders (2276)" from jme198
++ 3. receives "Constantinopolis (2756)" from Bjordgamer HUNTSVILLE, AL, USA
++ 4. receives "Star Trek: Expeditions (1127)" from farwelk
++ 5. receives "Greedy Greedy Goblins (1118)" from Luck33Dawg
++ 6. receives "At the Gates of Loyang (1545)" from Neenaher
++ 7. receives "Winner's Circle (1582)" from elmsley4 CHICAGO, IL, USA
++ 8. receives "Catan Histories: Struggle for Rome (646)" from opey2dope
++ 9. receives "Lancaster: Henry V – The Power of the King (422)" from doerrhb FARMINGTON, MI, USA
++ 10. receives "Atlantis Rising (2350)" from ngwilliam
++ 11. receives "Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot (2590)" from rf6971
++ 12. receives "Andean Abyss (690)" from Mundane HARRISON, OH, USA
++ 13. receives "Glass Road (1719)" from horripilated333
++ 14. receives "Blue Moon Legends (546)" from drpaj OXFORD, OH, USA
++ 15. receives "Kemet (823)" from destro
++ 16. receives "Global Mogul (1322)" from paladinelliott
++ 17. receives "Memoir '44 (468)" from Wheatie
++ 18. receives "Rolling Freight (481)" from Wheatie
++ 19. receives "Legends of Andor (2679)" from raberjr
++ 20. receives "Milestones (2219)" from naiya_i
++ 21. receives "XCOM: The Board Game (3112)" from 5thAce
++ 22. receives "Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set (118)" from trimpy
++ 23. receives "VivaJava: The Coffee Game: The Dice Game (3006)" from bwingrave
++ 24. receives "Black Friday (1998)" from gregor1863
++ 25. receives "Battlestar Galactica (3002)" from jguritza
++ 26. receives "Tikal II: The Lost Temple (2732)" from TotalRath
++ 27. receives "Alchemists (1725)" from sirgalin
++ 28. receives "Praetor (575)" from nekobat ONTARIO, CA, USA
++ 29. receives "Chaos in the Old World (3)" from Khift
++ 30. receives "Viceroy (3113)" from addamaniac
ElGordo : (5 trades of 9, 55%)
-- 1. gives "FUSE (2261)" to Bearfarmer (1884)
-- 2. gives "7 Wonders: Cities (2260)" to Cangamer (3168)
-- 3. gives "Dungeon Petz (2252)" to izernechel (3004) DUBLIN, OH, USA
-- 4. gives "Champions of Midgard (2250)" to Kengi (2929) CLEVELAND, OH, USA
-- 5. gives "Pandemic: The Cure (2253)" to rlfix (1247) STERLING HEIGHTS, MI, USA
++ 1. receives "The End of the World: Zombie Apocalypse (3155)" from 5thAce
++ 2. receives "Alt Name: Broken Token Compact Card Game Organizer (2271)" from blueeyedbanditt VOORHEES, NJ, USA
++ 3. receives "Francis Drake (2592)" from rf6971
++ 4. receives "Steampunk Rally (1516)" from niftykracker BALTIMORE, MD, USA
++ 5. receives "Sunrise City (2852)" from erincdavis
elkabong : (6 trades of 17, 35%)
-- 1. gives "Girl Genius: The Works (2231)" to Bjordgamer (2752) HUNTSVILLE, AL, USA
-- 2. gives "Ra (3104)" to DaFink (1518) North York, ON, CAN
-- 3. gives "Power Struggle (2237)" to farwelk (1122)
-- 4. gives "The Golden City (2241)" to opey2dope (640)
-- 5. gives "Famiglia (2229)" to spcleddy (392)
-- 6. gives "Intrigue (2235)" to spcleddy (382)
++ 1. receives "Pizza Box Baseball (2052)" from n2NZnXG
++ 2. receives "Dominion: Seaside (209)" from TMJJS GENEVA, IL, USA
++ 3. receives "The Great Dalmuti (1140)" from kldonnelly
++ 4. receives "Splendor: Nobles Promo Tiles (1788)" from jevansfp
++ 5. receives "Splendor: Nobles Promo Tiles (1787)" from jevansfp
++ 6. receives "Splendor: Nobles Promo Tiles (1789)" from jevansfp
elmsley4 : (16 trades of 25, 64%) CHICAGO, IL, USA
-- 1. gives "Suburbia (1580)" to cichlidhead (1200) CLEVELAND, OH, USA (317.7 miles)
-- 2. gives "Merchants & Marauders (1349)" to Crikrunner (665) COLUMBUS, OH, USA (275 miles)
-- 3. gives "Android: Netrunner (1344)" to darksteel (883)
-- 4. gives "Winner's Circle (1582)" to EclipsedHalo (593)
-- 5. gives "CO₂ (1345)" to gregor1863 (1989)
-- 6. gives "The Princes of Florence (1586)" to IndianaJohn (1809)
-- 7. gives "Grand Austria Hotel (1347)" to jrp_atg (2604) POTSDAM, NY, USA (657.9 miles)
-- 8. gives "Agricola (1584)" to madaxer (630)
-- 9. gives "Medici (1581)" to purplemosh (802) BLACKLICK, OH, USA (281.4 miles)
-- 10. gives "Taj Mahal (1583)" to sasquatchdjh (410)
-- 11. gives "Splendor (1351)" to shanniganz (2629)
-- 12. gives "Fearsome Floors (1578)" to spacecase90 (2174)
-- 13. gives "Mystery Rummy: Jekyll & Hyde (1350)" to Suspension Engineer (888) MASON, OH, USA (247.9 miles)
-- 14. gives "7 Wonders (1343)" to TMJJS (200) GENEVA, IL, USA (38.6 miles)
-- 15. gives "Caverna: The Cave Farmers (1575)" to vadersson (591)
-- 16. gives "Fleet (1346)" to Wheatie (493)
++ 1. receives "Dominant Species (1427)" from IncrediSteve
++ 2. receives "King of Tokyo (2310)" from Lentini007 COLUMBUS, OH, USA (275 miles)
++ 3. receives "Lords of Scotland (1178)" from EclipsedHalo
++ 4. receives "Black Friday (1720)" from horripilated333
++ 5. receives "Poseidon (1628)" from Lewk1700
++ 6. receives "Lifeboats (554)" from drpaj OXFORD, OH, USA (224.9 miles)
++ 7. receives "Terra Mystica (825)" from destro
++ 8. receives "The Guns of Gettysburg (676)" from Crikrunner COLUMBUS, OH, USA (275 miles)
++ 9. receives "Spit It Out! (483)" from Wheatie
++ 10. receives "Puzzle Strike Shadows (698)" from djsudlow WEST CHESTER, OH, USA (242.3 miles)
++ 11. receives "I, Spy (1489)" from Henry the Hearty
++ 12. receives "Reverse Charades (268)" from TMJJS GENEVA, IL, USA (38.6 miles)
++ 13. receives "Forbidden Desert (333)" from Lewk1700
++ 14. receives "Power & Weakness (1687)" from mrcairo42
++ 15. receives "Cuba Libre (660)" from Crikrunner COLUMBUS, OH, USA (275 miles)
++ 16. receives "Gloom (579)" from dthakur
elrond108 : (0 trades of 3, 0%)
erincdavis : (3 trades of 5, 60%)
-- 1. gives "Agricola (3010)" to DjScribbles (1612)
-- 2. gives "Alhambra (2837)" to djsudlow (712) WEST CHESTER, OH, USA
-- 3. gives "Sunrise City (2852)" to ElGordo (2253)
++ 1. receives "Marrying Mr. Darcy (558)" from drpaj OXFORD, OH, USA
++ 2. receives "India Rails (1340)" from paladinelliott
++ 3. receives "Snowdonia: The Daffodil Line (125)" from Zorch REYNOLDSBURG, OH, USA
esok : (3 trades of 12, 25%) LAUREL, MD, USA
-- 1. gives "Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery (135)" to Crikrunner (676) COLUMBUS, OH, USA (331.6 miles)
-- 2. gives "Suburbia (786)" to DharmaOne (1446)
-- 3. gives "Ignis (783)" to qzhdad (2393) CLARKSTON, MI, USA (423 miles)
++ 1. receives "Pastiche (943)" from bsilver PLAINFIELD, IN, USA (510.3 miles)
++ 2. receives "Catan: Explorers & Pirates (341)" from Lewk1700
++ 3. receives "Augustus: Maximus Promo Card (1063)" from Piper_MD
etherea1 : (1 trades of 2, 50%)
-- 1. gives "Summoner Wars: Master Set (3091)" to TotalRath (2720)
++ 1. receives "Legendary Encounters: A Predator Deck Building Game (925)" from joeymcjoeysalot
EvilPie : (3 trades of 12, 25%) CRANBERRY TWP, PA, USA
-- 1. gives "Fortress America (2739)" to Frankenduke (2479) DAYTON, OH, USA (227.4 miles)
-- 2. gives "Galactic Strike Force (2740)" to Lewk1700 (1624)
-- 3. gives "Fury of Dracula (second edition) (2742)" to The Schaef (1046)
++ 1. receives "TAMSK (2943)" from Kengi CLEVELAND, OH, USA (93.2 miles)
++ 2. receives "Confusion: Espionage and Deception in the Cold War (452)" from Wheatie
++ 3. receives "Pixel Tactics Deluxe (2759)" from Khift
fantastico : (2 trades of 14, 14%) LEBANON, OH, USA
-- 1. gives "Moonbase Alpha (1149)" to Lewk1700 (355)
-- 2. gives "California (1147)" to paladinelliott (1359)
++ 1. receives "War and Peace (1808)" from IndianaJohn
++ 2. receives "Pizza Box Baseball (1327)" from paladinelliott
farwelk : (4 trades of 9, 44%)
-- 1. gives "Star Trek: Expeditions (1127)" to EclipsedHalo (592)
-- 2. gives "Dominion: Alchemy (1124)" to horripilated333 (1748)
-- 3. gives "Titans of Industry (1128)" to MenuGarit (2283) MIAMISBURG, OH, USA
-- 4. gives "Carcassonne (1122)" to spoofmann (2534) CHAPEL HILL, NC, USA
++ 1. receives "The Settlers of the Stone Age (3027)" from izernechel DUBLIN, OH, USA
++ 2. receives "Global Mogul (1323)" from paladinelliott
++ 3. receives "Industria (1004)" from porkuslime COLUMBUS, OH, USA
++ 4. receives "Power Struggle (2237)" from elkabong
fasttrackxf : (2 trades of 3, 66%)
-- 1. gives "Battlestar Galactica (1324)" to Geekly (122)
-- 2. gives "Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game (1325)" to Throknor (3067) PITTSBURGH, PA, USA
++ 1. receives "D-Day Dice (1450)" from DaFink North York, ON, CAN
++ 2. receives "Wizard: The Christmas Wizards (751)" from sirgalin
Frankenduke : (7 trades of 20, 35%) DAYTON, OH, USA
-- 1. gives "51st State (2482)" to benfriedberg1981 (110) WINONA LAKE, IN, USA (142 miles)
-- 2. gives "Puerto Rico (2478)" to jevansfp (2175)
-- 3. gives "Guildhall (2487)" to kkappes (1978) COLUMBUS, OH, USA (74.8 miles)
-- 4. gives "The Red Dragon Inn (2464)" to madaxer (2277)
-- 5. gives "Dungeon Lords (2479)" to matthan (2064) SUFFOLK, VA, USA (449 miles)
-- 6. gives "Race for the Galaxy (2463)" to TotalRath (2731)
-- 7. gives "Thunderstone (2450)" to Wheatie (486)
++ 1. receives "Suburbia (1729)" from IrishRenegade
++ 2. receives "Labyrinth: The War on Terror, 2001 –? (1438)" from DharmaOne
++ 3. receives "Ca$h 'n Guns (second edition): More Cash 'n More Guns (504)" from bigfootjedi
++ 4. receives "Ricochet Robots (2884)" from bigchief SHAWNEE MISSION, KS, USA (564.7 miles)
++ 5. receives "Fortress America (2739)" from EvilPie CRANBERRY TWP, PA, USA (227.4 miles)
++ 6. receives "Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn (936)" from crispy951
++ 7. receives "Earth Reborn (3066)" from Deroche LOUISVILLE, KY, USA (120.9 miles)
Geekly : (4 trades of 7, 57%)
-- 1. gives "Seasons (2584)" to crispy951 (936)
-- 2. gives "Mage Knight Board Game (119)" to destro (3154)
-- 3. gives "Level 7 [Escape] (123)" to paladinelliott (1598)
-- 4. gives "Mysterium (122)" to Wheatie (464)
++ 1. receives "Viceroy (507)" from bigfootjedi
++ 2. receives "Railways of the World (1966)" from kkappes COLUMBUS, OH, USA
++ 3. receives "Doomtown: Reloaded (19)" from madaxer
++ 4. receives "Battlestar Galactica (1324)" from fasttrackxf
geneaber : (2 trades of 4, 50%)
-- 1. gives "Coup (1512)" to madaxer (35)
-- 2. gives "Smash Up: Munchkin (1515)" to PhoenixPez (2637)
++ 1. receives "Machi Koro (1563)" from jjrodriguez
++ 2. receives "Five Points: Gangs of New York (1315)" from paladinelliott
Gerth13 : (4 trades of 5, 80%) COLUMBUS, OH, USA
-- 1. gives "Mysterium (2328)" to destro (823)
-- 2. gives "Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn (2336)" to IndianaJohn (1805)
-- 3. gives "Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set (2596)" to jjrodriguez (1115)
-- 4. gives "The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game (2333)" to joeymcjoeysalot (925)
++ 1. receives "Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game (1738)" from IrishRenegade
++ 2. receives "Shadow Hunters (930)" from joeymcjoeysalot
++ 3. receives "BioShock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia (3109)" from DeadVoltaire
++ 4. receives "New York 1901 (1736)" from sirgalin
gregor1863 : (15 trades of 33, 45%)
-- 1. gives "Bears! (1984)" to bigmikew (3122) PARK FOREST, IL, USA
-- 2. gives "Cosmic Encounter (2011)" to blueeyedbanditt (52) VOORHEES, NJ, USA
-- 3. gives "Alien Frontiers (2008)" to bsilver (1061) PLAINFIELD, IN, USA
-- 4. gives "Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of Ashardalon Board Game (1993)" to CrimsonFox (1195)
-- 5. gives "Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age (2013)" to destro (826)
-- 6. gives "Black Friday (1998)" to EclipsedHalo (560)
-- 7. gives "China (1988)" to opey2dope (641)
-- 8. gives "Boss Monster: The Dungeon Building Card Game (1986)" to Pykil (778)
-- 9. gives "Elder Sign (1992)" to sasquatchdjh (851)
-- 10. gives "Rune Age (2002)" to sasquatchdjh (842)
-- 11. gives "Maori (1996)" to shanniganz (2625)
-- 12. gives "Zooloretto (2006)" to shanniganz (2633)
-- 13. gives "Blood Bowl: Team Manager – The Card Game (1985)" to trimpy (116)
-- 14. gives "Flash Point: Fire Rescue (1995)" to vadersson (154)
-- 15. gives "Core Worlds (1989)" to Zorch (125) REYNOLDSBURG, OH, USA
++ 1. receives "Trains: Gen Con 2015 (2173)" from lonadar
++ 2. receives "Alhambra: Big Box (542)" from drpaj OXFORD, OH, USA
++ 3. receives "La Granja (1732)" from sirgalin
++ 4. receives "Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game (3114)" from 5thAce
++ 5. receives "Forbidden Desert (1916)" from brumbams
++ 6. receives "AquaSphere (434)" from niftykracker BALTIMORE, MD, USA
++ 7. receives "Rialto (2694)" from rosborn FORT WAYNE, IN, USA
++ 8. receives "Pay Dirt (1059)" from nekobat ONTARIO, CA, USA
++ 9. receives "Asante (445)" from Wheatie
++ 10. receives "Diamonds (2103)" from OnlyMostlyDead
++ 11. receives "Yardmaster (947)" from ukphitau97
++ 12. receives "Fresco (1772)" from musicedteacher
++ 13. receives "For Sale (2606)" from jrp_atg POTSDAM, NY, USA
++ 14. receives "Dominion: Guilds (1592)" from mrdopley1
++ 15. receives "CO₂ (1345)" from elmsley4 CHICAGO, IL, USA
Grishny : (2 trades of 2, 100%)
-- 1. gives "Ticket to Ride: Europa 1912 (137)" to izernechel (3032) DUBLIN, OH, USA
-- 2. gives "Sentinels of the Multiverse (136)" to purplemosh (799) BLACKLICK, OH, USA
++ 1. receives "The Rivals for Catan (1071)" from bsilver PLAINFIELD, IN, USA
++ 2. receives "Revolution! (1526)" from olinfroid SYLVANIA, OH, USA
haddocksmack : (0 trades of 3, 0%) PORTSMOUTH, OH, USA
hapennt : (7 trades of 19, 36%)
-- 1. gives "Betrayal at House on the Hill (2912)" to bigfootjedi (507)
-- 2. gives "Wizard's Brew (2921)" to Lewk1700 (330)
-- 3. gives "O Zoo le Mio (2966)" to lonadar (2168)
-- 4. gives "The Resistance (3021)" to lonadar (2166)
-- 5. gives "Revolver 2: Last Stand at Malpaso (3016)" to mrcairo42 (1692)
-- 6. gives "Portobello Market (2940)" to opey2dope (650)
-- 7. gives "Quarantine Z (3087)" to spiffodude (1024)
++ 1. receives "The Castles of Burgundy (828)" from destro
++ 2. receives "Ticket to Ride (1677)" from mrcairo42
++ 3. receives "Goldbräu (2107)" from OnlyMostlyDead
++ 4. receives "Scream Machine (1394)" from DT76
++ 5. receives "Bump in the Night (650)" from opey2dope
++ 6. receives "Cave Troll (645)" from opey2dope
++ 7. receives "Yardmaster Express (2982)" from bigchief SHAWNEE MISSION, KS, USA
Henry the Hearty : (3 trades of 16, 18%)
-- 1. gives "AEG Black Friday Black Box 2015 (1481)" to crackbone (3037)
-- 2. gives "I, Spy (1489)" to elmsley4 (1351) CHICAGO, IL, USA
-- 3. gives "Champions of Midgard (1488)" to rosborn (2677) FORT WAYNE, IN, USA
++ 1. receives "Warhammer: Diskwars (716)" from thebuckifan FREDERICKTOWN, OH, USA
++ 2. receives "Pirate's Cove (1569)" from jsharp COLUMBUS, OH, USA
++ 3. receives "Isla Dorada (2154)" from trevlix AKRON, OH, USA
horripilated333 : (10 trades of 25, 40%)
-- 1. gives "Utopia (1728)" to bigchief (47) SHAWNEE MISSION, KS, USA
-- 2. gives "Khronos (1730)" to bigchief (309) SHAWNEE MISSION, KS, USA
-- 3. gives "I'm the Boss! (1715)" to darksteel (882)
-- 4. gives "Power Grid (1723)" to djm999 (2476)
-- 5. gives "Glass Road (1719)" to EclipsedHalo (1184)
-- 6. gives "Black Friday (1720)" to elmsley4 (1582) CHICAGO, IL, USA
-- 7. gives "Family Business (1708)" to John Morgan (902)
-- 8. gives "Taj Mahal (1748)" to Lewk1700 (1619)
-- 9. gives "Ugg-Tect (1713)" to Peterslax2 (1852) PITTSBURGH, PA, USA
-- 10. gives "Quo Vadis? (1717)" to spiffodude (1014)
++ 1. receives "Smash Up (937)" from crispy951
++ 2. receives "China (195)" from TMJJS GENEVA, IL, USA
++ 3. receives "Master Fox (113)" from benfriedberg1981 WINONA LAKE, IN, USA
++ 4. receives "Wallenstein (first edition) (598)" from bchidester
++ 5. receives "Trains (1048)" from Suspension Engineer MASON, OH, USA
++ 6. receives "Shear Panic (942)" from bsilver PLAINFIELD, IN, USA
++ 7. receives "Dominion: Guilds (1016)" from spiffodude
++ 8. receives "Dominion: Alchemy (1124)" from farwelk
++ 9. receives "California (1855)" from jasonc213 HUNTINGTON, WV, USA
++ 10. receives "SWAT! (271)" from TMJJS GENEVA, IL, USA
IncrediSteve : (7 trades of 15, 46%)
-- 1. gives "Carcassonne: The City (1096)" to alanmb (2116)
-- 2. gives "Seeland (1431)" to alanmb (2115)
-- 3. gives "Smash Up (1429)" to CrimsonFox (1301)
-- 4. gives "Yggdrasil (1435)" to CrimsonFox (621)
-- 5. gives "Fortress America (1426)" to djsudlow (711) WEST CHESTER, OH, USA
-- 6. gives "Dominant Species (1427)" to elmsley4 (1580) CHICAGO, IL, USA
-- 7. gives "Heroes Wanted (1095)" to kkappes (1970) COLUMBUS, OH, USA
++ 1. receives "Arkadia (1162)" from wuxia
++ 2. receives "Gheos (2283)" from MenuGarit MIAMISBURG, OH, USA
++ 3. receives "Dust (3117)" from addamaniac
++ 4. receives "Supernova (2673)" from Tinypocket WESTERVILLE, OH, USA
++ 5. receives "Gunship: First Strike! (2492)" from matrixrenegade ZANESVILLE, OH, USA
++ 6. receives "BattleLore (Second Edition) (621)" from CrimsonFox
++ 7. receives "Hegemonic (2627)" from shanniganz
IndianaJohn : (8 trades of 27, 29%)
-- 1. gives "Quilt Show (1806)" to 5thAce (3100)
-- 2. gives "Ninjato (1817)" to bsilver (944) PLAINFIELD, IN, USA
-- 3. gives "King Chocolate (1830)" to doom_of_the_people (1040) COLUMBUS, OH, USA
-- 4. gives "War and Peace (1808)" to fantastico (1149) LEBANON, OH, USA
-- 5. gives "Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game (1810)" to kldonnelly (992)
-- 6. gives "What's He Building in There? (1809)" to madmuppet2k (2244)
-- 7. gives "Star Trek: Five-Year Mission (1813)" to PeteVasi (1) MORROW, OH, USA
-- 8. gives "Galactic Emperor (1805)" to Samuelw3 (1750)
++ 1. receives "Apotheca (2633)" from shanniganz
++ 2. receives "Patchistory (667)" from Crikrunner COLUMBUS, OH, USA
++ 3. receives "Battlestar Galactica (921)" from joeymcjoeysalot
++ 4. receives "Dark Seas (681)" from doom_of_the_people COLUMBUS, OH, USA
++ 5. receives "Garden Dice (550)" from drpaj OXFORD, OH, USA
++ 6. receives "The Princes of Florence (1586)" from elmsley4 CHICAGO, IL, USA
++ 7. receives "Yspahan (708)" from djsudlow WEST CHESTER, OH, USA
++ 8. receives "Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn (2336)" from Gerth13 COLUMBUS, OH, USA
IQTom : (5 trades of 21, 23%)
-- 1. gives "Masterpiece (2027)" to bigchief (2982) SHAWNEE MISSION, KS, USA
-- 2. gives "The Ares Project (2017)" to dthakur (580)
-- 3. gives "Battle Over Britain (2025)" to Lewk1700 (341)
-- 4. gives "Spain and Portugal (2035)" to Lewk1700 (335)
-- 5. gives "The Game of France, 1940: German Blitzkrieg in the West (2020)" to rlfix (1290) STERLING HEIGHTS, MI, USA
++ 1. receives "Leros (914)" from Suspension Engineer MASON, OH, USA
++ |
Shoring prevents the wall from collapsing and closing down the street. Photo credit
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Parliament Street
The title for the narrowest street in the world was previously held by the Parliament Street of Exeter, England, which in my opinion, fitted better to the definition of a "street". This 50 meter long street is approximately 1.2 meters (45 inches) at its widest and less than 0.64 meters (25 inches) at its narrowest. The street links the High Street to Waterbeer Lane and dates back to the 14th century. It was formerly called the Small Lane before being renamed in 1832.
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Fan Tan Alley
Fan Tan Alley is located in Victoria, British Columbia's Chinatown, connecting Fisgard Avenue to Pandora Avenue in the block between Government Street and Store Street. It is the narrowest street in Canada with its narrowest point measuring only 35 inches (89 cm) wide. The area was originally a gambling district with restaurants, shops, and opium dens. Today it is a tourist destination with many small shops including a barber shop, art gallery, Chinese cafe, apartments and offices.
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Marten Trotzigs Grand
Mårten Trotzigs Gränd is located in Gamla stan, the old town of Stockholm, in Sweden. The street descends down via flight of stairs, tapering as it goes down, to reach a mere 90 centimeters (35 inch), making the alley the narrowest street in Stockholm. The alley is named after the merchant and burgher Mårten Trotzig (1559–1617), who immigrated to Stockholm in 1581, and bought properties in the alley and opened a shop there. He later become one of the richest merchants in Stockholm.
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The entrance to Marten Trotzigs Grand. Photo credit
Strada Sforii
Strada Sforii is located near Șchei Gate in the city of Brașov, Romania. It was initially built as a corridor that firemen could use, and it is first mentioned in 17th century documents. Strada Sforii is now a tourist attraction and meeting spot. Its width varies between 111 and 135 centimeters (44 and 53 in), and it is 80 meters (260 feet) long.
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This article has been revised and republished from an earlier article that appeared on Amusing Planet on August 04, 2008.As Republicans promote tinfoil-hat outrage over Obama’s plan to address the nation’s schoolchildren Tuesday, Robert Gibbs brushes it all off. From the AP
“I think we’ve reached a little bit of the silly season when the president of the United States can’t tell kids in school to study hard and stay in school,” presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters. “I think both political parties agree that the dropout rate is something that threatens our long-term economic success.”
WASHINGTON — The White House on Friday dismissed as pointless the furor over President Barack Obama’s plan to deliver a televised back-to-school speech to the nation’s students.
What strikes me reading this, however, is the thought that Tuesday is perhaps a step too far for the teabagger movement. They’re crying wolf over his Tuesday speech when it’s his Wednesday speech before Congress that really matters.
Worse, Obama’s actual, y’know, speech to the students is going to wind up on TV and all over the internet. Even Wing Nut Daily won’t be able to keep Americans from finding out the paranoia was all wrong — right before they hear him talk about health care.
I think the Republicans have miscalculated once again.In many ways, his troubles offer a window into the forces at work in Tunisia today as the country tries to build a new order, balancing the freedoms of democracy and religion and the complex yearnings of people who, after living under repressive rulers for nearly 60 years, have little experience in accommodating their diversity.
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The Arab Spring began in Tunisia, and it remains the bright spot in the region, with a moderate Islamist party taking power, a constitutional assembly elected and working, a small educated society and a strong middle class. But just like Egypt, Libya and even states where the government did not fall, like Morocco, Tunisia is still struggling to come to terms with what role Islam will play in public life. It is a struggle that many Tunisians believe could prove to be the making — or the unmaking — of their fledgling state.
More moderate Tunisians have increasingly raised concerns about what they see as thuggish behavior by hard-line Islamists that goes unpunished. Late last month, the authorities arrested 15 people after Salafists went on a rampage, burning police stations and attacking bars selling alcohol in several towns in the northwest.
“The law will be applied,” said Said Mechichi, the secretary of state for the interior, according to Tunisia’s official TAP news agency.
But at Manouba, Mr. Kazdaghli has had a hard year, with little assistance from the authorities. Once, protesters kept him imprisoned in his office until 4 a.m. On other days, protesters did the reverse, holding sit-ins in his lobby and blocking him from getting to his desk.
For nearly a month, the Faculty of Letters, Arts and Humanities that Mr. Kazdaghli heads was shut down completely by demonstrators, preventing thousands of students from taking exams.
Though he has asked for help from the government, not much has been forthcoming. The police removed protesters from the Manouba campus only once, he said, after a Salafist protester took down the Tunisian flag to fly a Muslim flag instead. Videos posted on YouTube show a young female student trying to put the Tunisian flag back up and being flung to the ground by a Salafist.
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At the time, the minister of education, Moncef Ben Salem, told reporters that Mr. Kazdaghli had mishandled the situation at Manouba, failing “to do what needed to be done to resolve the situation peacefully.”
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But the mild-mannered Mr. Kazdaghli shows little inclination to back down. He is not about to give up one of his much-needed classrooms so the students can have a prayer room, especially, he said, when such facilities exist nearby. Nor is he willing to allow female students to wear veils in class, as Salafists demand.
“How can you teach a student when you cannot see her face — or give an exam when you don’t know who it is?” he said.
The more cosmopolitan Tunisians who live along the richer coastal areas by and large side with the embattled Mr. Kazdaghli, who was once involved with the country’s Communist Party, a group that, like the Islamists, was repressed under the country’s former leader, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.
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Such supporters see Mr. Kazdaghli’s predicament as a dangerous omen — a sign that the new government, led by the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, is unwilling to hold ultraconservative Islamists to the rule of law.
They worry about other recent events, too, most notably a verdict fining a television executive about $1,600 for showing a film, “Persepolis,” which some Muslims find offensive because it includes a scene depicting God. They are concerned about not only the conviction, but also about the fact that no one has ever been prosecuted for attacks on the television station or for throwing a gasoline bomb at the executive’s house.
But others say that the government is just being pragmatic, that it is conducting a careful balancing act, trying not to lose voters before new elections scheduled for next year. Abou Yaareb Marzouki, the deputy prime minister for education, brushed off concerns about the fine levied on the television executive. “You can’t even buy lunch for that sum,” he said.
For their part, Salafists remain deeply disappointed by the new order for not doing more to enforce a religious way of life. Rafik Ghaki, a Salafist lawyer and activist, said Salafists would continue to push for Shariah law, which he believes is misunderstood and could produce fair justice even for Tunisia’s non-Muslim citizens. Mr. Ghaki said that violence was unacceptable. But he said that when it did occur, as when Salafist demonstrators head-butted a journalist leaving the “Persepolis” trial, it was usually provoked.
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Still, there is much in Tunisia that seems hopeful. Inside its Parliament building, the National Constituent Assembly has been weighing the articles of a new constitution and sounding as lumbering, and stable, as any Western governing body.
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On a recent day, the assembly was mulling budget measures. Members pointed out proudly that this year’s funds would be divvied up based on a formula that would take into account calculations of need.
“We are sending a message of the revolution,” said Lobna Jeribi, who is on the assembly finance committee. “It’s not just the whim of a government official that will decide where the money goes, as it was in the past.”
Across town on the same day, however, Mr. Kazdaghli was huddled in his office with two journalists from The New York Times trying to get the police to escort them out of the building. “This is what I live with,” he said.
The furious student outside the dean’s office, Mohamed Rafik Alegui, 28, railed about a disciplinary hearing that morning that recommended that he be suspended for a month for threatening a teacher.
Mr. Alegui repeatedly shouted through the door that Mr. Kazdaghli, who is an expert on minorities in Tunisia, including its Jewish population, was a Zionist. He complained that the Salafists had been disciplined while the administration did nothing “about all the kissing on campus.”
Mr. Kazdaghli called the police several times, finally telling them that he had two journalists in his office and that the police would regret not coming. They arrived about 20 minutes after the call.(CNN) Maiya Lima was only 5 years old when her mother noticed a small bald patch on the back of her head. More patches began to appear in the weeks and months that followed in 2015.
Her mother, Emmanuela Lima, was anxious, but Maiya's doctor advised patience. By September 2015, half of Maiya's long, thick hair had fallen out.
Blood tests came back normal. Topical steroids did nothing to help regrow her hair. The family got a second opinion from another doctor, who thought it may have been related to her nervous system or the overuse of antibiotics that helped fight previous respiratory infections.
In October and November, her eyelashes and eyebrows disappeared. After her 6th birthday, in December, Maiya lost the last of her hair. Emmanuela said it was the hardest thing she'd ever been through.
Maiya was diagnosed with alopecia totalis, an autoimmune disease with no cure. Though it's possible that her hair may grow back one day, there has been very little growth since her diagnosis. She recently turned 8.
"It's been a hard journey," Lima wrote in an email. "People staring really used to make her sad, or children pointing and commenting. She thought her hair would grow back and I think in a way, she still does. She walks around the majority of the time with her beautiful bald head on full display!"
Wearing headbands has helped Maiya feel "girly," her mother said. But Lima found something even better when she discovered the Magic Yarn Project through an alopecia group on Facebook.
The Magic Yarn Project is a nonprofit run by two moms in Alaska who make soft yarn wigs for children who have lost their hair due to illness. The yarn is more comfortable for their sensitive scalps than traditional wigs made using synthetics. And the designs make whimsical fantasy hairstyles a reality for children dealing with hair loss.
Lima submitted a wig request through the project's website and told them about her daughter's love for Jasmine, from "Aladdin," and Belle from "Beauty and the Beast." The two Disney princesses are her favorites because "both went after what their heart said and both fell in love with people that were very different from them," Lima said.
She didn't tell Maiya, wanting it to be a surprise.
"When it arrived, I let her open everything and she was so happy it brought tears to her eyes and mine," Lima said. "I can't even tell you how big of a smile she had on her face. She knows that she has no hair, but when she puts it on she just loves moving her 'hair' around, and for that moment in time she has her 'hair back.' It means people care and in a world that stares and comments, knowing their are good people out there that will help makes her feel not so alone. They have made my little girl feel special."
The magic begins
As an oncology nurse whose own sister has battled cancer twice, Holly Christensen in Palmer, Alaska, knew that comfort could be a great gift for cancer patients. When her friend's daughter was diagnosed with cancer in 2014, she realized that the little girl would lose her blonde curls. But chemotherapy would make her skin sensitive, making beanies and scarves more practical than a scratchy wig.
Christensen made a wig out of soft yarn and attached it to a crocheted beanie, styled like Disney's Rapunzel from "Tangled." She hoped it would "bring a little sun" and magic to nearly 3-year-old Lily's day. Lily and her mother were overjoyed, and Christensen realized that she could do this for other children at the hospital.
It started locally, with Christensen and her friends making wigs for children in Alaskan hospitals and asking for yarn donations on Facebook. Bree Hitchcock, an acquaintance with mutual friends, saw a post and wanted to help out. Together, they created the nonprofit. They set up a GoFundMe account to collect funds for supplies to make the wigs, which cost about $30 each to make and ship.
GoFundMe featured the Magic Yarn Project on its blog, and the small nonprofit run out of a garage in Alaska went viral in November 2015. It enabled volunteers to join in the effort by setting up chapters in their states and countries, donating funds and yarn, sending in crocheted beanies and even making wigs. And it allowed the group to start fulfilling requests for wigs all over the world.
Initially, members made wigs for characters like "Frozen's" Elsa and Anna, "The Little Mermaid's" Ariel and Rapunzel. But the requests have broadened to request just about every Disney princess, as well as superheroes.
Elsa, Rapunzel, Belle and Moana are the favorites for girls, and the group makes pirate-themed and Capt. Jack Sparrow wigs and Batman and Spider-Man beanies are popular with boys -- although any child can request any wig they want.
For volunteers who can crochet, Christensen links to free patterns for beanies on the website. Through trial and error, she designed the wigs herself. She wanted them to look nice even after a long time of being used and loved, able to withstand the wear and tear of a child in or out of hospitals.
She also includes videos on the site to show people with little to no craft experience how they can make the wigs. Local chapters run workshops with "wig kits," which come with crocheted beanies, so anyone can make a wig. Beanies and wigs can take one to four hours to make. By the time a wig reaches a child, up to five people have been involved in the process of creating and shipping it.
To date, volunteers have made 4,734 wigs and sent them to 32 countries, at zero cost to the families requesting them. In 2018, the Magic Yarn Project's goal is to establish chapters around the world. More volunteers means they can help more children and meet the growing list of wig requests.
"Our wig production tripled in the second year, so if we keep up with this kind of production in year three, we could be at over 10,000 wigs," Hitchcock said.
They've also partnered with A Moment of Magic Foundation, a nonprofit that allows college students to make hospital visits dressed as princesses and other favorite characters. The kids get especially excited when a princess can deliver the wig designed in her likeness, Christensen said.
"The best reactions we get are from the parents, just them telling us how much it means to see their child smile again," Christensen said. "It's part of the healing process for families to have the moments of innocence and childhood brought back when it's been robbed from their child because they're so sick and used to being in pain. It means so much that the kids are so happy, but an unexpected side effect is seeing how much it means to the family members."
Helping kids navigate cancer
Cynthia Erickson's daughter, Violet, is 2½ years old, "spunky, fearless and full of love." One of her favorite things was getting to meet Ariel and Rapunzel when she went to one of the Disney parks in the spring. A short time later, in June, the healthy little girl was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a cancer in blood and bone marrow that affects white blood cells, and the most common childhood cancer.
Someone at her clinic showed Erickson a video about the Magic Yarn Project around the time Violet was losing her hair.
The little girl received her Ariel wig in November, and she loved it. She lights up every time she even looks at it, Erickson said.
"For some, like my daughter, they are too young to completely understand what is happening," Erickson said. "It can be a scary thing to lose your hair, and the Magic Yarn Project makes them feel special. They can forget for just a moment and be transformed into whatever character they want. It was beautiful to see. As parents, you endure a lot of pain on this journey, so you savor those great moments."
Sophie Colleran's parents knew that something was wrong with their 5-year-old daughter in January when they took her to the hospital and doctors asked them to go in another room and sit down.
She was also diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Their energetic little "diva" who loved Disney princesses and changing her outfits up to five times a day became nearly motionless. She didn't want to eat or get out of bed as she began a three-month stay at Lady Cilento Children's Hospital in Brisbane, Australia. Her theme song became "Get Back Up Again" from the movie "Trolls."
Her mother, Michelle Colleran, tried traditional wigs, but they never lasted long.
When she found the Magic Yarn Project on social media and saw its Rapunzel wig, she knew it would make Sophie smile. She had a Rapunzel dress and had always dreamed of having the princess' long hair.
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"As she pulled out the wig, her face lit up, and she began to giggle," Colleran said. Sophie ran to put on her Rapunzel dress, put on the wig and told her mother to "take some pictures and send them to everyone."
Sophie has been battling leukemia for a year, but she is "back to her cheeky little self, running around, playing games, eating lots of ice cream and just doing what every normal 5-year-old kid should be doing."
"These kids have to grow up very quickly when they're diagnosed, and for them to receive these wigs, beanies and superhero hats, it just reminds them that there are good people out there and that it's OK to just be a kid," Colleran said. "It's not all hospital beds and needles and chemo."Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s approval rating has dropped to a new low as Californians continue to worry about the economy and the state’s dismal finances, according to a new poll by the Public Policy Institute of California.
The poll found that just 27% of Californians approve of the job the governor is doing -- a career low for Schwarzenegger in the institute's surveys. The Legislature also remains unpopular, with approval from just 17% of Californians, matching a record low in July.
More than 60% of respondents said the economy and jobs topped their list of concerns. State budget problems were the second most cited worry, with 13% calling the budget the most important issue facing the state. Answering a separate question, 88% said the state’s budget situation was a big problem.
The poll also asked about the 2010 gubernatorial race. Most people indicated that they were paying little attention to it and had scant enthusiasm for the candidates. Only 10% of likely voters were closely following the race, the survey found, and only 32% were satisfied with their choice of candidates.
The front-runner in the GOP primary is former EBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman, with 32% of likely primary voters favoring her. Former Rep. Tom Campbell had support from 12% of likely GOP voters, and state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner had 8% support.
The front-runner on the Democratic side is state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, who has no major competition for the nomination. In a potential November match-up, Brown led Whitman among all likely voters, 43% to 37%.
The institute surveyed 2,004 adults by telephone. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.
-- Evan Halper in SacramentoEarlier this month, news broke that Radiohead guitarist and experienced film composer Jonny Greenwood would be scoring Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here, an upcoming drama starring Joaquin Phoenix. In conjunction with the feature movie’s screening at Cannes Film Festival this week, a clip from the film has been released and it features some of the original music composed by Greenwood.
In the clip, Phoenix takes cues from Taken-era Liam Neeson as he plays a war veteran whose “attempt to save a young girl from a sex trafficking ring goes horribly wrong.” The action begins when Phoenix’s hood-clad character exits a building as alarms ring in the background. After walking into a dark alleyway, he effortlessly takes out a would-be attacker. From there, he nonchalantly hops into a taxi cab and asks to be taken to the airport.
Greenwood’s score kicks off the clip as the camera pans from inside the building out to the alleyway, building tension with sparse percussion and a catchy guitar loop. The background music fades away during the fight scene, only to pick back up with a more exciting, synth-heavy instrumental as Phoenix prepares to enter the cab.
The Radiohead member has worked on several film scores in recent years. He’s served as the go-to composer for renowned director Paul Thomas Anderson, who enlisted his help for 2007’s There Will Be Blood, 2012’s The Master, and 2014’s Inherent Vice. Greenwood is currently helming the music for his fourth Anderson project, a ’50s-set fashion industry flick starring Daniel Day Lewis.
Currently, You Were Never Really Here doesn’t have a US release date. With the pedigree of the people involved, however, expect to hear more news sooner rather than later.The success of your customer onboarding flow relies heavily on the first few touches, and it starts with your welcome email.
What is a welcome email A welcome email is one of the first impressions your brand makes. A friendly hello to connect with new customers and encourage them to interact with your product or service.
Your welcome email should be informative, clear and actionable. The examples in this post cover a range of approaches. Some might work great for your business, and others might not. Testing, as always, is highly encouraged.
Why welcome emails are important
One important thing to remember, open and click rates do not measure the success of your welcome email.
Of course, you’ll want to tweak subject lines and body copy to optimize conversion. But the real purpose of the welcome email is to move users through your onboarding process.
Welcome email statistics The average open rate for a welcome email is 50%. That makes it 86% more effective than standard newsletters.
76% of people expect to receive a welcome email immediately after subscribing to your list.
Users who receive a welcome email show 33% more engagement with the brand Source:invesp
The next step, depending on your software, blog or store could be to encourage readers to:
complete their profile
download content
read a help doc or guide
login to their account
make a purchase
complete a task/action
Whatever that step is, it must deliver value.
The metric to measure is the conversion rate. How many people took the step you asked them to take?
With this in mind, let’s dive into some of the best welcome email examples.
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Welcome Email Examples
Subject line: How does Airbnb work?
Uncertainty is a conversion killer. New users usually want to know how your product or service works before diving in. Airbnb’s welcome email alleviates anxiety by providing clear guidelines on how things work.
It provides you with a clear introduction to their features:
find a home
explore experiences
travel with confidence
become a host
All sections are visual, showing people having a good time. Descriptions are concise and actionable, with relevant CTAs.
Instead of using a CTA asking people to “Book Now,” the CTA prompts them to “Explore.” It’s non-committal and friction-free.
Subject line: Welcome to the Flock
Allbirds, the world’s most comfortable shoe brand, creates a special feel that’s visible at every point.
Allbird’s welcome email:
uses colorful language to convey values
includes subtle animated GIFs that are consistent with the overall welcome email layout
starts with an outstanding subject line: Welcome to the Flock that builds on the brand’s playful, friendly tone-of-voice, while making you feel part of something
Together, all these elements make for an authentic and memorable brand identity.
Well done, Allbirds!
Subject line: Welcome to Asana
Asana’s welcome email design aligns with their product, which is great for their overall brand recognition.
Messaging is tight and focused, making the next steps clear for the subscriber.
“Three things to try out now” makes it easy for the customer to get started, and quickly gain value from the product. Also, they have actionable headlines that are short, but to the point.
Plus, a vibrant purple CTA button looks awesome and beautifully contrasts the overall layout.
Pro tip: The 1-2-3 formula is great for welcome emails as it makes it simple for readers to digest. When done well, it even reduces anxiety about using a new product.
Subject line: We’re Away. Let’s meet up.
Away, the first-class luggage brand uses a welcome email to describe and share their values and authentic passion for travel. And right from the start, they demonstrate customer-first approach by talking to travelers about what they needed on the road.
Away’s welcome email gives you five strong benefits and reasons to choose their product, reducing anxiety by offering a 100-day trial. Also, the narrative makes Away’s luggage feel thoughtful and bulletproof.
This welcome email lines up with the company’s brand image and inspires you to the next trip.
Excellent storytelling!
Pro tip: Not all your recipients are already customers. For this reason, they might need a little more background about your brand to start trusting you.
Subject line: Welcome to Casper!
Casper welcomes us with a beautifully designed email. Perfectly matched night colors and sleepy language creates a relaxing aura around the brand. 🙂
They use awards to prove the quality of their products and earn your trust.
Casper’s welcome email suggests the involvement of some high-tech stuff and that they take your sleep super seriously.
Also, the 100-night trial reduces the barriers to purchase, it feels less of a commitment, and they can change their mind, so the decision to buy is easier.
“Let’s get sleepy” is a hilarious CTA that aligns with the copy, implies action and it’s always great to see something fresh! 🙂
Subject line: You’re part of the family now
While this subject line makes it immediately feel like you belong here, the opening statement helps establish the brand as human and caring, with a greater good and purpose.
We believe everyone should wake up happy. It’s why we create outrageously comfortable mattresses for an epic night’s sleep.
After a statement like that, nothing else matters; you know you’re at the right place to get your perfect mattress! 🙂
Eve goes straight to the most significant benefits their products bring: waking up happy, accompanied by an epic night’s sleep. That’s a great emotional hook!
The introductory paragraph is crowned with a classic CTA, “shop now.”
With such an awesome and creative paragraph, it’s okay to keep your call to actions simple.
The second part of the welcome email offers perks that help bring the reader closer to making a purchase:
Free delivery
100-night trial
10-year warranty
Eve not only offers a quality shipping package but they also make it super comfy.
Your experience is going to be nice and smooth. 🙂
No frustrations, no trouble.
Subject line: Welcome to Evernote!
The opening statement in Evernote’s welcome email caught my eye:
“You’re going places. Your notes should too. Install Evernote on your phone today”
It’s concise, clear and tells you the action you’ll need to take to enjoy the benefits of this excellent note-taking app.
Evernote keeps its copy short, light and to the point, telling new subscribers:
How to download the app.
How to use it to improve productivity efficiently.
It’s the right thing to do since email attention spans are short – about 11 seconds, according to Litmus research.
Pro tip: Optimize your emails for short attention spans. Use heads, subheads, bullets, and other tactics to communicate quickly.
Subject line: You + Grammarly = Ready for Action
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Grammarly, a free writing assistant, has been nailing their online communication.
They know exactly how to use online channels to make you fall in love with their personality. And with witty, playful language, Grammarly gets right to the point.
Write the Future. This is how their welcome email begins.
“better writing opens you up to better conversations, remarkable accomplishments, and healthier relationships”.
That’s a broad perspective, but when you think about it – there’s a lot of truth to it. That’s an excellent analogy. 🙂
The three following sections guide you through Grammarly’s basic features to help you get started and gain value quickly.
Pro tip: Develop a friendly consistent tone-of-voice across all your communications to make your brand engaging and memorable.
Subject line: Ready to meditate?
Headspace, a guided meditation app, created not only a great product for a happier, healthier life but also mastered mindful storytelling.
And their animations rock!
Headspace’s welcome email template is something to see because of its cartoonish brand style. They use illustrations to provide interesting meditation lessons and define their brand identity.
This welcome email example:
tells you exactly how the trial works
uses a strong lead magnet (free 10-day beginner course)
explains what happens when you want to go beyond the basics of meditation
One thing that’s missing here is a second CTA button located at the bottom of this welcome email – So you don’t need to scroll back to start meditating.
Subject line: Hi Kasia, let’s get you started.
Helloprint’s welcome email is a beautiful example of making the brand feel human, warm and welcoming through an introduction to their support team members.
Helloprint stops being anonymous and you know precisely that it’s Mary, Martha, and Danny taking great care of you.
It’s a simple move to immediately put a face to your brand, making it friendly and personal from the start.
Pro tip: Introduce your team to your users to make your brand more friendly and trustworthy.
Subject line: Welcome to Invision
Invision’s welcome email is all about showing, not telling. They provide three handy videos to help you understand and make the most of your Invision experience.
Highlighting that their customers include well-known brands and experts who are admired for their design and customer experience, helps to establish trust and credibility with the reader quickly. This, in turn, encourages the customer to use the product.
Clear and actionable copywriting drives your attention towards Invision’s value propositions and benefits, showing the customer what they can achieve with the product.
This simplistic and visual approach aligns with the narrative and the essence of the overall product.
Subject line: Kasia, let’s get you designing in Marvel
Marvel’s welcome email combines illustrations with short, informative video tutorials and simple, personalized copy to drive you towards useful resources.
This welcome email keeps you focused with a minimalistic and clean design.
Subject line: Welcome to Medium, Kasia Perzynska
Medium greets new members with a light, clean welcome email design and pastel colors.
The conversation opens with a simple, yet powerful statement:
“Welcome to Medium, where words matter”
This works to convey Medium’s central idea from the start. Next, you are served Medium’s fundamentals:
who the platform was created for
the primary idea behind it – to provide users with hyper-personalized content
how you can get unlimited access – $5/mo
Messaging is concise and tells subscribers how the modern content platform works.
Beneath, you’ll find some personalized stories based on the topic selection, plus top-performing stories to capture your attention and get you reading straight away.
Pro-tip: Make your welcome email as personal as possible to deliver content your users will value. Track your event data to add dynamic content to your emails.
Subject line: Welcome to Mode!
Mode’s welcome email starts with a clean hero image, presenting coders around a desk, with a personalized greeting on top.
Next, you’re given two practical ways to get started with Mode along with an explanation of the analytics platform and a 2-minute video walkthrough.
Even though you can find three different CTAs, they are all strategically selected to showcase the product’s core value.
This welcome email message is super clear and focused.
Subject line: Fantastic. You are in!
A creative welcome email design by Moo grabs your attention with a fun picture and a fresh color combination: green, blue and yellow.
MOO makes great designs and print for customers worldwide, reinforced with this beautiful, creative welcome email.
After the greeting, they grab your attention with their significant promise, a funny picture (probably presenting some of their prints) and a fresh color combination.
Moo swears that if you use their print products, you’ll impress everyone, and“if you’re not over the moon, they’ll move mountains to make it right.”
Well-said! And it sounds like a strong warranty to me.
‘Award-winning customer service’ sweetens up the deal – when you treat yourself to Moo’s products, you’ll be served by over-achievers and trust you’ll receive an experience above expectations.
Subject line: Get Started With Pipedrive
View online
Pipedrive uses several welcome email best-practices to engage readers and encourage them to take the next step in the journey. They bet on social proof, and they have good reasons to do it because it reduces anxiety and quickly builds trust.
But, Pipedrive doesn’t stop there. They take persuasion to another level by using their ratings [#1 CRM Software] to show off the excellent quality of their product and quickly establish trust and credibility.
Next, they share an explainer video that shows everything you need to know about the product.
According to Wistia, videos up to 2 minutes long get tons of engagement. After that, the drop-off in engagement is significant, so it’s worth ensuring your videos are short and packed with value to keep your viewers engaged.
This will ensure the majority of viewers also reach your CTA at the end of the video.
Pipedrive finishes up the welcome email with quick links to helpful resources and stats that will ensure it’s the right tool for you.
Well done! 🙂
Subject line: You’re in. Welcome to Starbucks Rewards
View online
Starbucks is well-known for its creative marketing communication. So when I review the best welcome email examples, it’s my job to cover Starbucks.
And Starbucks nailed it, as expected. This welcome email is (almost) perfect:
It quickly jumps into the perks you’ll get from the Starbucks Reward program.
It includes clear and focused copy that’s interlaced with beautiful visuals and illustrations.
All the elements suit each other for a smooth welcome email.
But wait, there’s one thing missing! There are no clear CTAs. Although this welcome email example is informative, CTAs could be added to each section. After all, your emails should always be targeted towards a specific action.
Pro tip: Think strategically about the call to action in your welcome email. Also, when your email gets lengthy, don’t hesitate to sprinkle several CTAs at strategic locations. The best option is to tie one CTA to each section.
Subject line: Welcome to TripIt, Kasia
View online
TripIt’s welcome email takes on a similar approach that’s used by Asana. They use the 1-2-3 formula that makes it easy for the reader to process and take action. Simple and actionable.
Subject line: Welcome to Turo
Turo’s welcome email starts with a visual of a van on the road in the middle of nowhere, probably somewhere in Utah or Arizona. It brings to my mind the idea of #vanlife, which is in fashion recently.
A hero image along with the introductory statement
“Your adventure starts here”
encourages you to hit the road. And your imagination takes you there.
ALMOST. All you have to do to get there is to click to find your perfect car.
Turo’s visuals and content flow smoothly together and compliment each other. It’s natural.
Although this welcome email is brief, all the elements are in place. Turo’s marketers are great storytellers!
Pro tip: Keep your message concise, but make sure to press the right buttons and inspire user’s imagination.
Subject line: Welcome to Ugmonk!
The first thing to catch my attention in Ugmonk’s welcome email is its form.
UGmonk welcomes you with a short note from the founder, Jeff Sheldon, and an interview-style video that feels personal.
This story introduces you to the everyday life of a committed designer who came up with the idea and then had his idea become something |
gerður Lúthersdóttir (University College London) underscored this ambivalence: “the issue is also complicated further by the fact that most blond Nordic men have red beards.” The Old Norseusually means “fair” in the sense of beautiful – not necessarily “light in color” – yet it is also used in the compound(“light-haired”). Conversely, theelsewhere cites poetic verses calling gold “red wealth,” which would imply that Thor is a redhead. However, other poetic quotations in the work compare gold to bothamber andfire. So, evidence from Snorri doesn’t give a definitive answer on the color issue. In an email exchange, Helga Hlaðgerður Lúthersdóttir (University College London) underscored this ambivalence: “the issue is also complicated further by the fact that most blond Nordic men have red beards.”
Rudolf Meissner’s Die Kenningar der Skalden (1921) provides an exhaustive list of kennings (poetic phrases that replace specific nouns) in Scandinavian poetry dating back to approximately 850 CE. In the section of the book dealing with references to Thor, there is no mention of beards – blond or red. Over the last hundred years, scholarly dating of Þrymskviða (with Thor’s bristling beard) has ranged from the late 900s to the early 1200s. Snorri’s Edda was written or compiled around 1220. In these early mythic sources, there is no clear answer.
The first references to a red-bearded Thor appear in the sagas, written after the Eddas (either slightly after or much later – see below). These few mentions of Thor’s red beard appear in strikingly Christian contexts, not pagan ones. They portray Thor a god whose time has passed – a relic of a bygone era.
In Eirik the Red’s Saga, Thorhall remains loyal to Thor during the Viking exploration of Vínland (North America) despite the Christians around him. In one well-known passage, he brags that Thor is more powerful than Jesus: “Didn’t Old Redbeard prove to be more help than your Christ? This was my payment for the poem I composed about Thor, my guardian, who’s seldom disappointed me.” Gísli Sigurðsson (Árni Magnússon Institute) has dated the writing of the saga to between 1220 and 1280. When Kendra Wilson (UCLA) was kind enough to check attestations of rauðskeggr (“red-bearded”) in the Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, this speech of Thorhall’s was the only result she found.
rauða skegg (“red beard”). The saga itself was likely compiled between 1225 and 1250.
In Flóamanna Saga, Thor appears several times in the dreams of Thorgils, a man who “was among the first to be converted” to Christianity in Iceland. Thor repeatedly threatens the hero in an attempt to turn him back to the old religion, but he is unsuccessful. When he visits Thorgils in his dream-visions, the god materializes as a “large and red-bearded man.” According to Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia (edited by Kirsten Wolf, Paul Acker and Donald K. Fry, published 1993), this saga is dated between 1290 and 1350 and was most likely written by a Christian clergyman in southern Iceland.
Thorgils isn't the only one who dreams of Thor!
So the first traceable appearances of Thor's red beard appear in sagas dated c1220-c1350, not in the earlier mythological sources from c850-c1220. The chronology can be argued, but it is clear that the saga version of Thor's appearance is the one that has stuck with us. Long after the age of saga-writing, the red-bearded Thor remained as the popular image of the god in folklore of various lands. The French scholar Georges Dumézil writes, "Whereas the Edda presents [Thor] as a man in the prime of life, the Lapp tradition, in accord with several popular Norwegian expressions, makes him an old man with a red beard.” Jacob Grimm wrote in 1835 that “this red beard of the thunderer is still remembered in curses, and that among the Frisian folk, without any visible connexion [sic] with Norse ideas: ‘diis ruadhiiret donner regiir!’ (let red-haired thunder see to that) is to this day an exclamation of the North Frisians.”
Marvel’s youthful, inexperienced Thor – especially as portrayed in the early Lee/Kirby stories – also has roots in the Eddas. Both Hárbarðsljóð (“Harbard’s Song”) and Hymiskviða (“Hymir’s Poem”) refer to Thor as sveinn (“boy” or “lad”). Snorri glosses the second poem by writing that Thor “went out across Midgard, having assumed the appearance of a young boy,” but the original text makes no such claim that Thor's youth is put on as a disguise.
Snorri’s description of Thor’s fight with the giant Hrungnir also posits a younger, less-experienced god of thunder: “Thor was eager not to let anything stop him from going to single combat when he had been challenged to a duel, for no one had ever done that to him before.” Dumézil discusses this passage in connection with initiation rites for young warriors, which underscores the idea that Lee and Kirby’s immature Thor is not necessarily out-of-step with mythological sources. In " Out-Thoring Thor in Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta " (2006), Merrill Kaplan (Ohio State University) describes how Thor appears in the saga as a “demonic entity” who is “young-seeming, powerfully built, and red-bearded” and is referred to only as(“red beard”). The saga itself was likely compiled between 1225 and 1250.In, Thor appears several times in the dreams of Thorgils, a man who “was among the first to be converted” to Christianity in Iceland. Thor repeatedly threatens the hero in an attempt to turn him back to the old religion, but he is unsuccessful. When he visits Thorgils in his dream-visions, the god materializes as a “large and red-bearded man.” According to(edited by Kirsten Wolf, Paul Acker and Donald K. Fry, published 1993), this saga is dated between 1290 and 1350 and was most likely written by a Christian clergyman in southern Iceland.So the first traceable appearances of Thor's red beard appear in sagas dated c1220-c1350, not in the earlier mythological sources from c850-c1220. The chronology can be argued, but it is clear that the saga version of Thor's appearance is the one that has stuck with us. Long after the age of saga-writing, the red-bearded Thor remained as the popular image of the god in folklore of various lands. The French scholar Georges Dumézil writes, "Whereas thepresents [Thor] as a man in the prime of life, the Lapp tradition, in accord with several popular Norwegian expressions, makes him an old man with a red beard.” Jacob Grimm wrote in 1835 that “this red beard of the thunderer is still remembered in curses, and that among the Frisian folk, without any visible connexion [sic] with Norse ideas: ‘diis ruadhiiret donner regiir!’ (let red-haired thunder see to that) is to this day an exclamation of the North Frisians.”Marvel’s youthful, inexperienced Thor – especially as portrayed in the early Lee/Kirby stories – also has roots in the. Both(“Harbard’s Song”) and(“Hymir’s Poem”) refer to Thor as(“boy” or “lad”). Snorri glosses the second poem by writing that Thor “went out across Midgard, having assumed the appearance of a young boy,” but the original text makes no such claim that Thor's youth is put on as a disguise.Snorri’s description of Thor’s fight with the giant Hrungnir also posits a younger, less-experienced god of thunder: “Thor was eager not to let anything stop him from going to single combat when he had been challenged to a duel, for no one had ever done that to him before.” Dumézil discusses this passage in connection with initiation rites for young warriors, which underscores the idea that Lee and Kirby’s immature Thor is not necessarily out-of-step with mythological sources.
Red Raven Comics to Captain America and underwent a name-change to Hurricane, “son of Thor, god of Thunder, and the last descendant of the ancient Greek immortals.”
The son of Thor kicks butt!
Art by Jack Kirby
Despite this strange confusion of mythologies, the character is noteworthy in that he is blond and wears winged headgear – two attributes of the later Marvel superhero version of Thor. Of course, the wings relate to clasic portrayals of the Roman Mercury, not the Norse god of thunder. Similar character design of another character named Mercury appears in the December, 1948 issue of Venus – edited by, of all people, Stan Lee.
Mercury appears in Venus #3 (1948)
In 1942, Kirby (with Captain America co-creator Joe Simon) published a story called “The Villain from Valhalla” in issue #75 of DC’s Adventure Comics. It features the first Kirby-designed version of the Norse god thunder god, portrayed as a villain with a red beard and horned helmet who fights the heroic Sandman. Although this “Thor” is really just a mobster using futuristic technology to imitate the god, Kirby's first vision of the character is much closer in appearance to the bearded Thor of the sagas than it is to the later Marvel character.
Jack Kirby's first version of Thor
Adventure Comics #75 (1942) Jack Kirby’s classic Thor design incorporates earlier elements of his work that stretch back over twenty years before the character’s first appearance in 1962. In 1941, the superhero known as Mercury – a Kirby character for Timely Comics (which eventually evolved into Marvel Comics) – moved fromtoand underwent a name-change to Hurricane, “son of Thor, god of Thunder, and the last descendant of the ancient Greek immortals.”Despite this strange confusion of mythologies, the character is noteworthy in that he is blond and wears winged headgear – two attributes of the later Marvel superhero version of Thor. Of course, the wings relate to clasic portrayals of the Roman Mercury, not the Norse god of thunder. Similar character design of another character named Mercury appears in the December, 1948 issue of– edited by, of all people, Stan Lee.In 1942, Kirby (with Captain America co-creator Joe Simon) published a story called “The Villain from Valhalla” in issue #75 of DC’s. It features the first Kirby-designed version of the Norse god thunder god, portrayed as a villain with a red beard and horned helmet who fights the heroic Sandman. Although this “Thor” is really just a mobster using futuristic technology to imitate the god, Kirby's first vision of the character is much closer in appearance to the bearded Thor of the sagas than it is to the later Marvel character.
In 1957, Kirby drew a story called “The Magic Hammer” in DC Comics’ Tales of the Unexpected #16. This bearded Thor is almost identical to Kirby’s 1942 version, but his hammer now has the same design that Kirby would use five years later for the Marvel superhero. Also notable is the design of Thor's tunic, which features the same stylized circular bosses that are prominent on the costume of the subsequent Marvel character. Unlike the 1942 story, this tale portrays Thor as an actual Norse god, complete with a foil in the villainous Loki – who would, of course, become the main villain in the Marvel series.
Kirby's second Thor, same as the first
Tales of the Unexpected #16 (1957) In 1957, Kirby drew a story called “The Magic Hammer” in DC Comics’#16. This bearded Thor is almost identical to Kirby’s 1942 version, but his hammer now has the same design that Kirby would use five years later for the Marvel superhero. Also notable is the design of Thor's tunic, which features the same stylized circular bosses that are prominent on the costume of the subsequent Marvel character. Unlike the 1942 story, this tale portrays Thor as an actual Norse god, complete with a foil in the villainous Loki – who would, of course, become the main villain in the Marvel series.
How did Kirby’s later conception (beardless, blond) change so radically from these two similar designs, separated from each other by fifteen years? A possible “missing link” can be found in a 1959 story illustrated by Steve Ditko, who was known to Stan Lee since the early 1950s and who began working in 1955 for Atlas Comics, another Marvel precursor that featured writing by Lee. Ditko drew “The Hammer of Thor” in issue #11 of Charlton Comics’ Out of This World. It features a young Viking – initially blond and beardless – who discovers Thor’s mystic hammer in a cave and uses its magic power to drive invading Huns out of Scandinavia. In a strange echo of Snorri’s euhemerism, the final panel implies that this human hero was remembered as a god by later generations.
Steve Ditko's Thor finds the magic hammer
Out of This World #11 (1959) How did Kirby’s later conception (beardless, blond) change so radically from these two similar designs, separated from each other by fifteen years? A possible “missing link” can be found in a 1959 story illustrated by Steve Ditko, who was known to Stan Lee since the early 1950s and who began working in 1955 for Atlas Comics, another Marvel precursor that featured writing by Lee. Ditko drew “The Hammer of Thor” in issue #11 of Charlton Comics’. It features a young Viking – initially blond and beardless – who discovers Thor’s mystic hammer in a cave and uses its magic power to drive invading Huns out of Scandinavia. In a strange echo of Snorri’s euhemerism, the final panel implies that this human hero was remembered as a god by later generations.
Finally, in 1962, issue #83 of Marvel’s Journey into Mystery featured the first appearance of Lee and Kirby’s thunder god in “Thor the Mighty and the Stone Men from Saturn.” The influence of Ditko’s version is clear. Dr. Don Blake finds a wooden cane in a Scandinavian cave; when he strikes it against a boulder, it becomes the Thor’s magic hammer. Kirby’s visual storytelling of a human character's discovery of Thor's hammer in a cave is quite similar to Ditko’s:
Kirby's version of the hammer-finding scene,
suspiciously similar to Ditko's
As in the Ditko tale, the hero uses the newly-found weapon to repel an invasion of Scandinavia. In this case, which takes place in contemporary times, the invaders are space aliens rather than Huns. Did Lee know Ditko’s tale and instruct Kirby to replicate its plot and imagery? The murky nature of Lee and Kirby’s collaboration – and who created what elements – has led to recent court battles, so there is no clear answer to be found. However, we do know that Lee insisted later Marvel artists study and imitate Kirby's work, so it's not outside the realm of possibility that, in this instance, he asked Kirby to emulate the earlier Ditko story.
Kirby’s final version of Thor is blond, clean-shaven and wears a winged helmet, combining elements from both his earlier Mercury/Hurricane character (the headgear and blond hair) and his second Thor (the hammer design).
Finally, in 1962, issue #83 of Marvel’sfeatured the first appearance of Lee and Kirby’s thunder god in “Thor the Mighty and the Stone Men from Saturn.” The influence of Ditko’s version is clear. Dr. Don Blake finds a wooden cane in a Scandinavian cave; when he strikes it against a boulder, it becomes the Thor’s magic hammer. Kirby’s visual storytelling of a human character's discovery of Thor's hammer in a cave is quite similar to Ditko’s:As in the Ditko tale, the hero uses the newly-found weapon to repel an invasion of Scandinavia. In this case, which takes place in contemporary times, the invaders are space aliens rather than Huns. Did Lee know Ditko’s tale and instruct Kirby to replicate its plot and imagery? The murky nature of Lee and Kirby’s collaboration – and who created what elements – has led to recent court battles, so there is no clear answer to be found. However, we do know that Lee insisted later Marvel artists study and imitate Kirby's work, so it's not outside the realm of possibility that, in this instance, he asked Kirby to emulate the earlier Ditko story.Kirby’s final version of Thor is blond, clean-shaven and wears a winged helmet, combining elements from both his earlier Mercury/Hurricane character (the headgear and blond hair) and his second Thor (the hammer design).Image caption The letter was found by builders in the chimney of a property in Caversham
Builders who found a letter to Father Christmas in a chimney more than 70 years after it was written have surprised its author with the presents he asked for.
David Haylock, now 78, from Caversham, wrote the message when he was about six asking Santa for a Rupert annual and "any toys you have to spare".
It was discovered in his former home in Oakley Road, Caversham, on Monday.
Lewis Shaw, who found it, described it as a "surprise".
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption David Haylock, now 78, from Caversham, wrote the message when he was about six
"I can remember bending down with my mother and putting it up the chimney, and waiting for the draught to take it up," said Mr Haylock of his letter.
He said his grandchildren were "amazed" by the discovery because they email Santa.
"Seeing as it's taken more than 70 years for the letter to get to Father Christmas, I think email is probably the best way," he added.
Image copyright David Haylock Image caption Mr Haylock wrote the letter when he was about six
Mr Shaw, 24, who found the letter while working with his father and brother, said: "We take down a lot of chimneys and we find the odd cigarette packet or newspaper.
"But when you find something so personal it touches your heart.
"Just reading the letter from a little lad - he didn't ask for much, just the things he needed."
A drum, a box of chalks, soldiers and Indians, slippers, a silk tie and a pencil box were also on the list, which Mr Shaw wrapped and presented to Mr Haylock along with his letter.
Mr Haylock described the gesture as "lovely" but said he would refrain from opening the gifts until Christmas Day.
Mr Shaw who has two young children said their Christmas lists contained much more expensive items like iPads: "It just shows how much we take things for granted these days," he added.Without the distractions of the daytime crowds, grocery shopping late at night yields many more hidden gems amongst the aisles. On a recent twilight excursion I found myself standing in the refrigerator section staring at one of the most delightful cultural hybrids ever: pizza-flavored hummus.
It occurred to me that up until now I had been limiting myself to pizza only in its natural state. It was obvious what I had to do next — find as many pizza-flavored items as I could and turn them into a pizza.[Editor's note: Sweet Jesus.]
Two grocery stores, one gas station, and a couple of strange looks from the cashier later and I had my haul: Pizza Supreme Doritos, Pizzalicious Pringles, Pepperidge Farm Flavor Blasted Xplosive Pizza Goldfish crackers, Pepperoni Pizza Combos, and of course, the pizza hummus.
Our fingers coated in bright orange powder, the gentle aroma of fake cheese and tomato, and my pizza assistant and I had assembled our masterpiece. (Goldfish dyed red for added effect. Oooooh!)
Dazzle in the ultimate pizza-ness of the pizza-flavored pizza!
Pizza party in your mouth? Definitely.On a shelf in Panama City, a human skeleton was bundled into a bag within a cardboard box for 46 years. Or part of a skeleton, anyway. The bones had been looked at once in 1991 and then shelved again. Then one day Nicole Smith-Guzmán, a bioarchaeologist and a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) opened the box and noticed that there was something a little bit different about these bones. The humerus of one arm featured a lumpy calcified mass.
Related Content Evidence for the Oldest Ever Bone Tumor Was Just Found in a Neanderthal Fossil
This turned out to be the oldest known case of cancer in Central America.
The bones had been excavated in the Panamanian province of Bocas del Toro in 1970 by the now-deceased archaeologist Olga Linares, who had set out to study the agricultural practices of people in the area.
“I think [Linares] did notice that something was off about this skeleton because she wrote in her 1980 manuscript that this was a diseased individual,” says Smith-Guzmán, “and that was why they were buried in a trash midden. But she didn't realize that the person was buried at a different time than when the site was occupied.”
Smith-Guzmán is the lead author of a new research paper describing what she believes is the oldest example of cancer ever found at a pre-Columbian site in Central America.
The bones belonged to a teenager who was probably between 14 and 16-years-old, based in part on the light wear of the teeth, absence of third molars and the degree of fusion between the bones that form the cranium. It was probably a female, but that is hard to say for certain without a pelvis and until DNA analysis comes back. Radiocarbon dating shows that she died about 700 years ago.
The exact type of cancer which afflicted the teenager is not known for certain, though it was certainly one of several types of sarcoma. It would have caused intermittent pain in the right arm as the tumor grew and expanded through the bone. “There would have been an associated soft tissue mass, creating a swollen appearance of the upper right arm,” according to the paper.
But the cancer probably wasn't the cause of death.
“We can never really determine cause of death in bioanthropology,” Smith-Guzmán says. “We might be able to suggest manner of death, but in this case I collaborated on this paper with a specialist in pediatric oncology, [Jeffrey Toretsky of Georgetown University]. And he doesn't think that this person would have died of the cancer.”
The bones were found at an abandoned village, carefully arranged in a midden, or mound of organic refuse, that had accumulated during the time people had lived there. Only two sets of human remains were uncovered at the burial site (though Linares also wrote that other disarticulated human bones were found throughout the refuse). Even though the burial took place in what amounts to a huge compost pile, Smith-Guzmán thinks that Linares was wrong about the deceased being thrown away like trash.
“We see that the people who buried them cared about this person,” Smith-Guzmán says. “This wasn't just discarding the body of a diseased person. We think this was a ritual burial. We can tell that the culture has a sort of ancestor veneration. As well as a care for diseased individuals. They obviously had to be taking care of this person for a while and buried them with these objects of ritual significance as well.”
The surviving objects buried with the body include several ceramic vessels and a trumpet made from the shell of an Atlantic triton.
Part of the reason why more ancient cases of cancer have not been found in Central America is the fact that the soil tends to be acidic. Rain also tends to be slightly acidic. Unless something special protects skeletal remains, the bones will eventually dissolve. This skeleton was partially protected by marine shells in the decayed refuse mound that the body was buried in. The lime of the shells adjusted the pH of the soil and water surrounding the bones, preserving them.
“There's no evidence that cancer was less common in the past,” says Smith-Guzmán. “The thing is that cancer is rare in people that are less than 50 years of age and if you think about skeletal remains that are going to be preserved and excavated, you have an even smaller sample size. That's why we don't see more cases of cancer described in ancient populations. Also you have to have a cancer that affects the skeletal remains, which is unusual.”Defense Secretary James Mattis on Thursday said that there was "very little doubt" Russia has attempted to interfere in democratic elections in the past.
"There is very little doubt that they have either interfered or attempted to interfere in a number of elections in democracies," Mattis said while answering questions at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
He added that he does not feel compelled to respond to Russian officials who were not pleased with his call to deal with Moscow from a position of strength.
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"I have no need to respond to the Russian statement at all. NATO has always stood for military strength and protection of democracies and the freedoms we intend to pass on to our children," he said.
Mattis maintained that Russia needs to "live by international law" and "prove itself" when it comes to its international commitments.
The Defense secretary also reiterated that Washington is fully committed to backing NATO members under Article Five's principle of collective defense.
Mattis on Tuesday threatened to "moderate" U.S. support for NATO if its allies do not increase their contribution.
"The commitment to Article Five remains rock solid. The message that I brought here about everyone carrying their fair share of burden, of sacrifice to maintain the best defense in the world was very well received. It was not contentious," he said.
President Trump's calls for a closer relationship with Russia and criticism of NATO during the campaign and since Election Day have created concerns among NATO nations about the United States' commitment to the treaty.[ventuno id=’ODM2NTUxfHwyMzY4fHwxMDg2fHwxLDIsMQ==’][/ventuno]
Outgoing United States Ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg on Wednesday said it would not be productive to respond to the latest gay slur of President Rodrigo Duterte.
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“I’m a diplomat. I don’t respond to those comments, quite frankly,” Golberg said in a press conference after he received a commendation at the House of Representatives.
“I don’t respond to or take personally comments such as the ones you mentioned,” he said, speaking to a reporter.
Goldberg attended the plenary session to receive the conferment of the Golden Mace Award from the House for his efforts to strengthen the ties between the US and the Philippines.
He received the award from Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and Majority Floor Leader Rudy Fariñas, Duterte’s staunchest allies in the House, just hours after the President again made an issue about Goldberg’s sexuality.
“Now, itong si Goldberg, for the second time, totoo eh. What’s wrong if you are gay?” Duterte said in a speech at Malacañang after the oath-taking of his appointees and the officers of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines.
“Well, totoo naman ang sinabi ko and had started the ruckus. Siya because he rode onto a statement of mine that was a narration of a true event,” he added.
Goldberg said it would be counterproductive to respond Duterte’s latest tirade against him.
Duterte once castigated Goldberg for being gay as he launched verbal attacks against the US, the Philippines’ longtime ally, in a move to shift the country’s alliance to China.
Goldberg added that it would be better to strengthen the ties between the two countries and maintain the longstanding friendship between them.
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“I don’t think it’s productive. I don’t think it’s consistent with what I was just talking about, which is the great friendship between our people of the two countries, the great alliance between the US and the Philippines which continues,” Goldberg said.
“None of that, I think, is something that I would respond to. I think that it’s better to focus on the work we can do together,” he added.
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MOST READTarget recalls nearly 180,000 dressers that can tip over
NEW YORK (AP) — Target says it is recalling nearly 180,000 dressers because they can tip over and pose a risk to children.
The Minneapolis retailer said Wednesday that it has received 12 reports of its Room Essentials four-drawer dressers falling over or collapsing. Two 3-year-old children were struck by a dresser, but no injuries have been reported.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says customers should stop using the $118 dresser immediately and return it to any Target store for a full refund.
About 175,000 of the dressers were sold in the U.S., and 3,000 were sold in Canada.
The dressers, which were sold at Target Corp. stores and Target.com between January 2013 and April 2016, came in three colors: black, espresso and maple.For most African Americans, and for many liberals, the fatal shooting last week of a young, unarmed black man by a white cop in Ferguson, Missouri, was both heartbreaking and deeply troubling. The militarized crackdown by the predominantly white Ferguson Police Department on people protesting the shooting has been alarming, as well. However, a significant number of white Americans, particularly conservatives, do not view the killing and the unrest in Ferguson in that way; they do not believe race had anything to do with the shooting, nor do they think that Ferguson police have overreacted since it occurred.
This is more than just a stark disagreement between blacks and whites or liberals and conservatives. It's a seemingly intractable conflict that goes to the heart of why white cops in the United States continue to shoot and kill young people of color — and then get away with it. Indeed, the belief, held by a substantial number of Americans, that the death of eighteen-year-old Michael Brown last week was not about race and that it's okay for police to fire rubber bullets and toss teargas grenades at political protesters is why we're destined to keep experiencing these events again and again — whether they take place in Ferguson, Missouri; Sanford, Florida; or Oakland, California.
For those who haven't been following the most recent case: Officer Darren Wilson attempted to stop Brown for jaywalking in Ferguson, and then shot the young man six times, including twice in the head. Brown was supposed to begin college this fall.
It was a tragic occurrence, but recent poll numbers illuminate more of the story. According to a survey released earlier this week by the Pew Research Center, 80 percent of African Americans nationwide say the killing in Ferguson "raises important issues about race that merit discussion." But only 37 percent of whites feel the same way about the fatal shooting. Instead, 47 percent of whites said that "race is getting more attention than it deserves" in the Ferguson case.
Similarly, 68 percent of Democrats said the shooting raises important issues about race, while only 22 percent of Republicans agree that it does. Instead, 61 percent of Republicans said they think race is getting more attention than it deserves, while only 21 percent of Democrats believe that this is the case.
Whites had a similar reaction last year after a jury found white vigilante George Zimmerman not guilty in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a black teen, in Sanford, Florida. After the verdict, 60 percent of whites said the issue of race received more attention than it deserved, according to a Pew poll.
In addition, a near supermajority of African Americans — 65 percent — say that "police have gone too far in responding to the shooting's aftermath" in Ferguson. But just 36 percent of whites think police have overreacted.
At the same time, more than three-quarters of blacks — 76 percent — also say they have little or no confidence in the multiple investigations of the Ferguson shooting that are now taking place. But 52 percent of whites say they have "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of confidence in these investigations.
In short, according to White America, particularly Conservative White America, everything is just fine in Ferguson — police are just doing their job and racial profiling is just a myth.
And people wonder why cops keeping shooting young people of color.
But this not just about Missouri or Florida. Oakland has similar conflicts involving police and race. Earlier this year, a report from the Oakland Police Department showed that officers are still disproportionately targeting young black residents despite a decade-long, court-ordered reform effort designed to eliminate racial profiling. The report showed that African Americans accounted for 62 percent of all traffic stops by police in Oakland during a seven-month period last year, despite the fact that blacks represent just 28 percent of the city's population. Moreover, blacks were more than twice as likely to be searched after they were stopped than whites — 42 percent versus 20 percent — even though the searches were no more likely to turn up illegal items.
Robert Warshaw, the independent court monitor who oversees the police department, said the report represented proof that OPD needs to do more to "identify any disparities in its treatment of its citizens." (According to the Missouri Attorney General's Office, racial profiling in Ferguson is also rampant: 92 percent of all police stops and 86 percent of all stops last year were of black people, even though just 67 percent of the city's population is black.)
Similarly, a 2013 City of Oakland report found that 74.5 percent of the people arrested for marijuana offenses in 2011 were African American. By contrast, just 5 percent of such arrests were of white people, even though whites make up about 26 percent of the population, and whites, in general, report higher rates of pot use nationwide.
Yet despite this evidence of ongoing racial profiling in Oakland, and despite the fact that OPD officers have shot and killed numerous young black men over the years, many of whom were unarmed, the general response to these issues among the city's political leadership has been muted — and similar to White America's reaction to the Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin shootings.
At a mayoral debate earlier this year, many of the candidates argued that OPD does not have a problem with racial profiling — and that city cops were justified in targeting African Americans at disproportionate rates because the police actions had taken place in predominantly high-crime areas.
But, in truth, going after innocent people because of where they live or work is never justified. No one should be subjected to police stops or searches just because they're in a high-crime area. Nor should they be stopped or searched because of the color of their skin. It's that kind of thinking that leads to deadly shootings by police.
Clarification: The original version of this story stated that Michael Brown was trying to get away from Officer Darren Wilson when Wilson shot him. But the exact circumstances of the shooting have not yet been determined.Reading the words “Based on a true story” has never been so chilling…
7. Eaten Alive (1977)
The Movie
The owner of the Starlight Hotel, situated within deep swampland, has a nasty way of dealing with anybody he takes a dislike too. Lurking within the swamp is a crocodile. Should any hotel guest outstay their welcome, it won’t be too long before they become crocodile food.
The True Crime
In the 1930s, Joe Ball, alias the ‘Alligator Man,’ allegedly killed numerous women and fed them to his pet alligators who resided in the backyard of his saloon, the ironically named ‘Sociable Inn’.
Joe entertained his guests by feeding stray animals to the alligators. People also believed that several women had become alligator food too after they completely disappeared from the town. Joe’s wife lost an arm, and it was believed Joe had cut it off and fed it to his pets.
When he came under investigation from the police, Joe killed himself. His handyman confessed to assisting Joe with the killings. The remains of some victims were found buried. Others were never found, leading to the assumption that they had been completely eaten by the alligators.
6. Psycho (1960)
The Movie
Norman Bates, the unhinged owner of the Bates Motel, welcomes wary guests with a twitch and a smile. One guest named Marion Crane is on the run from the police and takes solace at the Motel. Unfortunately, she is not going to survive her stay.
The True Story
Norman Bates was loosely based on the serial killer Ed Gein. He had a troubled childhood and an overly emotional relationship with his mother. When she died his obsession with her continued.
Ed created a copy of his dead mother by skinning exhumed corpses from nearby graveyards. He made a ‘woman suit’ and face mask from the skin of the dead.
When police investigated Ed after a local woman went missing, they found that he had also killed at least two women. A decapitated head was found in his shed. The police also found leggings made from human leg skin, four noses, a belt made from human nipples, a brain, and other gruesome discoveries.
Ed spent the rest of his life in a variety of mental institutions until his death in 1984.
5. Borderland (2007)
The Movie
Three college friends head to Mexico for a weekend of strip clubs and booze. Unfortunately, their trip does not turn out as expected and they are forced to do battle with a human-sacrificing cult.
The True Story
Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo, a drug dealer and cult leader who practiced ritual animal sacrifice during the 1980s, inspired the film. It was thought his voodoo spells were responsible for the success of the drug cartels he supported.
Adolfo made some powerful enemies, and it is thought he turned to human sacrifice to dispose of them. Around 20 people were killed, mainly from rival cartels, and their body parts were allegedly used in ritual sacrifices. Body parts of the dead were later found, including ears, eyes, and in one case, the spinal column of an unfortunate victim.
Adolfo’s henchmen abducted pre-med student Mark Kilroy, from Texas, while he was on a spring break with friends in Mexico. They murdered him with a machete, and his mutilated body was later found in a shallow grave, along with 14 other bodies.
The cult leader was eventually caught and shot to death by the Mexican Special Police in 198 |
aytown, TX
The BLS’ Computer-Related Occupations
According to the BLS, job growth for Computer Occupations will increase 22% by the year 2020. This increase translates to the addition of roughly 778,300 new jobs, and thousands more will be opened due to replacements.
So what types of jobs will this include?
The BLS also breaks down Computer Occupations into five broad categories of job types. We have outlined each of them below with a brief description of the specific job titles that would fall under each.
Computer and Information Research Scientists
Their primary role is to create and find new uses for technologies in the fields of healthcare, business, science and more. In order to break into this profession a Ph.D. is a must and competition is fierce as it is one of the lowest employed computer-related occupations. Across the nation, only about 28,200 workers are employed under this category and receive an average annual salary of $100,660. Employment is also only expected to increase 19% over the next few years but with the already low number of professionals employed in this field it won’t translate into much.
Computer and Information Analysts
Computer Systems Analysts and Information Security Analysts fall under this category with expected job increases of 22% through 2020 and average annual salaries of $77,740 and $75,660, respectively. For Computer Systems Analysts, their main priority is to study an organization’s current computer infrastructure and make recommendations for increasing operating efficiency from both a business and an IT perspective. On the other hand, Information Security Analysts concentrate predominantly on increasing a firm’s security and preventing information leaks from cyber-attacks.
Software Developers and Programmers
This category encompasses Computer Programmers, Web Developers, and Software Developers. These are the creators behind everything online from websites to programs to applications. They write the codes which build out the programs we need in order to operate easily online. In the U.S., on average, Computer Programmers earn $71,380, Web Developers earn $75,660 and Software Developers earn around $90,530; these fields are also witnessing 12%, 22% and 30% job increases, respectively.
Database and Systems Administrators and Network Architects
Database Administrators, Network and Computer Systems Administrators, and Computer Network Architects are all housed under this category. All of these roles work together to create an efficient online network for an organization to store and communicate information. Database Administrators are witnessing average salaries of $73,490 with job increases at 31%; Network and Computer Systems Administrators are earning $69,160 and witnessing 28% increases; and finally, Computer Network Architects earn $75,660 and jobs are growing at a rate of 22%.
Computer Support Specialists
These include both Computer User and Network Support Specialists and they deal primarily with non-technical users who are having computer problems in either a help-desk or technical support role. On average, they earn $46,260 a year and job growth for these positions is expected to be around 18% through 2020.
So What’s Next?
Now that you know each type of computer-related occupation out there, you are probably waiting to hear where you should take the career path you’ve probably already mentally decided on. Well, each job title and state are better for some things than others, which is just the nature of the U.S. job market. It is never really a cut and dry subject but we can give you some very close approximations. Whether you want to know which Computer Occupation you should pursue in your state or you are in an IT role now and want to know where you can make the most money from your skills we will tell you everything you need to know. So relax and take a few minutes to enjoy our state-by-state breakdown of the U.S. IT Job Market.
1. Alabama IT Jobs and Salaries
Alabama’s average salary income for all computer-related occupations is slightly below the national average at $74,764. However, based on the state’s lower than average cost of living index this salary offers professionals living and working within the state a relatively higher amount of disposable income.
While the opportunity to make the most of your yearly earnings in Alabama is desirable all around, salaries for certain occupations in the state standout even more. Computer and Information Research Scientists earn above average incomes at $104,280 per year. Additionally, in the Anniston-Oxford area of Alabama, Computer Programmers report average annual salaries of $109,740[1] which is $30,000 above the national average for this occupation, and will go far in the state of Alabama.
Alabama’s predictions for job growth over the next 5 years, places a number of Computer-related occupations on the state’s list of high demand professions. These job titles include:
Computer Software Engineers
Applications, Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts
Computer Systems Analysts
Computer Software Engineers
Systems Software Developers
Of these, Applications Software Engineer is considered the overall number one occupation on the high demand list based on growth rate, annual job openings and wage criteria. Computer Systems Analysts are predicted to have the most openings for the entire Computer and Mathematical Occupations group at an average of 380 annual job openings in Alabama through 2018.
Alabama’s Average Cost of Living Index: 92.78[2]
Anniston-Calhoun, AL – 91.2
Auburn-Opelika, AL – 98.9
Birmingham, AL – 90.8
Decatur-Hartselle, AL – 89.2
Dothan, AL – 89.8
Florence, AL – 90.2
Huntsville, AL – 91.2
Mobile, AL – 92.7
Montgomery, AL – 99.2
Tuscaloosa, AL – 94.6
2. Alaska Information Technology Jobs and Salaries
Alaska’s reported annual salary for all computer-related positions averages less than the national rate at $74,440. In terms of living costs, this salary is even lower than it should be for living comfortably in the state, in comparison to regions which report more average living indexes.
While all computer-related positions are relatively close to the national salary averages, in the Railbelt non-metropolitan area of Southwest Alaska, Computer Programmers are making around $10,000 more each year than their peers in the major cities of Anchorage and Fairbanks at $86,850 per year. This average annual salary is also above the national average of $78,260.
Alaska is also forecasted to experience high growth and an increase in job openings for a number of its computer-related positions within the state. The following positions are expected to experience the highest growth rates over the next 10 years:
Computer and Information Systems Managers
10-15% growth
130-229 new job openings
Computer Programmers
Less than 10% growth
130-229 new job openings
Computer Systems Analysts
15-21% growth
130-229 new job openings
Computer User Support Specialists
10-15% growth
Over 300 new job openings
Systems Analysts
15-21% growth
130-229 new job openings
Software Developer, Applications
15-21% growth
80-129 new job openings
Software Developer, Systems Software
15-21% growth
Less than 80 new job openings
Network and Computer Systems Administrators
10-15% growth
130-229 new job openings
Alaska’s Average Cost of Living Index: 132.75
Anchorage, AK – 128.4
Fairbanks, AK – 137.4
Juneau, AK – 136.5
Kodiak, AK – 128.7
3. Arizona IT Salaries and Jobs
Arizona’s economy continues to improve slowly across all industries. All sectors are expected to witness an increase in job openings through next year; however, this growth will be steady but slow moving. The only computer-related job in Arizona that is doing notably well is that of Computer Specialists.
While Computer Specialists are still witnessing salary averages lower than the national average, job openings for this position are forecasted for 4,263 new openings by the end of next year. Additionally, Arizona boasts the third highest concentration of Computer Network Support Specialists across the nation with the highest areas of concentration being in the Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, Tucson, and Lake Havasu-Kingman regions.
Just as job demand sits at below average rates throughout the state, salaries for these positions also equal less than the national level at $76,653 per year. However, at a cost of living index above the nation’s average, this salary is even lower than what the market demands to maintain a typical standard of living. Realistically the average should be closer to $80,000 per year, to offer a competitive opportunity within this field. Overall, the lack of growth and low salaries does little to draw appeal to Arizona’s computer-based job market.
Arizona’s Average Cost of Living Index: 103.81
Flagstaff, AZ – 114.9
Phoenix, AZ – 100.7
Sierra Vista, AZ – 97.9
Tucson, AZ – 96.5
Yuma, AZ – 101.2
Lake Havasu City, AZ – 111.8
Prescott-Prescott Valley, AZ – 103.7
4. Arkansas IT Salaries
Arkansas professionals in computer-related positions earn an average of $16,000 less per year than the national average for the same job roles. However, since the state is averaging ten points below the average index for living costs this salary still offers a competitive opportunity for professionals entering the area.
While Arkansas currently does not hold a high employment share of the total U.S. computer-related job market, these numbers are forecasted to grow significantly throughout the ten year period from 2006-2016.
The breakdown below includes the following growth percent over ten years and the annual number of new jobs that translates to per occupation.
Computer Programmers
12.6% growth
128 new jobs per year
Computer Software Engineers, Applications
60.8% growth
117 new jobs per year
Computer Support Specialists
23.2% growth
207 new jobs per year
Computer Systems Analysts
50% growth
165 new jobs
Database Administrators
41.3% growth
48 new jobs per year
Network and Computer Systems Administrators
35.7% growth
85 new jobs per year
Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts
74.5% growth
144 new jobs per year
In terms of job availability, Arkansas is definitely expanding the number of computer-related job roles that the state offers. However, despite high growth percentages, this only translates to approximately 894 new jobs available each year throughout the entire state and for all computer-related occupations. Additionally, these jobs are predominantly concentrated in the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR-MO area.
If relocation to the Fayetteville area of Arkansas sounds appealing to you and you don’t expect to earn a paycheck close to the national average for your job role (mind you it will still be close to double the state’s average annual salary for all occupations) then you may be able to find the opportunities you are seeking in America’s “Natural State.”
Arkansas’ Average Cost of Living Index: 90.67
Conway, AR – 86.6
Fayetteville, AR – 92.1
Jonesboro, AR – 88.9
Fort Smith, AR – 86.1
Hot Springs, AR – 93.8
Little Rock-North Little Rock, AR – 96.5
5. California IT Jobs and Salaries
Sunny California is one of the best places for computer-related jobs in the entire United States. Most of the regions in the state boast above average salaries for all computer occupations. Additionally, the pay rates are, on average, competitive to the state’s high cost of living. California is simply the state to beat in terms of both pay and number of positions available as it consistently makes the BLS’ top 5 list of the best states for each computer-based occupation.
California is among the top five for the most number of jobs for the following job categories:
Computer and Information Research Scientists
Computer Systems Analysts
Information Security Analysts
Computer Programmers
Software Developers, Applications
Software Developers, Systems Software
Web Developers
Database Administrators
Network and Computer Systems Administrators
Computer Network Architects
Computer User Support Specialists
Computer Network Support Specialists
The state, particularly in the Silicon Valley region, is also among the top five highest paying states for the following occupations:
Computer and Information Research Scientists
Information Security Analysts
Computer Programmers
Software Developers, Applications
Software Developers, Systems Software
Database Administrators
Computer Network Architects
Computer User Support Specialists
Computer Network Support Specialists
California is also number three in the nation for the highest concentration of Systems Software Developers. As far as the state’s job opportunities go, the metropolitan areas of Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, CA and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA are numbers six and eight in the U.S. respectively for the highest number of computer-related employment positions.
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA; San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City, CA; and Oakland-Fremont-Hayward, CA are the number one, two and five top paying metropolitan areas in the nation, respectively. Professionals in a computer-related occupation working in these California regions will earn an average annual salary of $108,610, $100,720 or $94,880.
In other words, if you want any type of computer-related job and don’t mind the sunshine and beaches of the west coast then California will definitely have some well-paying options to provide you with.
California’s Average Cost of Living Index: 132.7
Bakersfield, CA – 103.4
Fresno, CA – 117.3
Oakland, CA – 139.1
Palm Spring, CA – 121.8
Riverside City, CA – 112.5
Sacramento, CA – 116.2
San Diego, CA – 132.3
San Francisco, CA – 164
San Jose, CA – 156.1
Truckee-Nevada County, CA – 146.9
Los Angeles – Long Beach, CA – 136.4
Orange County, CA – 146.4
6. Colorado Information Technology Jobs and Salaries
If you are a Computer Systems Analyst then the beautiful state of Colorado is for you, more specifically the non-metropolitan area of North Central Colorado. In this particular area Computer Systems Analysts earn an annual salary of $107,640[3], which is $23,840 over the national average. Additionally, 1,702 new Computer Systems Analyst positions were added in July 2013 alone.
During the period from July 1-31, 2013 the state of Colorado also added 2,308 Network and Computer Systems Administrator positions, 2,052 Software Developers-Applications, 1,810 Computer User Support Specialists and 1,757 Web Developers
Colorado is doing relatively well all around in terms of adding computer-related positions and offering competitive salaries. Even more so since the state’s overall cost of living settles around the national average. In addition to this, the state’s unemployment rate is also lower than the national average; this combination of factors all amounts to a very a desirable place to look for a computer-related career.
If you are still not convinced that Colorado can offer the career opportunities you want, then hopefully these statistics will help. Colorado is one of the BLS’ top five paying states for Computer Systems Analysts, Computer Programmers and Computer User Support Specialists.
It is also one of the top five states for the highest employment shares of Applications Software Developers, Network and Computer Systems Administrators and Computer Support Specialists.
Colorado’s Average Cost of Living Index: 100.7
Denver, CO – 103.2
Grand Junction, CO – 98.3
Gunnison, CO – 110
Loveland, CO – 91
Pueblo, CO – 85.6
Colorado Springs, CO – 92.8
Glenwood Springs, CO – 124
7. Connecticut IT Job Outlook
This state is another great choice for IT professionals looking to earn the most for their talents. According to the BLS, Connecticut is one of the five top paying states for these job positions:
Computer Systems Analysts
Network and Computer Systems Administrators
Computer User and Support Specialist
Computer Network Support Specialist
Additionally, the state has several regions that pay their computer-related employees well above the national averages and is competitive with the state’s high living costs. These positions will typically earn $10,000-$32,000 more to be exact.
Below is an outline of the metropolitan areas with the highest paid jobs and the average annual salaries they offer.
Bridgeport – Stamford – Norwalk, CT
Computer Systems Analysts – $116,560[4]
Software Developers, Applications – $103,420
Network and Computer Systems Administrators – $92,760
Computer User Support Specialists – $61,120
Computer Network Support Specialists – $74,430[5]
Danbury, CT
Computer Systems Analysts – $98,030[6]
Software Developers, Systems Software – $124,470[7]
Hartford – West Hartford – East Hartford, CT
Computer User Support Specialists – $62,430
Computer Network Support Specialists – $77,460
Norwich – New London, CT
Information Security Analysts – $ 104,410
Worchester, MA-CT
Software Developers, Systems Software – $123,530[8]
Computer Network Architects – $105,380
If the 6-digit salaries readily available up in New England weren’t enough to get you excited about taking your career to Connecticut then keep this in mind, the state of Connecticut is expecting career growth throughout the IT job sector to move faster than average until 2020. They are hiring hundreds of Programmers, Applications Software Engineers, Systems Software Engineers, Computer Support Specialists, Computer Systems Analysts, Database Administrators, Network and Computer Systems Administrators and Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts each year for the next seven years.
The opportunity and the money is there no matter what your specific computer-related career path is, you just need to take advantage of it!
Connecticut’s Average Cost of Living Index: 130.27
Hartford, CT – 121.8
Stamford, CT – 146.9
New Haven, CT – 122.1
8. Delaware Information Technology Job Outlook
The Delaware metropolitan areas of Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD and Wilmington, DE-MD-NJ are the places to look for computer-related occupations in this state. The above average salaries and job opportunities available in these urban locations are what bring up Delaware’s Dover and Sussex County areas to give the state overall high rankings for securing a computer-related profession.
Delaware is one of the top five highest paying for the following job roles:
Information Security Analysts – $98,380
Software Developers, Applications – $100,210
Database Administrators – $87,280
Additionally, the state reports high wages and good to excellent job availability in most computer occupations; the precise rankings are listed below:
Computer Information Research Scientists
High wages
Fair job availability
Computer Systems Analysts
High wages
Excellent job availability
Information Security Analysts
High wages
Good job availability
Computer Programmers
High wages
Fair job availability
Software Developers, Applications
High wages
Excellent job availability
Software Developers, Systems Software
High wages
Good job availability
Web Developers
High wages
Good job availability
Database Administrators
High wages
Good job availability
Network and Computer Systems Administrators and Network Architects
High wages
Excellent job availability
Computer User and Network Support Specialists
Above average wages
Excellent job availability
In the state’s primary metropolitan areas job growth and high wages are readily available for professionals in the IT field. In addition, average living costs in this state increases the overall buying power these already high salaries offer, allowing computer-based workers to build a nice living throughout the state of Delaware.
Delaware’s Average Cost of Living Index: 102.45
Dover, DE – 99.7
Wilmington, DE – 105.2
9. Florida IT Jobs and Salaries
The state of Florida is expected to witness annual occupational growth of around 1.55% between 2012 and 2020. The majority of the state’s computer related occupations will experience growth rates above this at an average of 1.78% per year. The top three occupations forecasted for the highest percent changes each year are:
Network and Computer Systems Administrators and Architects – 2.72%
Database Administrators – 2.70%
Systems Software Developers – 2.55%
Computer Support Specialists are forecasted to open the greatest number of available new jobs at 1,360 new positions each year throughout the state. Florida is also on the U.S.’ top five list for having the greatest number for jobs for the following occupations:
Computer Programmers
Web Developers
Database Administrators
Computer Network Architects
Computer User Support Specialists
Computer Network Support Specialists
Additionally, the state has the second largest concentration of Computer Network Architects in the nation. That being said, Network Architects also make, on average, $25,000 less than the national average salary for this profession at $69,230 per year, but this can still offer a competitive rate based on the state’s cost of living. However, only seven of the twenty-three division areas in the state actually report average annual salaries above this with the highest paying area being the Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin, FL region at $80,010 annually. The lowest paid area for Network Architects in Florida is in the Northwest non-metropolitan area of the state where earnings average $47,290 per year.
The average salary in in the Sunshine State for all computer-based occupations stands at $73,647, slightly above average in regards to the state’s living costs. In addition, a few occupations really standout in certain areas, by earning significantly more than average. If you really want to make the move to Florida and increase your disposable income as much as possible then pursue a position as a Computer Systems Analyst. This job is expected to grow at 1.89% annually and will equate to 865 new jobs per year. The following Florida areas are the best to look for openings in this particular occupation:
North Port – Bradenton – Sarasota, FL
$109,420[9] annually
Port St. Lucie, FL
$107,900[10] annually
Tallahassee, FL
$98,020[11] annually
Crestview – Fort Walton Beach – Destin
$96,720 annually
Miami – Miami Beach – Kendall Metropolitan Division
$90,130 annually
West Palm Beach – Boca Raton – Boynton Beach Metropolitan Division
$89,430 annually
Orlando – Kissimmee – Sanford
$88,890 annually
Miami – Fort Lauderdale – Pompano Beach
$87,970 annually
One final note on Florida’s IT job outlook, if you are a skilled Computer and Information Research Scientist and want to relocate to Florida then check out the opportunities in the Palm Beach – Melbourne – Titusville area. This area boasts the highest concentration of Computer and Information Research Scientists in the state, granted there are only 665 scientists in the state total and growth is low at 18 new jobs per year, but the pay is significantly above average at $130,520[12] per year. If you have the skills, enjoy the heat and the beach, and wouldn’t mind a 6-figure paycheck then the opportunity here is perfect for you.
Florida’s Average Cost of Living Index: 99.48
Bradenton, FL – 95.8
Gainesville, FL – 99.8
Jacksonville, FL – 92.9
Orlando, FL – 97.8
Sarasota, FL – 101.5
Tampa, FL – 92.4
Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL – 95.6
Fort Lauderdale, FL – 115.7
Miami-Dade County, FL – 106
Panama City, FL – 99.4
Vero Beach – Indian River, FL – 97.4
10. Georgia IT Job and Salary Information
If you want to make the move to Georgia, there is really only one region that should command your attention and that is the state’s Atlanta – Sandy Springs – Marietta metropolitan area. This area is number nine in the country for the highest IT employment levels and it is what brings up the rest of the state’s below average employment shares for computer-related occupations. This particular area also boasts salaries that are near or slightly higher than average for all of their computer-based jobs. The remainder of the state is reporting annual salaries that are predominantly lower than average, but extremely competitive based on the state’s living cost index.
While the salaries and the amount of jobs per location are below the typical rates, Georgia is forecasted to experience computer-related job growth above the state’s 1.1% annual average employment growth from 2010 through 2020. Of the expected growth, the state predicts 42% of all added jobs in computer-related occupations will stem predominantly from industry growth. However, some occupations such as Computer Programmer, Information Security Analyst, Web Developer, Computer Systems Analyst, Computer Support Specialist, and Network Architect will witness openings predominantly due to job replacements. The remaining computer-related positions should witness steady annual growth through 2020.The projected percentage increases and jobs added annually are identified below for these occupations.
Computer and Information Research Scientists
0.9% growth
20 jobs added
Software Developers, Applications
1.6% growth
350 jobs added
Software Developers, Systems Software
2.3% growth
320 jobs added
Database Administrators
2.2% growth
150 jobs added
Network and Computer Systems Administrators
2.5% growth
470 jobs added
As previously stated, the majority of all computer-related occupations in the state report salaries relatively close to the national average, making the profit potential in Georgia’s economy comparatively high to other states that are closer to the national average cost index. The one major exception to this is that Computer User Support Specialists throughout the state are, in some cases, significantly underpaid compared to the national average for this occupation; up to $17,000 below. So if this happens to be your field of work, Georgia may not be your best bet in terms of increasing your buying power by a significant percent.
Georgia’s Average Cost of Living Index: 92.28
Albany, GA – 90.1
Americus, GA – 88.3
Atlanta, GA – 95.6
Douglas, GA – 88.6
Marietta, GA – 94.8
Savannah, GA – 93.5
Valdosta, GA – 94.1
Augusta-Aiken, GA-SC – 93.2
11. Hawaii Information Technology Jobs and Salaries
While the idea of living in Hawaii may sound wonderful, if you’re in any computer-related profession it may not be the best move for you. Throughout the state, Computer and Information Research Scientists are the only profession to be earning a salary equivalent to the national average. Every other computer-related profession earns, on average, $10,000 less per year than their peers in the same profession.
Additionally, these jobs are experiencing average annual growth at 1.8% but when the occupation concentration for computer-related jobs is already very low this only translates to an average of 35 new positions available per year for each job title. Between 2010 and 2020 Hawaii expects to only add an additional 1,540 new computer-related positions across the state for all the specific job roles combined.
Unless wages increase to offer a more competitive impact against Hawaii’s exorbitant living costs then this state should just be avoided in terms of moving your computer-related career to its shores.
Hawaii’s Average Cost of Living Index: 165.7
Honolulu, HI – 165.7
12. Idaho IT Job and Salary Outlook
If you are a Computer Information Research Scientist then you should probably avoid Idaho all together because this position is hard to come by in the state and availability is slim to none. Overall, the salaries in Idaho are well below the national averages for all computer-related positions, yet in some cases, they are competitive in comparison to the state’s cost of living.
Additionally, these occupations are identified by the Idaho Department of Labor’s 2010-2020 Long-Term Occupation Projection Report as being “Hot Jobs,” which are marked by high growth, high pay and job abundance. Through 2020, it is expected that each of these positions will witness anywhere between 1.5% and 3.0% annualized growth. This projection should lead to computer-related positions comprising 4.02% of the overall Idaho job market in 2020, an increase of 0.11 percentage points from 2010.
However, as previously stated, the salaries are much lower than average and this is true for both the major cities in the state, such as Boise, and the non-metropolitan areas. A competitive average salary for computer-related occupations in terms of living costs for the state would be around $60,710. However, even in Boise, professionals can expect to earn $10,000-$25,000 less than the national averages for annual salaries in the same positions, making some occupations less desirable.
So if you are planning to move your computer-related career to Idaho, understand that despite it being a growing industry the pay available in the state will be, in some cases, much lower than necessary.
Idaho’s Average Cost of Living Index: 93.1
Boise, ID – 97.2
Idaho Falls, ID – 90.6
Twin Falls, ID – 91.5
13. Illinois IT Jobs and Salaries
Illinois is definitely the land of opportunity for computer-related job seekers. Employment projections from 2010 until 2020 are expected to increase, on average, 19.79% for all computer-related occupations, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security’s report. This translates to the addition of 25,867 new computer-related employment opportunities over a ten-year period. This is a huge leap from the state’s average 8.63% increase across all occupations.
The job areas with the highest short-term forecasted growth for the period between 2011 and 2013 includes:
Software Developers, Applications
646 new jobs
3.53% change
Network and Computer Systems Administrators
466 new jobs
3.53% change
Software Developers, Systems Software
507 new jobs
3.29% change
The occupations with the highest projected long-term growth for the period between 2010 and 2020 includes:
Software Developers, Applications
5,519 new jobs
30.87% change
Software Developers, Systems Software
3,657 new jobs
24.38% change
Database Administrators
1,161 new jobs
24.99% change
Additionally, the salaries available for all computer-related occupations are within $10,000 of the national averages, very competitive to not only the national rate but to the state’s below average cost of living index. The metropolitan area of Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL is also number four on the United States’ list of states with the highest computer-related job employment and Illinois is fourth in the country for the highest number of Computer Programmer positions.
The positions and decent pay are readily available throughout Illinois; there’s no doubt that professionals will find a position they want and the competitive pay they need throughout this state.
Illinois’ Average Cost of Living Index: 96.15
Champaign-Urbana, IL – 96.9
Chicago, IL – 116.9
Danville, IL – 91.1
Decatur, IL – 91.4
Galesburg, IL – 93
Peoria, IL – 96.3
Quincy, IL – 95.5
Rockford, IL – 92.4
Springfield, IL – 85.8
Joliet-Will County, IL – 102.2
14. Indiana IT Jobs and Salaries Report
The state of Indiana reports average salaries around $10,000-$12,000 less than the national averages for the same computer-related occupations. However, these numbers are not too far off base since the state’s overall average of $71,912 is competitive for the state’s cost of living and will allow for a greater amount of disposable income in comparison to the national average.
Indiana’s Department of Labor reports that several Information Technology positions are among the state’s hot 50 jobs based on projected wages and demand in 2020. These jobs include:
Computer Software Engineer
1.9% growth
274 new jobs added per year
Computer Systems Analyst
2.1% growth
163 new jobs added per year
Network Systems and Data Communications Administrator
2.6% growth
164 new jobs added per year
Information Security Analyst Network Architect
2.6% growth
123 new jobs added per year
Database Administrator
3.3% growth
58 new jobs added per year
The one career path that is significantly lower across all Indiana counties and cities is that of Web Developers. This path is witnessing upwards of $30,000 less in pay each year than in other areas around the United States, who make on average $66,100 annually. The top four lowest paid Indiana areas for this occupation are located in:
Anderson, IN – $32,500
Bloomington, IN – $36,330
Evansville, IN-KY – $37,850
Lafayette, IN – $38,730
The state identifies the computer occupations field to be one of its fastest growing positions and the numbers do reflect significant growth is truly in-store throughout the next several years. The only thing to be wary about while job hunting is whether or not the salaries offered in these positions offer a competitive pay for the area’s specific cost of living index.
Indiana’s Average Cost of Living Index: 92.96
Elkhart-Goshen, IN – 94
Evansville, IN – 96.2
Indianapolis, IN – 87.2
Lafayette, IN – 98.2
Muncie, IN – 91
Richmond, IN – 90.8
Fort Wayne-Allen, IN – 94.4
South Bend, IN – 91.9
15. Iowa IT Jobs and Salaries
Computer-related occupations in Iowa are reporting annual average salaries at $12,500 below the national level, however, this is still above the expected annual average relative to Iowa’s cost of living index. The state is also forecasted to grow, on average, 1.7% annually in this field, which equates to the opening of 475 new jobs each year. The majority of computer-related positions in Iowa are, unsurprisingly, concentrated in the state’s metropolitan areas. The areas with the highest above average share of employment include:
Cedar Rapids
Des Moines – West Des Moines
Dubuque
Omaha – Council Bluffs, NE-IA
Additionally, there are a few hidden gems in the state that report annual average salaries well above the national average. The Des Moines area boasts an average salary of $100,380[13] for its Computer Network Architect positions. Computer Network Architects in the Davenport – Moline – Rock Island area also earn slightly above average paychecks for their work at $97,630 per year. The Sioux City area also shows that their Applications Software Developers earn significantly above average at $126,180[14] annually.
Similarly, there is also one stand-out low earner throughout the state. In Ames, IA, Software Developers, Systems Software are earning salaries drastically below the national and state averages. Their $35,510[15] annual paycheck is close to $60,000 below the national rate for this position. Additionally, this is significantly below even the state’s average entry salary for this line of work which averaged to be $56,860 in 2012.
When it comes to finding work in the state this is undoubtedly one area and occupation to avoid. As far as the remaining areas and jobs, only expect average paychecks in terms of the region’s living indexes, but if you’re fine with that then Iowa wouldn’t be a bad option to consider.
Iowa’s Average Cost of Living Index: 94.04
Ames, IA – 96.8
Burlington, IA – 97
Cedar Rapids, IA – 92
Dubuque, IA – 95.9
Iowa City, IA – 96.2
Des Moines, IA – 90.9
Mason City, IA – 89.1
Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA – 91.7
Davenport-Moline-Rock Is, IA-IL – 96.8
16. Kansas Computer Related Jobs and Salaries
Computer-related occupations throughout the U.S. state of Kansas will typically earn $10,000 less than the national average. However, this is relative to the state’s below average living expenses and it shouldn’t deter professionals from coming to the state to work.
In fact, computer-related positions are among the state’s fastest growing jobs and boast some of the highest earnings for the region. In the latest Kansas Occupational Outlook report, the state is forecasted to grow its computer occupations by 17.3% during the period from 2010-2020, equaling 10,724 new and replacement positions throughout the state.
Additionally, in the 2008-2018 report, the state named Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts as the number one occupation for the highest percent change in employment at a 53.4% increase in jobs. This percentage equals the addition of roughly 1,410 jobs over the ten year period. Applications Software Engineers also made the list at number nine with a 34.1% increase and the addition of 1,120 jobs.
When it comes to searching for positions within Kansas, no matter the occupation, the Kansas City MO-KS area is the best to look. This area contains 28.6% of the state’s total population and it is expected to be the fastest in occupation growth through at least 2018. Every other area of Kansas reports below average employment shares for computer-related occupations, so it is suggested to begin your job search in this Kansas City area where you will find the greatest number of available jobs and the highest salaries in the state.
Kansas’ Average Cost of Living Index: 91.39
Hays, KS – 89.4
Hutchinson, KS – 94
Lawrence, KS – 94.6
Manhattan, KS – 95
Salina, KS – 86.9
Topeka, KS – 91.8
Wichita, KS – 91.8
Dodge City, KS – 89.3
Garden City, KS – 89.7
17. Kentucky IT |
7, had done so only after living with civil unions for nine years.
But on Wednesday, Ms. Reynolds, who represents a fairly conservative region, said the new language made the bill acceptable. She described it as a compromise that was “respectful to both sides of the debate and meets our shared goals of equality under the state laws for all of the people of New Hampshire.”
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Gov. Jim Douglas of Vermont, a Republican, vetoed that state’s same-sex marriage bill, but the Democratic-controlled legislature overrode his veto, making Vermont the first state to adopt same-sex marriage legislatively instead of through the courts. Days earlier, the Iowa Supreme Court found a state law banning same-sex marriage to be a violation of the State Constitution.
In New Hampshire, more than 650 same-sex unions have been registered since they became legal in January 2008.
Same-sex marriage was among several contentious bills that the Senate took up Wednesday, all passed by the House in recent weeks. One, a measure to allow people with certain illnesses to possess marijuana for medical purposes, passed in a vote of 14 to 10. But the Senate voted unanimously against a bill that would guarantee transgender people protection from discrimination in housing and employment. It also put off action on a bill to repeal the death penalty.
Democrats hold a 14-to-10 majority in the Senate, but it is generally more centrist and cautious than the House, where Democrats hold a 223-to-175 majority.
Opponents of same-sex marriage appeared better organized here than in Vermont. Cornerstone Research Institute waged an intense phone campaign with help from the National Organization for Marriage, but the New Hampshire Freedom to Marry Coalition and other gay-rights groups also lobbied fiercely.
Mo Baxley, the coalition’s executive director, described the Senate bill as a fair compromise.
“It is in keeping with New Hampshire’s live-free-or-die tradition to stand up for individual liberties and against discrimination of any kind,” Ms. Baxley said.
“I have to say,” she added, “America is at a turning point.”ONE of the essential, if often unstated, job requirements of an American president is to provide stability, order and predictability in a world that tends toward chaos, disarray and entropy. When our political leaders ignore this — and certainly when they delight in disruption — the consequences can be severe. Stability is easy to take for granted, but impossible to live without.
Projecting clear convictions is important for preventing adversaries from misreading America’s intentions and will. Our allies also depend on our predictability and reassuring steadiness. Their actions in trade and economics, in alliances with other nations and in the military sphere are often influenced by how much they believe they can rely on American support.
Order and stability in the executive branch are also linked to the health of our system of government. Chaos in the West Wing can be crippling, as White House aides — in a constant state of uncertainty, distrustful of colleagues, fearful that they might be excoriated or fired — find it nearly impossible to do their jobs. This emanates throughout the entire federal government. Devoid of steadfast leadership, executive agencies easily become dysfunctional themselves.
Worse yet, if key pillars of our system, like our intelligence and law enforcement agencies, are denigrated by the president, they can be destabilized, and Americans’ trust in them can be undermined. Without a reliable chief executive, Congress, an inherently unruly institution, will also find it difficult to do its job, since our constitutional system relies on its various branches to constantly engage with one another in governing.A RIDDLE: Who is stronger? Jeff, whose huge biceps pop up when he makes a "flexing" motion, as he frequently does; or his brother Jeremy, who has huge triceps thanks to endless skull crushers and "tricep kickbacks"? The answer may surprise you.
The answer: It's their unassuming brother Albert, who boasts neither big showy biceps nor arm-engorging triceps, but whose forearms are real strong, in an understated way, because he's been a carpenter his whole life, while his wastrel brothers both opened tanning salons and sold Ecstasy on the side. Albert, through a lifetime of hard work, developed the actual most useful arm muscle of all: THE HUMBLE FOREARM, home of the mighty GRIP.
Dudes think they need big arms to be strong. You don't need big arms to be strong. You don't need big arms for anything except filling up T-shirt sleeves as a visual representation of your own vanity. You don't need to be wasting hours doing curls, just so you can make the joke about "two tickets to the gun show"—which, come on, fellas, is not even that funny any more. You don't need to be wasting hours doing all those weird little tricep isolation exercises to give "bulk" to your "pythons." If you want to know the truth, my friend: I would be more scared of a dude with strong forearms than a dude with big huge biceps, because the dude with strong forearms probably actually does some shit that requires strength.
What are arms good for, really? Besides displaying tattoos of dragons, that is. In terms of strength, arms are good mostly for hanging on to things. No strong person's source of strength is his arms. Strength comes overwhelmingly from the big muscles in your body, like the back, and the hips, and the legs, and the glutes, and the chest, and—most importantly—the love. Arms have very little to do with a goddamn thing. You want to bench press? You're moving that weight with your chest, bro, not your arms. You want to lift a huge rock and/or a coworker's lifeless body off the ground (don't ask why)? That's your back and legs, not your arms. There is a name for dudes in the gym who spend all their time getting big arms, and that name is "something unkind I would not deign to publish in a family newspaper."
The single most important thing that arms do is hold stuff that you want to move somehow. Arms are the connectors that translate the source of your real power onto the thing you're manipulating, be it a barbell, a friend's couch, or your brother Jeremy, who just needs to get thrown through a plate glass window every once in a while. The arms do not generate most of the power, but they do translate the power. And to do that, something must be held. It must be gripped. Enter: grip strength (The Unsung Hero of Varieties of Arm Strength™)!
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Your back may be strong as hell. Your legs may be strong as hell. Your back and your legs, working together, may be able to lift 500 pounds off the floor. But guess what, my macho friend: If your hands cannot grip 500 pounds and hold 500 pounds as it comes off the floor, then those 500 pounds are staying on the floor. The grip is quite often the weakest link in the strength chain. And, as many wise men have pointed out when they were imprisoned inside gyms for many years, "The chain is only as strong as its weakest link because the weak link breaks first, and, at that point, even if the rest of the chain is super strong, it's like, who cares?"
When some people think of "grip strength," they think—for some reason—of some old-timey strongman tearing phone books in half and bending quarters between his fingertips, all while wearing a leopard-print loincloth. I guess that's why you shouldn't depend on "some people" for a proper definition of grip strength!!! Old-timey strongmen are great and all, and I encourage all of you to actively incorporate phone book-tearing into your training regimens, but grip strength is generally built through more mundane activities: namely, anything in which gravity is trying to open your hand. Carrying something heavy with a handle on it? That's building grip strength. Pullups, rows, deadlifts, and any other pulling exercise? That's building grip strength. Literally just standing there, holding some kind of weight in your hand, with your arm at your side? That's building grip strength. Anything that causes your forearm to start burning as if it had been injected with Drano is probably building your grip strength. No, you don't have to be squeezing on a Captains of Crush™-brand Hand Gripper in order to be building your grip strength, although there is no particular reason not to be squeezing on a Captains of Crush™-brand Hand Gripper at any given moment, because what are you really doing right now, anyhow? There's no excuse not to always be building grip strength.
Grip strength! The unheralded keystone of all other strengths, residing mostly in the humble forearm, sorely forgotten by the vain muscle-flexers. A small, barely noticeable ripple in a forearm is often indicative of more real-world strength than a bicep the size and shape of a Big Mac. Grip strength! The only type of arm strength worth being obsessed with. Grip strength! A small bit of muscular ability that is a prelude to an entire set of physical-sophical beliefs, i.e. that strength is only meaningful insofar as you can actually do shit with it. Shit other than posing at the beach with your shirt off. Just because Sharon likes it doesn't make you smart, because—guess what?—Sharon herself has not even formulated a coherent philosophy of the mind-body connection, so who cares how pretty she is, anyhow? Not me.
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There are many people at "the gym" who wear straps on their wrists, which they use to wrap around heavy weights, and then lift those weights, which are too heavy for their hands to hold, but which their larger muscles can move. Can these people actually lift these weights? No. They cannot hold them, therefore they cannot lift them. They use straps (or sometimes even hooks, like a bunch of extra-muscular pirate captains cast ashore and forced to deadlift their buried treasure) to cut their grip—the weakest link in their chain—out of the lift, allowing them to "lift" more, using only their bigger muscles. And the more they lift in this manner, the bigger the gap becomes between what their big muscles can lift, and what they can actually hold, in reality. Do you see the functional as well as philosophical problems with this state of affairs? Bueller? Great, you can lift a huge weight, and your traps are all swole up, but when the car falls off the jack and onto your friend's head while he's changing the tire, all that super "strength" will be for naught, because you can't grip the car to lift it up, because you neglected your grip strength in order to put up some gaudy numbers for your own ego. Now your friend is dead.
You thought you could cut out the weakest link in the chain. Looks like the weakest link in your chain... cut out... you, or something along those lines. Or, oh, looks like it cut off your friend's head. That's what I should have said. In any case, grip strength is highly functional.
This is an occasional column about fitness, and how you're doing it wrong. Image by Jim Cooke.by DAVE MARTINEZ
Few people know the trajectory, history and intricacies of Major League Soccer quite like Octavio Zambrano.
Now it looks like the Philadelphia Union may rely on that resume and experience to help right their flailing franchise.
According to well placed sources, the Union will bring Zambrano aboard to serve as the team’s first ever Sporting Director. Since the Union’s inception, the club’s part-owner Nick Sakiewicz has played the biggest role in player acquisition and retention. They hired a consultant in Rene Muelensteen last year to bridge those duties. Zambrano will take over Muelensteen’s role with the club. Technical Director Chris Albright, however, will remain in his current position.
Zambrano last held a job as the coach and technical director of Ecuadorian side El Nacional – a role he relinquished July of this year. He is an original MLS 96er who began his North American career as an assistant coach under with the Los Angeles Galaxy. He went on to manage the Galaxy before heading onto the Metrostars from 1997-99. Statistically, he is one of the winningest coaches in MLS history, accruing a.587 regular season winning record which ranks second to Bruce Arena’s.604.
In 2009, he returned to the league as an assistant coach with the re-branded Sporting KC, staying with the club through 2011 under head coach Peter Vermes. In between his time with MLS, Zambrano served a three-year term as elected Vice-President of FENODE (Ecuadorian/American Sports Federation) and coached within his native Ecuador shortly there after.
The Union have been in a state of tumult for most of their existence. Jim Curtin is the team’s third coach in four years. Inaugural boss Piotr Nowak left the team in 2012 and went on to sue the club over his dismissal. John Hackworth was unceremoniously sacked at the end of last season. Overall, the team has only made the playoffs once in their six year existence, marred by roster mismanagement and questionable signings, particularly at the DP level.
Zambrano will be tasked to stabilize operations and improve roster management.
The Union currently sit seven points from dead last in the Eastern Conference. However, the season has not been a total bust. It is worth noting that the team will face Sporting KC in the U.S. Open Cup final.
EoS reached out to the Union who issued no comment on the report.I wanted a depth micrometer but I didn’t want to pay the ripoff prices that so many tool sellers were asking on ebay, so I opted to instead buy a micrometer head and make the base myself. Super easy to do, and super cheap ($22.50 for the micrometer head. $100+ for a micrometer depth gage. WTF!)
Well, when the micrometer head arrived today, I was a little bit surprised! It’s teeny tiny! So cute! I didn’t even know they made micrometer heads so small. The thimble is only 1/2″ diameter. Pictured with a 1-2-3 block, you can see just how tiny it actually is. The micrometer head is a Mitutoyo 148-862.
Currently, the base is made of 6061-T6 aluminum, finished by lapping with 600 grit on the gaging surface, and 400 grit on the non-functional surfaces. I will more than likely re-make the base from stainless steel, the next time I’m at Metal Supermarket to pick some up.Ireland lost another member of their World Cup squad yesterday as Peter O'Mahony flew to Dublin for scans on his injured knee, but Joe Schmidt was boosted by a positive update on the health of Johnny Sexton.
Ireland lost another member of their World Cup squad yesterday as Peter O'Mahony flew to Dublin for scans on his injured knee, but Joe Schmidt was boosted by a positive update on the health of Johnny Sexton.
The out-half limped out of Sunday's win over France with a groin injury, but it is understood that scans on the muscle have come out clear and he is now in a race to be fit in time to face Argentina in the quarter-final this weekend.
The news elsewhere was not so positive, however, with Paul O'Connell all but confirmed as being out of the tournament after suffering a "significant hamstring injury" that may have involved the muscle detaching from the bone and O'Mahony ruled out with a knee ligament injury.
That was compounded by news that Sean O'Brien has been cited for "striking" France lock Pascal Pape and he faces a hearing today at 1.0 in London.
Argentina also have disciplinary concerns over one of their stars ahead of Sunday's showdown after centre Marcelo Bosch was cited for an alleged dangerous tackle during his side's comfortable win over Namibia.
Joe Schmidt has called Rhys Ruddock into his squad as a replacement for O'Mahony, but has yet to select a back to come in for Jared Payne who was ruled out of the World Cup with a foot injury on Saturday.
Much will depend on how the rest of the backline has recovered from Sunday's bruising encounter, with Andrew Trimble, Fergus McFadden and Noel Reid in contention, while Dan Tuohy could replace O'Connell.
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Why Your SEO Needs Better Testing
Good SEO relies on the following:
Pages with the best quality content. Pages with high authority. Pages that satisfy the needs of users who visit them.
But the best SEO also includes a lot more detailed work than just those high-level concepts. Getting the most out of SEO is both art and science.
The “art” part is when we apply our experience, or what we’ve learned from others, to come up with overall strategies that we think will bring the best results. The “science” part is often greatly underappreciated in the SEO world. What if we could systematically test different approaches on our site and maximize the overall results? Well, we can!
Principles of Testing
I did a recent video with Mark Traphagen where we covered this in detail, and you can watch that here:
There are a few key aspects to a successful testing program:
A Solid Hypothesis: This is where it starts. You need something worth testing, where the potential upside that may result from the test justifies the effort. A Reasonable Test Set Size: One-off tests may be something that are worth doing, but they lack statistical significance. If you’re able to test groups of pages, then you can have more confidence in the results. Clear Definition of the Desired Result: You need a well-stated goal. Is it higher CTR from the search results? Higher rankings? More traffic? Below, I’ll share some specific examples of each of these scenarios. A Dependable Way to Measure the Results: Start by establishing a baseline that you can measure against. You then need to define how you will measure and evaluate the results. A Well-Defined Control Set: A key part of measurement is to have pages that are NOT in the test that you can use to evaluate the impact of external factors outside of your test. If your test pages see great gains, but your control pages see similar (rankings/traffic/CTR) changes, then that means that external factors are the cause, not your test. Discipline and Patience: Your first few tests may not do anything of significance. Don’t give up! There is inevitably something to be found from disciplined testing, and sometimes you have to work at it to find it.
Areas to Consider Testing
Meta Descriptions
This is particularly useful if you’ve got a template-based approach to meta descriptions on your site. Go into Google Search Console, and see what your average CTR is on your SERPs for a number of pages using the templated description. Now you have a baseline. Come up with a new template that you think might have a positive impact, and then take 30 to 50 percent of your meta descriptions and implement them using it.
Then, monitor the results over time. See if the CTR of the pages you changed appears to go up. Use the pages that you didn’t change as your control. This is good solid testing because you have the CTR from before the change, but also the CTR of both changed and unchanged pages running side by side. Keep running different tests until you see some improvement. Note that you need to adjust for rankings changes as well to make sense of this data.
Internal Linking
I like to compare a site’s internal linking structure with its competitors to get ideas for tests. Perhaps there is an issue with internal linking that can be worked on in your site. For example, does taking key product pages on your site and linking to them directly from the home page have an impact on their rankings?
This is a fairly easy one to test. Select a set of pages that currently are not linked to from your home page (the “Test Set”). Select another set of peer pages that are also not linked to from the home page (the “Control Set”). Implement links to the Test Set from the home page. See if the rankings change for the Test Set in a way that they don’t for the Control Set.
My specific example is just one idea for how to test different internal linking structures. See if you can come up with some others!
Title Tags and Heading Tags
You can test the title tags in one test and heading tags in another, but the basic structure of each test is identical. Use one set of pages without changes as the Control Set and the pages you’re testing as the Test Set. Capture the rankings data for all of the Test Set and Control Set Pages.
The purpose of the Control Set is to let you know if Google ranking changes that you see in the Test Set are due to your changes or outside factors. Make the changes in the Test Set pages, and monitor the rankings over time. If you see a positive change in the Test Set that is not also seen in the Control Set, you’ve got a solid change. You can then ripple that out to the rest of your pages.
Content Blocks on Web Pages
As with all the other tests, make sure you have a Test Set of pages and a Control Set of pages. For this test, you can monitor rankings, but also make sure of tracking the traffic to the Test Set and Control Set pages. With changes to on-page text, you are likely to impact rankings for “long tail” and “chunky middle” keywords, and these are keywords that you probably aren’t tracking. As a result, you’ll more easily see the changes in the traffic than the rankings.
Once you have the tracking setup, tinker with the text content on the Test Set pages, and see what happens.
This scientific approach to SEO can bring large-scale results. It takes discipline and patience to make this happen, but it is well worth it. We’ve worked with clients on these types of testing strategies and seen sizable results—20 percent, 30 percent, and even larger increases in traffic. That sure seems like it’s worth the investment!
Get more content like this, plus the very BEST marketing education, totally free. Get our Definitive email newsletter.Golden Boy chief executive Richard Schaefer told me on Wednesday that he is working on 13 different fights for various cards before the end of the year. But one of the bouts he had hoped to make -- interim welterweight titlist Keith Thurman versus Robert Guerrero -- is not on that list.
That is because Guerrero (31-2-1, 18 KOs), coming off a lopsided points loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in May, declined the fight, which Schaefer had projected to take place either as a Nov. 2 Showtime bout or as part of a Nov. 9 Showtime PPV card he is working on. The pay-per-view card could be headlined by welterweight titlist Adrien Broner against Marcos Maidana, which is one of those 13 bouts Schaefer said he was working on (although he declined to list all 13).
“Keith Thurman against Robert 'The Ghost' Guerrero is a fight I would be interested to see. Sometimes I have crazy ideas but I like to see good fights,” Schaefer said. “I’m no different than any fight fan whether I’m the promoter of the fight or a spectator, and I felt Thurman against Guerrero would have been an interesting fight. But Guerrero and his team were not interested.”
Guerrero co-manager Luis DeCubas Jr. also acknowledged that it was not a fight they were interested in.
According to Schaefer, Guerrero was more interested in challenging the winner of the proposed Broner-Maidana fight for the belt.
“I said, ‘OK, but that wouldn’t be until next spring,’ and they said they would be OK with waiting,” Schaefer said.
It seems to me that because Guerrero’s purse was $3 million to face Mayweather, he doesn’t need the money right now so why not kick back and relax, and wait for a world title fight?
With Guerrero off the table as an opponent for Thurman (21-0, 19 KOs), who won his interim belt with an exciting 10th-round knockout victory against Diego Chaves on July 27, Schaefer said he is thinking about giving Jesus Soto Karass a shot.
That absolutely has action fight written all over it. In the main event of the card that included Thurman-Chaves, Soto Karass (28-8-3, 18 KOs) battered former two-time welterweight titlist Andre Berto into a 12th-round knockout in a barnburner for his second big win in a row. He also outpointed Selcuk Aydin in January.
“One of the fights we’ll look at now is Thurman against Soto Karass,” Schaefer said. “I would love to see it. You know it would be another toe-to-toe battle.”Jackson's reporting deadline is earlier because the Chargers elected to place him on the roster exempt list, meaning Jackson must sit out three unpaid games before he is eligible to receive the necessary six paid games to earn his sixth accrued season.
Neither Jackson nor Mankins could be reached for comment. Their agents, Neil Schwartz (Jackson) and Frank Bauer (Mankins), declined comment.
Jackson and Mankins were among the players caught in significant changes because of an uncapped year that moved unrestricted free agency from four years to six years. Jackson and Mankins became part of a large class of restricted free agents when their contracts expired after their fifth season (2009). Both declined to sign their restricted free agent contract tenders, a requirement before players can report to their teams.
In a related development, NFLPA general counsel Richard Berthelsen recently sought clarification on the reporting dates because the NFL constitution has a bylaw that states clubs have an option not to reinstate a player who reports after Tuesday's trade deadline. That created a potential conflict with the labor agreement, which states that a player who has not signed a contract by the Tuesday following the 10th week of the regular season would be ineligible to play that year.
Jeffrey Kessler, chief outside legal counsel for the NFLPA, confirmed that he was asked by the union to clarify the potential conflict.
"The issue arose, we had a discussion and the league quickly agreed that the CBA supersedes the constitution on any potential conflicting provision," Kessler said.
"Yes, that's correct," confirmed NFL spokesman Greg Aiello via e-mail. "In the CBA, a restricted free agent has the right to accept his tender and report to the club any time up until the Tuesday after week 10 (Nov. 16, 4 p.m. ET) of the regular season, whether or not the club requests or agrees to his reporting."
Berthelsen asked Kessler to get a clarification because the league constitution that governs its 32 member clubs addresses the status of specific absent players in bylaw 17-13: "All players in categories of Reserve/Retired, Reserve/Did Not Report, and Reserve/Veteran Free Agent asked to Re-Sign will continue to be prohibited from being reinstated in the last 30 days of the regular season. Additionally, no player in such category shall be reinstated between the trade deadline of the applicable season and the normal 30-day deadline unless the club initiates the reinstatement request and the commissioner approves it."
The union wanted pre-emptive clarification in case one of the clubs attempted to use the constitutional bylaw to prohibit Jackson and Mankins from reporting because it did not want to have file a grievance to a Special Master, creating further delay.
Kessler would not confirm that the union has recommended Jackson and Mankins report in time to get their sixth accrued season in the event there is no labor agreement. That would allow teams to impose the restricted contract tenders on them in 2011, per the current CBA.
The same sources strongly reaffirmed Jackson and Mankins will follow the NFLPA's recommendation and report to the Chargers and Patriots by their respective deadlines to ensure unrestricted free agency in 2011.
Jackson would miss his unpaid games of Oct. 31 (vs. Tennessee), Nov. 7 (at Houston) and Nov. 22 (vs. Broncos) because of his roster-exempt status before he can be paid for the final six games, starting Nov. 28 (at Indianapolis). The Chargers have a bye in Week 10.
Mankins would have to report by the final deadline of Nov. 16, making him eligible to be paid and play in the final seven games because the Patriots had their bye in Week 5. The Patriots opted not to place him on the roster exempt list, as the Chargers did with Jackson.
Both players can be traded by Tuesday's 4 p.m. deadline if they are willing to sign their contract tenders. Jackson would have to sit out the first three games with his new team under his roster-exempt status before being eligible to play.
Jackson was able to serve a three-game suspension to begin the season for violation of the personal conduct policy after being convicted of a second DUI even though he is not under contract.
The Chargers receiver, a Pro Bowl selection in 2009, is not facing an automatic year suspension under the substance abuse policy -- the next alcohol or drug violation under a specific disciplinary scale, would cost Jackson four game checks. Jackson is being tested randomly several times per month under the policy.
By Jackson and Mankins earning a sixth accrued season, the only way the Chargers and Patriots can restrict their free agency in 2011 would be to place a franchise tag on them next February at a considerably higher guaranteed value than the restricted contract tenders. A transition tag also would be available for the Chargers and Patriots instead of the franchise tag, but the teams would not receive any draft pick compensation and would have only right of first refusal on any contract the players signed with another team.
Chris Mortensen is a senior NFL analyst for ESPN.com.By 5 p.m. the afternoon of September 15, 1896, nearly 50,000 people had gathered anxiously on a wide stretch of Texas prairie near Waco. Moments later, they watched two 35-ton locomotives, each pulling seven boxcars, collide head-on at a combined speed of 120 miles per hour. The publicity spectacular was staged at Crush, Texas, a short-lived town established just for the occasion. Organizer for the event (and namesake for the town) was William George Crush, a passenger agent for the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company, commonly known as "the Katy."
Handshake. Two opposing locomotives of The Katy railroad "square off" a before the collision. (photo courtesy The Texas Collection, Baylor University, Waco, Texas)
The collision, intended as publicity for the railroad, was planned and promoted for months in advance. The locomotives, Old No. 999 and Old No. 1001, were displayed prominently during tours throughout the state. Rather that the usual entrance fees charged for major public attractions, Katy officials announced that they would charge no admission for the well publicized event. Further, they promised that food concession contractors would not be allowed to sell lunches at extortionate prices, and that containers of "fresh Waco water" would be abundant and free. The only fee would be the train fare required to transport the many thousands of spectators to the crash site. Even these fares were offered at bargain rates--none over $5 from anywhere in Texas. As a result, the excursion trains were so packed that some people were obliged to ride on top of the cars for lack of room inside. As a promotional stunt, however, the Katy's well laid plans turned sadly sour. At the instant of impact, one of the boilers unexpectedly exploded. As a result, bolts and scraps of iron and debris were hurled hundreds of yards, some into the spectator area. Two spectators were killed and a few more seriously injured.
IMPACT! Unexpectedly, the boiler of one locomotive exploded into a cloud of steam, sending iron and debris into a large crowd of spectators--and killing two. (photo courtesy The Texas Collection, Baylor University) (right) William George Crush was agent for the railroad and organizer of the event. (image from September 16, 1896 issue of Galveston Daily News)
Within hours, the Katy cranes had removed the larger debris; souvenir seekers took care of the rest. Crush (the town), which that afternoon had been the second largest city in Texas, was fully depopulated by midnight. Crush (the promoter), who had been assured by railroad engineers that it was virtually impossible for a boiler to explode in the collision, was fired that evening by railroad management. The railroad relented, however, and he was rehired the next day. Except for this single flamboyant episode, Crush was a relatively conservative citizen and employee who later retired with 57 years of service with the railroad. Despite its failure as a promotion for the railroad, the Crash at Crush remained a key topic of discussion for many months before its memory slowly faded. It is not now known whether Scott Joplin, the great ragtime music composer from Texas, was one of the spectators on that September afternoon in 1896. Twenty-seven year-old Joplin was sufficiently impressed with the event, however, that by year-end he had composed The Great Crush Collision, one of the earliest of his many compositions. The song can be downloaded and played in midi format from Lone Star Junction's Songs of Texas web page. Today, one hundred years later, there are few visible signs that the event ever took place. A roadside marker was placed at the site in 1977. Other than that, all that is left of the Crash at Crush is a few old newspaper accounts, court records, some remarkable photographs, and the song written by Joplin. Primary Reference:
George B. Ward, The Crash at Crush: Texas' Great Pre-arranged Train Wreck, Master's Report, The University of Texas at Austin, May, 1975.Since early October, Andrew MacDonald has tried to come to terms with being in the American Hockey League. (Photo: JustSports Photography)
Shayne Gostisbehere sat in his locker stall at PPL Center with an orange hardhat behind him.
This is the Lehigh Valley Phantoms’ team award given to the player of the game after a win. Gostisbehere, the Flyers’ most prized defensive prospect, got the honors for scoring his first professional goal against the St. John’s IceCaps.
His defense partner looked proudly from across the room.
“I just assumed he would have scored last year,” Andrew MacDonald said last week, “but then I remembered he was injured, so last game it was good to see him get that first one.”
Despite his NHL experience, MacDonald is not the star of this minor-league team. Far from it. With prospects like Gostisbehere, Sam Morin, Taylor Leier and Nick Cousins on the roster, he takes a back seat despite being the highest-paid player in the American Hockey League.
On Oct. 5, the Flyers placed MacDonald and the remaining five years of his six-year, $30 million contract on waivers. None of the other 29 teams picked him up, as they would have had to foot the bill for the remainder of his contract. When he cleared, he was sent to the AHL.
When general manager Ron Hextall told MacDonald, the defenseman was in such shock he doesn’t even remember what Hextall said. Now that he’s settled in, he can’t help but wonder how much longer he’ll be stuck in the minors.
“It’s certainly crossed my mind, but I’m a hockey player. I love to play hockey and it’s basically in their hands what they want to do,” MacDonald said, “but I’m still lucky to play and still want to play. Obviously I want to play at the NHL level. It’s important to just keep working hard and do the right things.”
When MacDonald looks for a point of reference, there has been only one player to make more money in the AHL than him. Wade Redden had a salary cap hit of $6.5 million with the New York Rangers and they stuffed him down in the AHL with the Connecticut Whale for two seasons before they used one of their amnesty buyouts in the 2013 collective bargaining agreement to break ties.
“I’m not sure exactly how his played out,” MacDonald said, “but he would probably have an idea what that felt like.”
In a recent ESPN article, Redden was quoted as saying he bought his teammates iPads for game-winning goals and other incentives because he felt guilty about how much more money he made than everyone else.
While MacDonald hasn’t made any trips to the Apple Store recently, he’s been picking up some team dinners and trying to be a good teammate.
“He’s been great,” said Phantoms coach Scott Gordon, who worked with MacDonald when they were together with the New York Islanders a few years ago. “Just from what I knew of him in New York, I didn’t expect anything differently.
“Usually guys that come down here from his type of situation, it usually isn’t good. They end up not wanting to play. They don’t play, and I said to him, ‘I don’t think that’s going to be the case with you. I know your character and I know what your make-up is so you’ve just be yourself and if you’ve got to play, this is a great place to play. You’re not that far from Philadelphia. Your family is an hour away.’”
MacDonald has made many trips down I-476 to his Philadelphia apartment to be with his wife Hali and son Mason, who was born in May. With the AHL schedule that often includes three games in three days, it's not always easy. He’s been staying at the hotel attached to the PPL Center, hoping he can return to NHL life.
The Flyers save only $950,000 by having MacDonald in the minors, but that’s how cap strapped they are. They probably would have preferred to recall him over Davis Drewiske Wednesday with Evgeny Medvedev flying back to Philadelphia with an “upper-body injury,” but they can’t afford him.
“It’s not gonna do yourself or anyone else any good to get pissed off that you are where you are,” said MacDonald, who has four points in eight games with the Phantoms. “The situation is what it is. The only thing you can control is how you play and how hard you work and how you hold yourself off and on the ice.”
MacDonald often thinks about his contract and despite how hard he worked to get it, how it’s holding him back from playing in the NHL. He’s trying not to look too far down the road, but doesn’t foresee approaching Hextall in hopes of a trade.
“I don’t think I’d |
and third waves of feminism which share a focus on violence.
VAW activist movements come in many forms, operating at international, national, and local levels[243] and utilizing different approaches based on health and human rights frameworks.[253] The movements stemmed mostly from social movements and groups of women who see the need to create organizations to 'lobby' their governments to establish "sanctuaries, shelters" and provision of services that help protecting these victims, also called "battered women", from acts of violence. The term "battered women" was used in a number of VAW movements and had its root in the early stage of organizing efforts to tackle the problem of violence against women in many regions of the world such as Africa, Asia Pacific, Latin American and the Caribbean.[43]:94 The activist organizations against VAW, some with and the others without the support of their governments, attempted to develop "innovative efforts" to assist battered women by providing them services such as shelters and centers; drafting and lobbying governments to include the recognition and language of VAW into national legislations and international human rights instruments; advocating to raise the awareness of people via education and training sessions; forming national, regional as well as international networks to empower the movements; organizing demonstrations and gathering more efforts to end violent acts against women.[43]:88–89 In addition, many women's rights activist groups see the issue of violence against women as a central focus of their movements. Many of these groups take a human rights approach as the integral framework of their activism. These VAW movements also employ the idea that "women's rights are human rights", transform the concepts and ideas of human rights, which are mostly reckoned to be "Western concepts" and'vernacularize them into the concepts that can be understood in their local institutions.[254]:39
Levels of activist movements
Poster against child and forced marriage
Mass protest against violence against women in Buenos Aires in 2015
On the local or national level, the VAW movements are diverse and differ in their strategic program of intervention. The strategies used in a number of the movements focus on the individual level with the emphases on individuals, relationships and family. Also, many of them take the 'preventive' as an approach to tackle the issues on the ground by encouraging people to "reexamine their attitudes and beliefs" in order to trigger and create fundamental changes in these "deep-rooted beliefs and behaviors".[247] Despite the fact that these strategies can be life changing, helpful to those who participate and feasible over a long time frame, the effects on societal level seem to be restricted and of minimal effects. In order to achieve the objectives of the movement, many activists and scholars argue that they have to initiate changes in cultural attitudes and norms on a communal level.[255] An example of activism on the local level can be seen in South Africa. The movements of VAW in this context employ a strategy that is based on the 'prevention' approach, which is applicable on individual and societal levels: in families and communities. This movement encourages the individuals and small populations to rethink their attitudes and beliefs in order to create a possibility to alter these deep-rooted beliefs and behaviors, which lead to the acts of violence against women.[22] Another example is the local level movement in East Africa that employs the prevention approach, which is applicable on a communal level. They call this a "raising voices" approach. This approach employs an 'ad hoc' framework that can be used alongside the individual approach where the strategy is to aggravate the status quo issues onto the individuals' and communities' perception and establish a common ground of interests for them to push for the movement, all in a short time period.[22] In addition, on the domestic level, there seems to be many 'autonomous movements.'[244] feminist movements (for VAW) can be understood as "a form of women's mobilization that is devoted to promoting women's status and well-being independently of political parties and other associations that do not have the status of women as their main concern".[244]
A number of regions of the world have come together to address violence against women. In South America, the Southern Cone Network Against Domestic Violence has worked extensively to address sexual and domestic violence since 1989. The Latin American and Caribbean Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, formed in 1990, includes representation from twenty-one different countries and has been instrumental in increasing the visibility of VAW.[43]:88 In September 1999, the Heads of States of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) met and drafted the "Prevention and Eradication of Violence Against Women and Children", a document condemning violence against women and children, and resolved a set of 13 methods of addressing it, reaching into the legal; social, economic, cultural, and political; social service; and education, training, and awareness building sectors.[256]
On the transnational or regional level, the anti-violence movements also deploy different strategies based on the specificities of their cultures and beliefs in their particular regions. On this level, the activist movements are known as "transnational feminist networks" or TFNs.[244]:556 The TFNs have a significant effect, like the autonomous movements on the national level, in shaping sets of policies as well pushing for the recognition and inclusion of language of VAW in the United Nations human rights mechanisms: the international human rights agreements.[244] Their activities are ranging from lobbying the policy makers; organizing demonstrations on the local and regional levels; to creating institutional pressure that could push for changes in the international institutional measures.[244]
On an international level, the movements that advocate for women's rights and against VAW are the mixture of (civil society) actors from domestic and regional levels. The objectives of these VAW movements focus on "creating shared expectations" within the domestic and regional levels as well as "mobilizing numbers of domestic civil society" to create "standards in global civil society".[244]:556 The global women's movement works to transform numbers of international conventions and conferences to "a conference on women's rights" by pushing for a "stronger language and clearer recognition" of the VAW issues. In addition, the United Nations also plays a vital role in promoting and campaigning for the VAW movements on the international level. For instance, in 2008 UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon initiated and launched a campaign called "UNiTE to End Violence against Women". This campaign "calls on governments, civil society, women's organizations, young people, the private sector, the media and the entire UN system to join forces in addressing the global pandemic of violence against women and girls".[257] Moreover, this campaign also announces every 25th of the month to be "Orange Day" or "a day to take action to raise awareness and prevent violence against women and girls".[257]
In conclusion, each level of activism is intertwined and has the common purpose to end violence against women. Activism on local levels can significantly affect national, transnational, and international levels as well. In a scholarly article on Combating Violence Against Women, the authors illustrated from their research analysis on how the norms of international society can shape and influence policy making on the domestic or national level and vice versa. They argue that there are three mechanisms which have effects on the making of national policies as well as global agreements and conventions: "1) the influence of global treaties and documents such as CEDAW on women's rights" - on the national policies "2) the influence of regional agreements on VAW (particularly after certain tipping points are reached)" - on both domestic policies and international conventions and "3) regional demonstration effects or pressure for conformity captured as diffusion within regions" - on the international norms and agreements.[244]
Achievements of the VAW movements
On the global level:
The first major document that highlights the recognition of violence against women as a human rights violation: the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women in Vienna, 1993. [258] [259] [260] It was a result of collective effort of global feminist movement to transform the Vienna conference from a general and mainstream human rights conference into the conference on women's rights. As before the other human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch did not focus on the issue of VAW and did not consider rape and domestic violence as violations of human rights despite of the fact that they also have agenda on women's rights. [244]
It was a result of collective effort of global feminist movement to transform the Vienna conference from a general and mainstream human rights conference into the conference on women's rights. As before the other human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch did not focus on the issue of VAW and did not consider rape and domestic violence as violations of human rights despite of the fact that they also have agenda on women's rights. The 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing [261] During the 4th Women Conference, VAW was emphasized and named as a critical concern. Also, the spillover effect was that this push highlighted the need for the development of "new international norms" that have often been used by activists and governments the proposition of legislation that provide other action to redress the acts of violence. [258] [260] [262]
During the 4th Women Conference, VAW was emphasized and named as a critical concern. Also, the spillover effect was that this push highlighted the need for the development of "new international norms" that have often been used by activists and governments the proposition of legislation that provide other action to redress the acts of violence. Subsequently, the push from the global feminist movement also push for the fully incorporation of the VAW issues into the "Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women" or CEDAW[263] whereas the "original text of CEDAW in 1979 did not explicitly mention violence against women".[244]: 556
On the regional level:
Americas : the Inter-American Convention on Violence Against Women, which was formally announced and adopted by the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1994, immediately after the Vienna Conference [244] : 557
: the Inter-American Convention on Violence Against Women, which was formally announced and adopted by the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1994, immediately after the Vienna Conference Europe : The European Union (EU)'s initiatives to combat violence against women after the 1990s: the 1997 resolution calling for a zero tolerance: specifically on UN human rights instruments of CEDAW and the Vienna Declaration. The Council of Europe also developed "a series of initiatives" related to the issue of VAW: "the 2000 resolution on trafficking, the 2003 resolution on domestic violence, and the 2004 resolution on honor crimes" as well as promoted "the 2002 recommendation on the protection of women against violence and established its monitoring framework". [244] : 557
: The European Union (EU)'s initiatives to combat violence against women after the 1990s: the 1997 resolution calling for a zero tolerance: specifically on UN human rights instruments of CEDAW and the Vienna Declaration. Africa : There emerged a series of regional meetings and agreements, which was triggered by the UN processes on the international level such as Third World Conference on Women in Nairobi, 1985; the 1993 Kampala Prep Com; the 1994 Africa-wide UN women's conference [264] that led to the identification of VAW as a critical issue in the Southern African Women's Charter. [244] : 557
:
Access to justice for female victims of violence
International and regional instruments
Efforts to fight violence against women can take many forms and access to justice, or lack thereof, for such violence varies greatly depending on the justice system. International and regional instruments are increasingly used as the basis for national legislation and policies to eradicate violence against women.
The Inter-American Convention to Prevent, Eradicate and Punish Violence Against Women – also known as the Belém do Parà Convention, for instance, has been applied by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in its first case of domestic violence to condemn Brazil in the Maria da Penha case. This led the Brazilian government to enact in 2006 the Maria da Penha Law, the country's first law against domestic violence against women.[265] There is also, for instance, the South Asian Agreement on Regional Cooperation's (SAARC) Protocol to End Trafficking in Women and Children.[43]
Examples of measures put in place
As violence is often committed by a family member, women first started by lobbying their governments to set up shelters for domestic violence survivors. The Julia Burgos Protected House established in Puerto Rico in 1979 was the first shelter in Latin America and the Caribbean for "battered women". In 2003, 18 out of the 20 countries in the region had legislation on domestic or family violence, and 11 countries addressed sexual violence in their laws. Legislative measures to protect victims can include restraining orders, which can be found in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Paraguay, Venezuela, Turkey, the United States and many western European countries for instance.
Courts can also be allowed by law (Germany, 2001) to order the perpetrator to leave the home so that victims do not have to seek shelter. Countries were urged to repeal discriminatory legislation by 2005 following the review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 2000. Egypt, for instance, abolished a law that exempted men from rape charges when marrying their victims. However, the goal of antiviolence legislation is often to keep the families together, regardless of the best interests of women, which perpetuate domestic violence.[43]
Innovative measures have been pioneered in a number of countries to end violence against women. In Brazil and Jordan, women's police stations have been introduced, and one-stop women's shelters were created in Malaysia and Nicaragua.
Marital rape has been illegal in every American state and the District of Columbia since 1993, but is rarely prosecuted in America.[266]
In 2013 the UN General Assembly passed its first resolution calling for the protection of defenders of women's human rights.[44] The resolution urges states to put in place gender-specific laws and policies for the protection of women's human rights defenders and to ensure that defenders themselves are involved in the design and implementation of these measures, and calls on states to protect women's human rights defenders from reprisals for cooperating with the UN and to ensure their unhindered access to and communication with international human rights bodies and mechanisms.[45]
Challenges faced by women in accessing justice and limitations of measures
There can be a de jure or de facto acceptance of violent behaviors and lack of remedies for victims.[43]
Lack of criminalization: in many places, acts of abuse, especially acts such as female genital mutilation, marital rape, forced marriage and child marriage, are not criminalized, or are illegal but widely tolerated, with the laws against them being rarely enforced. There are instances where crimes against women are also categorized as minor offenses.
in many places, acts of abuse, especially acts such as female genital mutilation, marital rape, forced marriage and child marriage, are not criminalized, or are illegal but widely tolerated, with the laws against them being rarely enforced. There are instances where crimes against women are also categorized as minor offenses. Lack of awareness of the existing laws: in many places, although there are laws against violence on the books, many women do not know of their existence. This is especially the case with marital rape - its criminalization being very recent in most countries. [267]
in many places, although there are laws against violence on the books, many women do not know of their existence. This is especially the case with marital rape - its criminalization being very recent in most countries. Challenges in making a case in court: the burden of proof can be placed on the victim. For instance in the Philippines, before a change in law in 1997, rape used to be described as a crime against chastity; and virginity played an important role in court. In various countries, such as Bangladesh, a woman's past sexual experience continues to be very important in a case of rape. Bangladesh has received criticism for its employment of the "two-finger test" in rape investigations. This test consists in a physical examination of women who report rape during which a doctor inserts two fingers in the woman's vagina to determine whether the woman is "habituated to sex". This examination has its origin in the country's British colonial-era laws dating back to 1872. This deters many women from reporting rape. More than 100 experts, including doctors, lawyers, police, and women's rights activists had signed a joint statement in 2013 asking for the test, which they called "demeaning", to be abolished, as it "does not provide any evidence that is relevant to proving the offence". This test is also performed in several other countries in the region, including India. [268] It can also be difficult to make a case of sexual assault in court, when members of the judiciary expect evidence of severe struggle and injury as determinative evidence of non-consent. On the other hand, there are measures, such as the 2012 law in Brazil, that allow for cases to be filed even without the representation of the victim.
the burden of proof can be placed on the victim. For instance in the Philippines, before a change in law in 1997, rape used to be described as a crime against chastity; and virginity played an important role in court. In various countries, such as Bangladesh, a woman's past sexual experience continues to be very important in a case of rape. Bangladesh has received criticism for its employment of the "two-finger test" in rape investigations. This test consists in a physical examination of women who report rape during which a doctor inserts two fingers in the woman's vagina to determine whether the woman is "habituated to sex". This examination has its origin in the country's British colonial-era laws dating back to 1872. This deters many women from reporting rape. More than 100 experts, including doctors, lawyers, police, and women's rights activists had signed a joint statement in 2013 asking for the test, which they called "demeaning", to be abolished, as it "does not provide any evidence that is relevant to proving the offence". This test is also performed in several other countries in the region, including India. It can also be difficult to make a case of sexual assault in court, when members of the judiciary expect evidence of severe struggle and injury as determinative evidence of non-consent. On the other hand, there are measures, such as the 2012 law in Brazil, that allow for cases to be filed even without the representation of the victim. Existing laws are insufficient, conflicting, and have no effect in practice: some laws on domestic violence, for instance, conflict with other provisions and ultimately contradict their goals. Legal frameworks can also be flawed when laws that integrate protection do so in isolation, notably in relation to immigration laws. Undocumented women in countries where they would have, in theory, access to justice, don't in practice for fear of being denounced and deported. The CEDAW Committee recommends that a State authority's obligation to report undocumented persons be repealed in national legislation.
some laws on domestic violence, for instance, conflict with other provisions and ultimately contradict their goals. Legal frameworks can also be flawed when laws that integrate protection do so in isolation, notably inA Muslim judge in Pennsylvania – who scolded a local atheist for offending Islam, called him a doofus and accused him of “using the First Amendment” to madden Muslims – dismissed harassment charges against the Muslim defendant who purportedly choked the atheist during a Halloween parade.
District Judge Mark Martin brought a Quran to court and told the alleged victim, American Atheists’ Pennsylvania State Director Ernest Perce V, “I think you misinterpreted a couple of things. So before you start mocking somebody else’s religion, you might want to find out a little more about it. It kind of makes you look like a doofus.”
The judge added, “I think our forefathers intended to use the First Amendment so we can speak with our mind, not to p— off other people and cultures – which is what you did.”
Perce had worn a “zombie Muhammad” costume and proclaimed that he was the Prophet Muhammad risen from the dead at the Oct, 11, 2011, event in Mechanicsburg, Pa. A “zombie pope” was also featured in the parade that night.
Now the Scranton Atheism Examiner reports that Perce could be arrested for posting audio of the judge scolding him for mocking Muhammad. According to report, the Muslim judge has threatened to hold him in contempt of court for releasing the recording. Perce has claimed he was given permission to post the audio.
The Examiner reports that Perce said he posted the audio because the judge treated him unfairly and showed preferential treatment for the Muslim defendant.
According to reports, the atheists were marching when Talaag Elbayomy, a Muslim, stormed out of the crowd and assaulted Perce, grabbing a sign around his neck and pulling until the strings choked him.
The men caught the attention of a nearby police officer.
Mechanicsburg Police Officer Bryan Curtis told Pennsylvania’s WHTM-TV, “Mr. Perce has the right to do what he did that evening, and the defendant in this case was wrong in what he did in confronting him.”
He added, “I believe that I brought a case that showed proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and the case was dismissed, and I was disappointed.”
Elbayomy – who said he believed it was illegal to mock Muhammad – was charged with harassment. He denied touching Perce at trial, but Officer Curtis said Elbayomy admitted grabbing Perce’s sign and beard the night of the incident.
The following is a dark and distorted video posted of the alleged attack:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP-X3hpCfR8
However, Judge Martin dismissed the charges and purportedly belittled the atheist victim.
The audio of the judge lecturing Curtis for insulting Muhammad (starts at 28:30) is available here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv9IyrpOnbs
The following is an excerpt of the Muslim judge’s lecture in which he scolded Perce for offending Islam:
Well, having had the benefit of having spent over two-and-a-half years in predominantly Muslim countries, I think I know a little bit about the faith of Islam. In fact, I have a copy of the Quran here, and I would challenge you, Sir, to show me where it says in the Quran that Muhammad arose and walked among the dead. I think you misinterpreted a couple of things. So before you start mocking somebody else’s religion, you might want to find out a little more about it. It kind of makes you look like a doofus. … In many other Muslim-speaking countries, err, excuse me, many Arabic-speaking countries, predominantly Muslim, something like this is definitely against the law there, in their society. In fact, it could be punished by death, and frequently is, in their society. Here in our society, we have a Constitution that gives us many rights, specifically First Amendment rights. It’s unfortunate that some people use the First Amendment to deliberately provoke others. I don’t think that’s what our forefathers intended. I think our forefathers intended to use the First Amendment so we can speak with our mind, not to p— off other people and cultures – which is what you did. I don’t think you’re aware, Sir, there’s a big difference between how Americans practice Christianity – I understand you’re an atheist – but see Islam is not just a religion. It’s their culture, their culture, their very essence, their very being. They pray five times a day toward Mecca. To be a good Muslim before you die, you have to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, unless you’re otherwise told you cannot because you’re too ill, too elderly, whatever, but you must make the attempt. Their greeting is ‘Salam alaikum, wa-laikum as-Salam,’ uh, ‘May God be with you.’ Whenever it is very common, their language, when they’re speaking to each other, it’s very common for them to say, uh, Allah willing, this will happen. It’s, they’re so immersed in it. And what you’ve done is, you’ve completely trashed their essence, their being. They find it very, very, very offensive. I’m a Muslim. I find it offensive. I find what’s on the other side of this [sign] very offensive. (Editor’s note: Reverse of sign said, “Only Muhammad can rape America!) But you have that right, but you are way outside your bounds of First Amendment rights. … I’ve spent about seven years living in other countries. When we go to other countries, it’s not uncommon for people to refer to us as ‘ugly Americans.’ This is why we hear it referred to as ‘ugly Americans,’ because we’re so concerned about our own rights, we don’t care about other people’s rights. As long as we get our say, but we don’t care about the other people’s say.
The judge later added, “Because there was not, it is not proven to me beyond a reasonable doubt that this defendant is guilty of harassment, therefore, I am going to dismiss the charge.”
Carl Silverman of the Parading Atheists of Central Pennsylvania told WHTM-TV, “We understand that Muslims are extremely sensitive. But this is America, and you need to get over the sensitivity and take out your opposition in peaceful ways – not by attacking people physically.My Reddit birthday Santa turned out to be in the same city as me! She hand delivered the gift in a cute little gift bag.
My gifts were spot-on and definitely reflected how I use reddit! I used to spend a lot of time in the subreddits for new moms, and now mostly use reddit to share my love of reading with other bibliophiles.
I was gifted 3 books!
The first is clearly for my son: A 2 books in 1 Thomas the Tank Engine story book, with a bunch of stickers! (The stories are Go Go Thomas! and Express Coming Through!) My son is definitely going to love it!
The other two were Cinder and Scarlet by Marissa Meyer. I have a soft spot for re-imagined fairy tales, and have had my eye on this series for a while. I expect that they will be jumping the queue a bit on my to-read pile!
Thank you so much, Briefly acquainted stranger!Though originally rumored to be filming Vancouver, the Michigan Film Office has officially announced that the upcoming Superman/Batman movie will shoot in Michigan. Read the full press release below for all the details!
The Michigan Film Office announced today that the next DC Entertainment Super Hero movie from Warner Bros. Pictures has been approved for a film incentive from the state.
The film, from director Zack Snyder, brings together the two greatest Super Heroes of all timeSuperman and Batmanfor the first time on the big screen. Production on the new film is expected to begin in metro Detroit and throughout Michigan sometime in the first quarter of 2014. Snyder is co-writing the story with David S. Goyer, who is writing the screenplay. Charles Roven and Deborah Snyder are producing the film, which will star Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Amy Adams, Laurence Fishburne and Diane Lane.
This project will further strengthen the reputation of Michigan and metro Detroit as a premier film destination, said Margaret ORiley, director of the Michigan Film Office. We look forward to the spotlight shining on our incredibly talented workforce and the businesses that support our film industry here in Michigan.
Detroit is a great example of a quintessential American city, and I know it will make the perfect backdrop for our movie, stated filmmaker Zack Snyder. Detroit and the entire state of Michigan have been fantastic collaborators, and we are looking forward to working together on this film.
The as-yet-untitled feature film was awarded an incentive of $35 million on $131 million of projected in-state expenditures. The production is expected to hire 406 Michigan workers, with a full time equivalent of 426 jobs, plus an additional 6,000 man/days of extra work. The production anticipates using approximately 500 local Michigan vendors during the course of production and spending $5.1 million on local hotels, as well as an additional $3.5 million in out-of-town cast and crew per diem payments that will be spent in the local economy but which fall outside of the incentive program.
The incentive funding for the project will be allocated out of the Fiscal Year 2014 budget. However, any funding remaining from the budget at the end of the current fiscal year will be directed to offset the full incentive amount for this project.
The Superman/Batman movie hits theaters on July 17, 2015.Lori Grimes Zombie is the zombie that you love to hate. The Walking Dead season 2 is now on Netflix and I’m going through them one a night. Lori Grimes makes for an interesting character. Lots of bad decisions and questionable life choices.
What I love is all the memes around Lori Grimes. So she makes bad choices, that will prevent her from winning wife and mother of the year, but everybody in a zombie flick makes stupid and bad choices. That’s the primary way you know you’re watching a zombie movie. If people didn’t make retarded decisions during a zombie apocalypse the apocalypse wouldn’t last more than a week as humans are just too good at killing things.
I do like the actress who plays Lori Grimes and I wonder what it’s like to play a character who nobody likes.
I wanted to draw a Lori Grimes Zombie for today’s comic just for funzies. Yes that’s a real word, I swear it.
My Lori grimes zombie sketch before tweaking it in photoshop.
For the record, and this is where I have a shameless plug for myself. The zombiefied sketch below is done the same way as the ones I do for people at conventions and that I offer on my store.
What’s that you say? How do I get a sketch of myself or a loved one as a zombie? Well I have the answer for you. Simply follow this link to my store and I’ll do one for you. I’m just that awesome. Zombie Sketch link of awesomeness.
I should have taken more screen shots of all the steps I took to make the Lori Grimes Zombie comic post and then I could have posted it up as a tutorial. Now I feel shame. I try to do that in the future as lots of people are bugging me to do more tutorials.This Feb. 24, 2015, file photo, shows the Homeland Security Department headquarters in northwest Washington. AP Citing increasingly sophisticated cyber bad actors and an election infrastructure that's "vital to our national interests," Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced Friday that he's designating U.S. election systems critical infrastructure, a move that provides more federal help for state and local governments to keep their election systems safe from tampering.
"Given the vital role elections play in this country, it is clear that certain systems and assets of election infrastructure meet the definition of critical infrastructure, in fact and in law," Johnson said in a statement.
He added: "Particularly in these times, this designation is simply the right and obvious thing to do."
The determination came after months of review and despite opposition from many states worried that the designation would lead to increased federal regulation or oversight on the many decentralized and locally run voting systems across the country. It was announced on the same day a declassified U.S. intelligence report said Russian President Vladimir Putin "ordered" an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election.
The declassified report said that Russian intelligence services had "obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple U.S. state or local electoral boards." None of the systems targeted or compromised was involved in vote tallying, the report said.
A 2013 presidential directive identified 16 sectors as critical infrastructures, including energy, financial services, health care, transportation, food and agriculture and communications.
Voters cast their ballots during early voting at the Beatties Ford Library in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. on October 20, 2016. REUTERS/Chris Keane
The designation announced Friday places responsibilities on the Homeland Security secretary to identify and prioritize those sectors, considering physical and cyber threats against them. The secretary is also required to conduct security checks and provide information about emerging and imminent threats.
Such a change does not require presidential action, and only requires the secretary to first consult with the assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism.
Discussions about whether to designate elections systems as critical infrastructure surfaced after hackers targeted the voter registration systems of more than 20 states in the months prior to the November election.
While the designation puts responsibilities on the Department of Homeland Security, it does not require entities that are determined "critical infrastructure" to participate. Much of the nation's critical infrastructure is in the private sector.
Johnson said election infrastructure included storage facilities, polling places and vote tabulation locations, plus technology involved in the process, including voter registration databases, voting machines and other systems used to manage the election process and report and display results.
The designation allows for information to be withheld from the public when state, local and private partners meet to discuss election infrastructure security - potentially injecting secrecy into an election process that's traditionally and expressly a transparent process. U.S. officials say such closed door conversations allow for frank discussion that would prevent bad actors from learning about vulnerabilities. DHS would also be able to grant security clearances when appropriate and provide more detailed threat information to states.
In this Jan. 27, 2010 file photo, voters cast their ballots for Illinois' primary at an early voting polling place in Chicago. Illinois election officials say the number of registered active voters in the state is at its highest since 1970. Illinois State Board of Election spokesman Jim Tenuto said Tuesday Oct. 25, 2016, that there are 7.9 million registered active voters in the state. AP Photo/M. Spencer Green File
The Obama administration has proposed international cyber rules for peacetime that would expressly note that countries shouldn't conduct online activity targeting critical infrastructure, which will now also include election systems.
President Barack Obama used sanctions last week to retaliate against Russian efforts to interfere in the U.S. election process by expanding a prior executive order that allows for their use in the case of cyberattack on critical infrastructure to entities "interfering with or undermining election processes or institutions." With election infrastructure designated as critical, an attack that takes the system down would also qualify for a response of sanctions.
Georgia Secretary of State Brian P. Kemp, who is a member of the U.S. Election Infrastructure Cybersecurity Working Group run by DHS, is among those who have opposed the designation. Testifying in September to a House Oversight subcommittee, Kemp said more federal oversight could make systems more vulnerable and could make protected records more accessible.
When Johnson discussed the likelihood of the designation in a conference call with state officials on Thursday, Kemp called the action "a federal overreach into a sphere constitutionally reserved for the states." According to a copy of his comments released by his office, Kemp told Johnson on the phone that "this smacks of partisan politics" given the dwindling days left in the Obama administration.
Kemp has appealed to President-elect Donald Trump to investigate "failed cyberattacks" on the Georgia secretary of state's network that traced to the Department of Homeland Security, calling the department's technical explanations insufficient.Flower potholes: How has this not caught on in Portland?
If ever there was a protest suited for a bumpy-streeted Northwest city obsessed with public art, gardening, good manners bordering on the passive aggressive and alternative transportation, "pothole gardening" is it.
Across North America and parts of Europe, people fed up with local municipalities ignoring their complaints are filling street potholes with potting soil and flowers.
The passive aggressive way of getting your town to deal with potholes. Posted by Life of Dad on Saturday, May 23, 2015
In Hamtramck, Mich., Paige Breithart said the city has been blooming lazy about fixing its damaged blacktop.
"There are a huge amount of potholes around the area, and I know a lot of people have been annoyed after bursting tires and avoiding them," Breithart told WXYZ last month.
She and a friend planted about 40 or 50 flowers across the city, the TV station reported.
"We used my friend's pickup truck, put two flats of flowers and bags of soil in the back, and just drove around, filled it, and drove away," Breithart added.
From small towns such Schenectady, Moose Jaw and Bangor to major metropolises such as Montreal and Chicago, the movement is gaining momentum.
In fact, a frustrated bicyclist in Edinburgh, Scotland, live-tweeted her recent adventure in creative street gardening.
Talk about a gauntlet thrown down. There is nothing like telling Portlanders that they have been out-Portlandiaed.
However, Portland Bureau of Transportation officials say they have yet to receive reports of someone making flowerbeds out of potholes in Stumptown. It's not as if there aren't streets in desperate need of attention.
Maybe pothole plantings haven't sprouted up in Portland because the city is so darn quick in responding to complaints, said Diane Dulken, a PBOT spokeswoman.
"While we are in need of funding to adequately maintain our streets in good condition and repair streets in poor condition, PBOT is highly responsive to reports of potholes," she wrote in an email. "Our pledge is to fix a pothole within 21 days of receiving a report."
Currently, however, the city's average repair time is five to seven business days, she said.
"So the growing season for a flower planted in a Portland pothole would be very short and flowers planted in a Portland garden would have a much better chance of thriving than one planted in a Portland pothole," she said.
Hey, hey. Looks like PBOT has developed some swagger. Anyone willing to test Dulken's theory?
Stretches of Northeast Weidler Street north of the Moda Center look like a half-detonated minefield.
Of course, in Welland, Canada, authorities worry the pothole flowers - while cute - are a potentially dangerous way to make a point.
"Pedestrians, cyclists, motorists -- they're all at risk should a driver feel compelled to swerve and avoid potted petunias," reports the Welland Tribune.
Still, I'm thinking it's better than the, ahem, NSFW methods other people have used to bring attention to potholes. Also, no one actually thinks using a pothole as a beer cooler is safe, do they?
Here's a look at what else is "out there" about traffic, transit and transportation in Oregon and around the globe (no matter what the clock says, it's always the morning commute somewhere):
Soon,
Uber has launched UberPedal, "an on-demand bike rack option in Portland,"
Speaking of Uber: The San Francisco-based startup has gutted Carnegie Mellon |
large unidentified mammals - a rib and two vertebrae - from Pinnacle Point Cave in South Africa.
Using O'Driscoll's diagnostic criteria, the pair identified projectile impact marks on all three bones.
Experts have debated the precise date at which early man started to use stone-tipped spears for many years, but until now evidence to back up the various theories were lacking
Two dated to between 91,000 and 98,000 years ago and the third dated even earlier, between 153,000 and 174,000 years ago - m aking them the oldest direct evidence of the use of projectile weapons.
Archaeologist Tiina Manne at the University of Queensland also finds the identification of projectile impact marks—at least on the two later bones—highly persuasive: 'This strongly suggests that projectile technology at Pinnacle Point was in use by at least 90 to 95,000 years ago,' she says. But she's less convinced by the evidence on the oldest bone, noting that only a'single grain' of stone from the projectile point was embedded in the bone.CLOSE An anti-Donald Trump petition is gaining momentum in the U.K. On Britain’s official government petition site. Time
President Trump holds hands with British Prime Minister Theresa May as they walk the colonade of the White House in Washington, Jan. 27, 2017. (Photo11: Olivier Douliery / POOL, EPA)
LONDON — A movement to prevent President Trump from making a state visit to the United Kingdom gathered pace Monday as a public petition against the trip received more than 1 million signatures. However the British government said the visit, likely to take place this summer, will still go ahead.
The surge in support for the appeal, created last year by Graham Guest, a lawyer based in Leeds, a city in northwestern England, follows Trump's refugee and travel ban that affects millions of Muslims.
"Donald Trump's well documented misogyny and vulgarity disqualifies him from being received by Her Majesty the Queen or the Prince of Wales. Therefore during the term of his presidency Donald Trump should not be invited to the United Kingdom for an official State Visit," the petition says. It adds that Trump's visit would “cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen.”
British Prime Minister Theresa May announced Friday that Trump had accepted an invitation by Queen Elizabeth for a state visit. Prior to Trump's executive order, the petition had less than 10,000 signatures.
Now that the online document has attracted over 1 million signatures, many more than the 100,000 needed to secure a debate in Parliament, it will be discussed by parliamentarians on Tuesday. May's office told the BBC on Monday that there would be no dis-invitation.
Trump's executive order suspended all refugees from entering the U.S. for 120 days. The order also bars the admission of refugees from Syria indefinitely and halts entry to the U.S. for three months to residents from the predominantly Muslim countries of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.
The move sparked chaos at airports and protests around the world. In Britain, it has drawn broad backlash from politicians across the political aisle.
Speaking to ITV's Good Morning Britain program, Nadhim Zahawi, an Iraqi-born member of the British Parliament who came to the U.K. as a child, said the ban was "discriminatory," "wrong" and "counter-productive." Zahawi is from May’s ruling Conservative Party.
“We will protect the rights and freedoms of UK nationals home and abroad. Divisive and wrong to stigmatise because of nationality,” Boris Johnson, the British foreign secretary, tweeted late Sunday. The British government said the executive order only applies to people travelling from one of the seven countries named in the order and that the only U.K. citizens who are dual nationals of the named countries who might be subject to further checks are people traveling to the U.S. from one of the seven nations.
Over 1 million people have signed. @theresa_may we will not back down, cancel state visit and condemn the #Muslimbanhttps://t.co/ySphksOliV — Jeremy Corbyn MP (@jeremycorbyn) January 30, 2017
The clarification came after Mo Farah, the Somali-born British Olympian who lives in Oregon, said Trump’s order had made him an "alien."
Farah, 33, came to Britain from Somalia at age 8. The athlete, who won gold in the 5,000 meter and 10,000 meter races in the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II earlier this month for "services to British sport.”
A spokeswoman for Farah said he was relieved following Johnson’s statement, but fundamentally disagreed with the order.
May, who last week became the first foreign leader to meet with Trump in person during a visit to the U.S., was criticized by politicians including Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, for initially failing to condemn the executive order.
Her office later said in a statement: "Immigration policy in the United States is a matter for the government of the United States, just the same as immigration policy for this country should be set by our government.
"But we do not agree with this kind of approach and it is not one we will be taking.”
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2jJbDwqMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption In Shenzhen protesters overturned a Japanese-made police car
Anti-Japanese protests have taken place in cities across China after Japanese nationalists raised their country's flag on disputed islands.
Thousands of people took to the streets in Shenzhen, Guangzhou and a number of other cities demanding that Japan leave the islands in the East China Sea.
In Shenzhen, some demonstrators attacked Japanese restaurants and smashed Japanese-made cars.
The islands are known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.
Early on Sunday, at least 10 activists swam ashore after a flotilla carrying about 150 people reached the Japanese-controlled islands.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The Japanese activists raised their country's flag after they landed
The activists - who had earlier been denied permission to visit the islands - swam back to their boats and were being questioned by Japanese customs officials.
However, as news of the action spread, angry protests broke out across China.
In the south-eastern city of Shenzhen, a Japanese-branded police car was overturned and smashed with a metal bar.
Footage carried by Hong Kong Cable TV showed other Japanese-branded cars and restaurants being damaged.
Protesters waved Chinese flags, burned images of the Japanese flag and shouted slogans denouncing Japan's claims over the islands.
Bottles of water were thrown at police when they tried to calm protesters down.
"They [Japan] should return the islands to us and apologise," said one protester quoted by Reuters news agency.
No arrests were made, according to Cable TV.
In neighbouring Guangzhou, demonstrators gathered near the Japanese consulate calling on Tokyo to quit the islands.
In Shanghai, protesters held a banner reading "down with Japanese imperialism".
An estimated 200 demonstrators also marched through central Hong Kong to the Japanese consulate chanting anti-Japanese slogans, broadcaster RTHK reported.
In the south-western city of Chengdu, protests shut down a Japanese department store and a branch of the Japanese clothing store, Uniqlo.
Japan-China disputed islands Image copyright AP The archipelago consists of five islands and three reefs
Japan, China and Taiwan claim them; they are controlled by Japan and form part of Okinawa prefecture
Japanese businessman Kunioki Kurihara owns three of the islands, which he rents out to the Japanese state
The islands were the focus of a major diplomatic row between Japan and China in 2010 Q&A: China-Japan islands row
The BBC's Martin Patience in Beijing says the outbreak of protests was almost certainly sanctioned by the Chinese authorities, as they were well policed.
In the past, the authorities have used anti-Japanese sentiment to deflect criticism of their rule, he says.
The Japanese launched their flotilla on Saturday, saying they wanted to commemorate the Japanese who died near the islands in World War II.
Early on Sunday, 10 members of the group swam ashore to one of the islets and waved Japanese flags, emulating pro-China activists who had made the same gesture during a previous trip.
One of the politicians on the flotilla, Kenichi Kojima, told AFP news agency: "I want to show the international community that these islands are ours. It is Japan's future at stake."
Earlier this week, pro-Chinese activists sailed to the disputed island chain from Hong Kong in a protest aimed at promoting Chinese sovereignty.
Some of the activists were deported by Japan, and others sailed away from the islands.
The disputed islands - which lie on a vital shipping lane and are surrounded by deposits of gas - are also claimed by Taiwan.
Rows over them have caused Sino-Japanese ties to freeze in the past.
In September 2010, relations plummeted after the arrest of a Chinese trawler captain near the islands.
The captain was accused of ramming two Japanese patrol vessels in the area, but Japan eventually dropped the charges against him.
China claims the islands have been a part of its territory since ancient times, but Japan says it took control of the archipelago in the late 1890s after making sure they were uninhabited."I'm much more comfortable — and I think everyone that analyzes this knows that Hillary Clinton is in the ditch. We don't know how far into the ditch she's going to go, but she's not doing well," Priebus said during an an appearance on CNN's "Wolf."
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"I'd rather run against Hillary Clinton because she's defined, she's not liked, and in a popular cultural vote in America, that's a really important question," he added when presented with Clinton's large vote count lead.
Sanders has touted polling to argue he'd be a better general-election pick for Democrats than Clinton, who holds a big delegate lead and is hoping to blunt the independent Vermont senator's winning streak with a victory in the New York primary on Tuesday.
"I don't know what's going to happen with the FBI," Priebus said Friday, referring to the federal investigation surrounding Clinton's email arrangement as secretary of State. Clinton has predicted the issue won't impact her presidential bid, but Republicans view it as a major weakness.
The RNC chairman has argued before that Republicans would prefer to face Clinton in November. His latest comments come as Trump, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, remains deeply unpopular in polling among female voters, a demographic group Democrats hope to capitalize on in November.
Republicans have sought to turn their attention to Clinton amid days of renewed feuding from Trump, who has gone after the RNC and Priebus for operating a "rigged" nominating process.
"This is a very normal system that we have been using for many years."The Nature report estimates somewhere between 500 and 36,000 species a year are going extinct. Scientists dispute the precise figure because estimates of the number of distinct plant and animal species range widely, from less than two million to more than ten million.
"Scientists are seeing very high extinction rates right now," Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker staff writer and author of The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, told VICE News. "Some people would say 100, some people would say 1,000, and some people are saying 10,000 times what we should be seeing."
Forty-one percent of amphibians, 26 percent of mammals, and 13 percent of birds face the threat of extinction, according to an analysis conducted by the journal Nature. Over hunting, habitat destruction, and climate change are propelling the die-offs, as well as the spread of invasive species and disease.
Now, say scientists, Earth may be experiencing a sixth wave of mass extinction. But this time, humans are the cause.
In the past half billion years, five great extinctions have transformed life on Earth, whether brought about by a catastrophic meteor impact that killed off the dinosaurs or prolonged periods of intense volcanic activity, which wiped out as much as 97 percent of all species.
Read more
In the past half billion years, five great extinctions have transformed life on Earth, whether brought about by a catastrophic meteor impact that killed off the dinosaurs or prolonged periods of intense volcanic activity, which wiped out as much as 97 percent of all species.
Now, say scientists, Earth may be experiencing a sixth wave of mass extinction. But this time, humans are the cause.
Forty-one percent of amphibians, 26 percent of mammals, and 13 percent of birds face the threat of extinction, according to an analysis conducted by the journal Nature. Over hunting, habitat destruction, and climate change are propelling the die-offs, as well as the spread of invasive species and disease.
"Scientists are seeing very high extinction rates right now," Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker staff writer and author of The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, told VICE News. "Some people would say 100, some people would say 1,000, and some people are saying 10,000 times what we should be seeing."
The Nature report estimates somewhere between 500 and 36,000 species a year are going extinct. Scientists dispute the precise figure because estimates of the number of distinct plant and animal species range widely, from less than two million to more than ten million.
Nearly 300,000 tons of plastic is floating in the world's oceans. Read more here.
"We're losing species at just an incredible rate and I think most scientists think that rate is increasing," Noah Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity told VICE News.
The worst-case scenario in the Nature analysis predicts that 75 percent of life on Earth may become extinct by 2200. In that scenario, the paper assumes there are 5 million species on Earth and extinction occurs at a steady rate of 0.72 percent of species a year. There's a great amount of uncertainty in projecting extinction rates and the number of species that might be impacted, however, because of the widely varying estimates on the number of existing types of plants and animals.
Other studies support Nature's findings yet highlight the high level of uncertainty in trying to nail down the scale of species extinction. A 2010 paper in the journal Science says that between 23 and 36 percent of all mammals, birds, and amphibians consumed by humans are threatened with extinction. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warns that more than 20,000 of 75,000 species they studied are at risk.
The causes driving the current wave of extinction are varied — yet each comes back in some way to human activity.
"One driver of extinction is simply overhunting or overharvesting," Kolbert said. "Rhinos are in terrible trouble, because they're being killed and they can't reproduce fast enough to save themselves. So one driver is simply, we're killing them."
Habitat destruction is another major factor driving extinction. As global human population doubled over the last forty years, more than fifty percent of the Earth's surface was degraded or destroyed due to human intervention. During that time, half of the world's wildlife population was killed.
Invasive species and disease present acute challenges for some plants and animals. Humans have proven to be very adept at introducing critters into environments where they can cause great havoc. Think of the Asian Carp that is advancing northward along the Illinois and Mississippi rivers and threatens to populate the Great Lakes. Kolbert noted that amphibians are dying in droves because of a particularly lethal fungus that piggybacks on humans.
'One couldn't see a way to un-crash an asteroid.'
Perhaps the most troubling factor driving the sixth great extinction is all the greenhouse gas emissions humans are spewing into the atmosphere and oceans.
"Climate change and ocean acidification are predicted to become, and I think it's hard to really avoid the idea that they're going to become, drivers of extinction, as we move outside historical tolerances," Kolbert told VICE News.
Even before massive swaths of species become extinct, scientists warn these drivers will also immediately alter fragile ecosystems.
"Even though I wrote a book called the Sixth Extinction and it was about extinction — there's too much emphasis actually on extinction, on the last animal," Kolbert said. "So say we're down to the last 100 and we save them and that animal is not technically extinct — but it is functionally extinct in the ecosystem. I think people are more and more trying to get away from extinction being the problem; the problem is declines in population, to the point that the animal might as well be extinct."
Kolbert used cod as an example. Overfishing decimated cod populations in the Atlantic. Governments placed bans on cod fishing hoping populations might rebound. But so far, that hasn't happened. In the absence of a healthy cod population, the species it preyed upon have flourished at the same time that predators that competed with cod have thrived. Although some scientists are hopeful the ecosystem may recover, they don't know if cod will play the same role in the marine habitat as it did before overfishing caused its population to plummet.
Over half of Earth's wildlife has been killed in the past 40 years. Read more here.
The sixth great extinction shows the extent to which humans might be a plague upon the land, whether driving the bulldozers that transform prairie lands, burning the coal that warms the atmosphere, or poisoning lakes and rivers with phosphate-enriched fertilizer that boost the volume of our vegetables. But in a plot seemingly from a Greek tragidy, humans are the only ones that can put a stop to what we have set in motion.
"One couldn't see a way to un-crash an asteroid," Jon Hoekstra, Vice President and Chief Scientist of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), told VICE News. "At a fundamental level, this mass extinction is so different because not only is it caused by people, but it can be averted by people."
Nearly 200 nations have ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity, a 1993 treaty aimed at protecting the world's biodiversity and scaling back extinction rates. Under the treaty's provisions, nations coordinate efforts at stopping the spread of invasive species, establish large-scale conservation areas, and pledge to mitigate the impacts of climate change. The United States has not ratified the treaty.
"This is really the most serious problem that humanity faces, because you can't undo extinction," Greenwald told VICE News. "You're essentially creating irreparable harm, but it's not discussed in the halls of Congress. And President Obama's not talking about the extinction crisis."
Follow Shelby Kinney-Lang on Twitter: @ShelbKLFunny now, is it not, to look back a decade or so and remember what the powers-that-be were saying about Formula 1, and the way it needed to change? According to FIA President Max Mosley it was all getting a little too fast and the time for action had come.
Over the years we had heard that frequently, but invariably the concern was with cornering speeds. The changes made to contain them were always to do with reducing aerodynamic downforce, which – as anyone old enough to remember the sport before the advent of wings will tell you – has had only a detrimental effect on the quality of racing.
It’s really not too difficult to understand, is it? As soon as you create a situation – ‘dirty air’ – where closely following another car through a corner becomes a near impossibility you’re bound to reduce the possibility of overtaking on the following straight. Throw in ever-reducing braking distances into corners, and the picture becomes complete.
As Rick Mears said to me at Indianapolis this year, “The guys in charge don’t get it, do they? Over time racing has been progressively ruined by ‘aero’ – by more and more downforce, so that you have a situation where cornering speeds are way too high, and straightline speeds – because of all that drag – way too low. What you need is a far bigger difference between the two – only then will you get proper racing again. If you have so much downforce that anyone can go through flat, what’s the point in hiring a great driver?”
Mears was talking primarily about ovals, always his particular area of expertise, and it’s not difficult to see his point. When you watch Indy qualifying on TV, and appreciate from in-car footage that the engine note never changes the lap round, you can reach only one conclusion: this can’t be right.
Against all advice from the participants IndyCar this year increased downforce. And while the cars still race well at big ovals like Pocono, at a smaller one such as Phoenix the lack of passing is striking. Similarly, at many of the road circuits drivers have lamented on the radio their difficulty in overtaking: “I just can’t get close enough to him through the turns…”
As in motor racing across the world, the fan base in NASCAR – be it at the tracks or on TV – may have shrunk over the last few years but at least there the rulemakers have addressed a fundamental problem in the sport: in 2016 they have actually reduced downforce. Few would dispute that the quality of the racing has significantly improved.
Back to F1. Ten or 12 years ago Max Mosley was hellbent on reducing speeds, which he said were getting out of hand, but curiously his attention was focused this time not on cornering speeds but on engine power. The 3-litre V10s, he said, were now producing more than 900 horsepower and that simply had to be nipped in the bud. No matter that this figure fell well short of those attained in the ‘80s, when the turbo era was in full swingm and on qualifying boost some drivers had as much as 1500bhp to fight with; 900 was too much, Mosley insisted, and to that end for 2006 the 2.4-litre V8 would be introduced.
This, to my mind, was a rather anaemic period of Grand Prix racing, with engines revving hysterically, all of them making the same ‘white noise’. If we go by Tony Brooks’s definition of Grand Prix racing – and I have never heard a better one – that, “A Formula 1 car should always have slightly more horsepower than its chassis can comfortably handle”, the balance between power and ‘aero’ was well askew.
That said, many were those – particularly folk who had never heard a V10 on full noise – who relished the volume of sound produced by the V8s. And if the power outputs were modest compared with those of earlier engines, at least the car itself remained light in weight – and therefore a good deal more lithe than those we have watched in the three seasons of ‘hybrid’ F1.
For the first of those seasons the cars were pretty good to watch. Downforce had been reduced, and although in time F1’s clever aerodynamicists inevitably found ways of bringing it back again, in 2014 relatively little downforce, combined with the immense torque of the ‘hybrid’ engines – I’m sorry, I won’t call them ‘power units’ – made for skittish behaviour out of the corners, which is the first requirement of any avid spectator. Unfortunately, though, two years on the cars are much more mannerly.
I was not among those who thought the old engines – particularly the milk-and-water V8s – should have been retained at all costs. I know it is said that a man may be considered old when he starts to think in terms of mpg rather than mph, in considering his next car, but the fact is that we are into an era when road car manufacturers are above all else focused on ‘clean’ engines and reduced fuel consumption. And that being so, if F1 wished to retain such as Mercedes, Renault and Honda as engine suppliers it had to offer them a formula that would keep their interest, and allow them to justify continued F1 involvement to directors and shareholders.
Hence the hybrid motors, insisted upon by Mosley’s successor Jean Todt, and I suppose my first thought is to thank God for Ferrari, who persuaded him at least to permit six cylinders, rather than the four he wanted.
No one, though, can be other than mightily impressed by the power figures swiftly attained, particularly by Mercedes. Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg may have more at their right foot than others, but virtually everyone on the grid has more power than was ever seen in the V10 era, together with hugely reduced fuel consumption.
Unfortunately, though, it isn’t that simple. For one thing, the new breed of engines are monumentally more expensive than those they replaced, which has created terrible problems for the ‘customer teams’. For another, they are staggeringly complex, to a degree that apparently requires constant radio advice from engineer to driver. For a third, they are massively heavier than F1 engines of the past, so that the minimum weight limit is now more than 100kgs higher than it used to be.
Comparatively, therefore, the modern Grand Prix car is a bit of a whale, and not one many drivers particularly enjoy. Throw in the fact that they continue to race on these silly ‘seven laps and throw them away’ tyres, and the fact that the fuel consumption rules are like something from the Mobil Economy Run, and you can see why the drivers find contemporary F1 way less stimulating than they did.
As Lewis Hamilton puts it, “As soon as we’ve done the start, we slow down. Generally we’re not pushing 100% like they used to. Back in the day it was a more extreme race – a sprint – but F1 is not like that any more. It’s about conserving tyres and fuel and batteries, and that’s not what people want to see…”
Quite right, it’s not. As I said, across the world – in any category you wish to choose – racing has in the last few years suffered a huge drop in popularity, and the powerbrokers of F1 have been putting their heads together, trying to come up with ways and means of arresting the decline. Needless to say – because F1 moguls essentially care for nothing save their own interests – the process has been tortuous.
Whatever Mosley may have said in the early noughties about the need to cut speeds, the thinking now is that they absolutely must be increased, and dramatically so, enabling these bloated cars at least to match the lap times of the V10 era a dozen years ago.
I’m informed that Mercedes and Ferrari, thinking more of spectacle than brute pace, put forward a plan of which most enthusiasts would have approved. The emphasis would have been on speeding up the cars by increasing mechanical – rather than aerodynamic – grip, but another faction was all for doing it with ‘aero’, with greatly increased downforce, and if you were Red Bull and had the aerodynamic genius of Adrian Newey on which to call, why wouldn’t you?
Whatever, they won the day. In 2017 the cars will have hugely bigger tyres – and also much more downforce, which Hamilton has described as, “The very last thing we need…”
Will the cars be much quicker than those to which we have lately become accustomed? Undoubtedly.
Will they be more spectacular to watch? Not according to Pirelli’s Paul Hembery: “If you’re cornering with that much grip – and if it’s to be believed up to five or six seconds quicker – that clearly is going to be felt by the drivers in dramatic fashion. It could be that the car has such grip that it’s more driving on rails than driving on the limit…”
Will the quality of the racing be improved? Not unless increased downforce changes the habit of a lifetime, and miraculously permits cars to go through corners nose-to-tail.
I hope time will prove me wrong, but I have the greatest misgivings about the revised F1 for 2017. Indubitably the cars will be much faster, and it may be that the drivers get more pleasure from them, but I’m not sure – however quick it is – that spectators will get much from a high-speed train, with minimal overtaking. It seems to me that Lewis is entirely right in his observations about increased downforce, but did anyone ask the drivers for their opinions? As in IndyCar racing, apparently not.
As well as that, the ‘saving’ aspect of F1 – be it of tyres, fuel, energy, whatever – has not been addressed, so this high-speed train will still not be able to look upon a Grand Prix as a sprint. Fernando Alonso, perhaps the ultimate racing warrior, has said that if he doesn’t get back the pleasure from driving he remembers from his early days, with a 900-horsepower engine in a 600kg car, next season will be his last in F1.
‘Get in and drive the hell out of it’ used to be the F1 driver’s creed, but we seem to have lost sight of how it was in that simpler time.Poverty levels on rise
The ranks of America’s poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and fraying government safety net.
Census figures for 2011 will be released this fall in the weeks ahead of the November elections.
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The Associated Press surveyed more than a dozen economists, think tanks and academics, both nonpartisan and those with known liberal or conservative leanings, and found a broad consensus: The official poverty rate will rise from 15.1 percent in 2010, climbing as high as 15.7 percent. Several predicted a more modest gain, but even a 0.1 percentage point increase would put poverty at the highest since 1965.
Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor. More discouraged workers are giving up on the job market, leaving them vulnerable as unemployment aid begins to run out. Suburbs are seeing increases in poverty, including in such political battlegrounds as Colorado, Florida and Nevada, where voters are coping with a new norm of living hand to mouth.
“I grew up going to Hawaii every summer. Now I’m here, applying for assistance because it’s hard to make ends meet. It’s very hard to adjust,” said Laura Fritz, 27, of Wheat Ridge, Colo., describing her slide from rich to poor as she filled out aid forms at a county center. Since 2000, large swaths of Jefferson County just outside Denver have seen poverty nearly double.
Fritz says she grew up wealthy in the Denver suburb of Highlands Ranch, but fortunes turned after her parents lost a significant amount of money in the housing bust. Stuck in a half-million dollar house, her parents began living off food stamps and Fritz’s college money evaporated. She tried joining the Army but was injured during basic training.
Now she’s living on disability, with an infant daughter and a boyfriend, Garrett Goudeseune, 25, who can’t find work as a landscaper. They are struggling to pay their $650 rent on his unemployment checks and don’t know how they would get by without the extra help as they hope for the job market to improve.
In an election year dominated by discussion of the middle class, Fritz’s case highlights a dim reality for the growing group in poverty. Millions could fall through the cracks as government aid from unemployment insurance, Medicaid, welfare and food stamps diminishes.
“The issues aren’t just with public benefits. We have some deep problems in the economy,” said Peter Edelman, director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy.
He pointed to the recent recession but also longer-term changes in the economy such as globalization, automation, outsourcing, immigration, and less unionization that have pushed median household income lower. Even after strong economic growth in the 1990s, poverty never fell below a 1973 low of 11.1 percent. That low point came after President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty, launched in 1964, created Medicaid, Medicare and other social welfare programs.
“I’m reluctant to say that we’ve gone back to where we were in the 1960s. The programs we enacted make a big difference. The problem is that the tidal wave of low-wage jobs is dragging us down and the wage problem is not going to go away anytime soon,” Edelman said.
This article tagged under: Poverty
Politics
CensusKittens With Spikes is proud to present a community event for our fellow Grifball fans. Though Grifball is our passion, KWS enjoys shooty Halo from time to time, so we have created an event so epic, so amazingly awesome that it will blow your collective minds. This is no ordinary event, this is Kittens With Dominions!!! You heard me right folks, we have created a Dominion map and game type just for you. The map was forged by KWS resident cartographer Uggobuster. That’s not all! We will also be giving away prizes for participation, so winning is not a necessity. We will draw names of all participants at the end of the evening, and we will inbox codes to the winners.
We will host the event on 2/20/2013. The Tourney is 4v4. Sign-ups are open 8 to 8:30pm eastern time.
Prizes!!!
You heard me right folks we are giving away some awesome prizes. Here is a list of all available prizes:
1-Year of Xbox Live
1-Fotus Male Avatar Armor
1-1600 Microsoft Point Cards
6-800 Microsoft Point Cards
About The Map: Wetworks
Uggobuster forged this map in its entirety, using only input from team members to improve upon it (mostly because I tend to mess things up in Forge). This map was constructed on Ravine. The map contains three bases Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. Alpha and Charlie are equidistant from Bravo for an even balance between bases. There is a fourth structure between the initial spawns that houses a teleporter to Bravo. Bravo is the key to this map, as it is almost impervious once it is fortified. When fortified, Bravo Receives 2 gun turrets that protect its ordinance drops, as well as the only banshee available on the map. The teleporter into Bravo becomes blocked, and the only way in is from the sides. Alpha and Charlie are pretty much identical. Alpha and Charlie each receive a rocket hog and wraith when fortified, as well as a gun turret protecting the main entrance and a turret protecting from invaders advancing from Bravo.
One feature on this map that makes it interesting, was created through Uggobuster’s hatred of Man Canons (not “a man canon”). Uggo as we call him, decided that he wanted a way to get from the top center structure to the top of Alpha or Charlie without a Man Canon, so he placed two low gravity zones from the top platforms going to the bases on either side, allowing players to jump to a base, while sprinting, without dying. One other facet of this map includes a lower section that allows a player to travel from Alpha to Charlie almost unnoticed, it also includes a hidden surprise that would be useful to whomever finds it first. The original iteration of this map was made for a CTF variant called Wetworks CTF. The idea was to make the waypoint of the flag carrier non-existent. However, the options for this variant did not work out. The map is still setup for a mean game of default CTF.
About The Gametype: Kittens With Dominions
Our team name Kittens With Spikes is derived from an episode of Red Vs. Blue. In homage to our name we created a game type with a matching mantra, Kittens With Dominions. Why Dominion, you ask? Our fearless leader BlackBeard17 loves his dominion games, so as a surprise we created this game type just for him. This also allowed Uggo to flex his creative genius when fortifying bases. The game type will consist of 1 timed 15 minute round up to 600 points. Ordinance drops and vehicles will only be available to fortified bases (unless you find the secret in the lower structure). Should a game end with a tie, the team with the best overall K/D Spread will win. We have an alternate version of this map just for the championship match. The only difference in the map is the addition of two spectator zones for streaming the game.
All questions should be directed to TheOnlyWay.The Indictment Against Malware Researcher Marcus Hutchines Is Really Weird
from the why-is-that-illegal? dept
So, yesterday, we wrote a quick post about recently-famous malware research Marcus Hutchins (famous for accidentally stopping the WannaCry attack) being detained by the FBI as he left Defcon. An hour or so later, we updated it with the details of the indictment which had been released. That had my quick response, which noted that the "evidence" didn't seem very strong. It just claims (without anything else) that Hutchins wrote the Kronos malware, and most of the indictment and most of the activity focuses on a second defendant (whose name is redacted) who apparently was out selling the malware. I was planning to write up a more thorough look at the indictment and its problems today, but last night, Orin Kerr beat me to it, and he (famed lawyer, law professor and former assistant US attorney) has a bit more expertise in the subject, so let's work off of his analysis.
The crux of the indictment is that Hutchins and the unnamed "co-conspirator" worked together to create and sell malware, leading Kerr to ask the fairly obvious question:
This raises an interesting legal question: Is it a crime to create and sell malware?
After all, as many others pointed out, there are lots of folks out there who build and sell malware of one kind or another -- and, indeed, the US government is often a large purchaser of malware sold by others. Kerr's initial gut reaction was more or less the same as mine: that the actual amount of evidence in the indictment is pretty minimal, though obviously they may have a lot more that just hasn't been shared yet (or they may turn up more).
Do the charges hold up? Just based on a first look at the case, my sense is that the government’s theory of the case is fairly aggressive. It will lead to some significant legal challenges. It’s hard to say, at this point, how those challenges will play out. The indictment is pretty bare bones, and we don’t have all the facts or even what the government thinks are the facts. So while we can’t say that this indictment is clearly an overreach, we can say that the government is pushing the envelope in some ways and may or may not have the facts it needs to make its case. As always, we’ll have to stay tuned.
From there, Kerr digs into each of the charges. The first is "conspiracy." This one struck my layman's mind as somewhat odd. Two people working together does not a conspiracy make. Kerr similarly calls it "odd" and notes that for this charge to work, the government has to argue that selling malware is the same as using malware to damage a |
listen to music. He asked Norio Ohga, then Executive Deputy President, to design a playback-only stereo version, optimized for use with headphones. Ibuka brought the result a compact, high-quality music player to Chairman Akio Morita and reportedly said, "Try this. Don't you think a stereo cassette player that you can listen to while walking around is a good idea?"
All the device needed now was a name. Originally the Walkman was introduced in the U.S. as the "Sound-About" and in the UK as the "Stowaway," but coming up with new, uncopyrighted names in every country it was marketed in proved costly; Sony eventually decided on "Walkman" as a play on the Sony Pressman, a mono cassette recorder the first Walkman prototype was based on. First released in Japan, it was a massive hit: while Sony predicted it would only sell about 5,000 units a month, the Walkman sold upwards of 50,000 in the first two months. Sony wasn't the first company to introduce portable audio: the first-ever portable transistor radio, the index card-sized Regency TR-1, debuted in 1954. But the Walkman's unprecedented combination of portability (it ran on two AA batteries) and privacy (it featured a headphone jack but no external speaker) made it the ideal product for thousands of consumers looking for a compact portable stereo that they could take with them anywhere. The TPS-L2 was introduced in the U.S. in June 1980.
The 1980s could well have been the Walkman decade. The popularity of Sony's device and those by brands like Aiwa, Panasonic and Toshiba who followed in Sony's lead helped the cassette tape outsell vinyl records for the first time in 1983. By 1986 the word "Walkman" had entered the Oxford English Dictionary. Its launch coincided with the birth of the aerobics craze, and millions used the Walkman to make their workouts more entertaining. Between 1987 and 1997 the height of the Walkman's popularity the number of people who said they walked for exercise increased by 30%. (See TIME's special report "1989: The Year That Changed the World.")
Sony continued to roll out variations on its theme, adding such innovations as AM/FM receivers, bass boost and auto-reverse on later models. Sony even made a solar-powered Walkman, water-resistant Sport Walkmans and even devices with two cassette drives. But cassettes, like any technology, weren't going to last forever. With the introduction of compact discs in 1982 the format began to go the way of the 8-track itself.
Sony, however, was fairly quick to jump to new formats: it introduced the D-50 portable CD player a year after the first compact discs were sold, and later rolled out MiniDisc and MP3 players under the Walkman brand. (Its insistence for several years on sticking to a proprietary digital music format, ATRAC, left it far behind Apple's iPod in terms of market share.) Since its launch, Sony has released more than 300 different models across all formats; it currently makes Walkman-branded MP3 players, phones and even portable DVD players. Its newest device, the Walkman NWZ-X1000, features a 3-inch OLED screen, 32 gigabytes of memory and WiFi connectivity. But the company still makes play-only cassette Walkmen, too its latest model to be released in the U.S. was the WM-FX290 in 2002.
See the greatest hits of Japanese design
The Palm Pre: The latest would-be iPhone-killerBack from the failed-campaign graveyard, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) on Friday offered three words to President Trump regarding his border wall plan:
Bush, who was vanquished by Trump in the Republican primary last year, retweeted a Wall Street Journal op-ed that outlines just how much federal land the government would need to assume to complete the president's proposed construction. The hypothetical wall would span 2,000 miles, the majority of which is private property. For the government to obtain the land, it would need to invoke the eminent domain rule under the Fifth Amendment, which allows the government to simply offer owners money for the right to scoop up their land for public use.
Because eminent domain guarantees just compensation — an initial offer by the government equal to market value — the price tag for the border wall could be way, way higher than the initial estimate of roughly $15 billion. As noted throughout Trump's campaign, the wall is a top priority for his administration.
This isn't the first high-profile tweet to hit the Trump administration in its first 100 days over social media. Hillary Clinton, Trump's Democratic rival, attempted to gloat over the unanimous decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to block Trump's immigration order — only to be burned by White House counselor Kellyanne Conway. Sarah WeldonHillary Clinton's campaign, pushed by more than $1 billion in funding from big-money donors, has embraced super PACs, unlike Barack Obama, and forged ahead despite concerns of "hypocrisy" and the Democratic presidential nominee being "too cozy with wealthy interests," as the Washington Post reported Sunday.
The Post reported more than one fifth of the $1 billion "was given by just 100 wealthy individuals and labor unions — many with a long history of contributing to the Clintons."
"The top five donors together contributed one out of every $17 for her 2016 run: hedge fund manager S. Donald Sussman ($20.6 million); Chicago venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker and his wife, M.K. ($16.7 million); Univision chairman Haim Saban and his wife, Cheryl ($11.9 million); hedge fund titan George Soros ($9.9 million); and SlimFast founder S. Daniel Abraham ($9.7 million)," The Post's Matea Gold and Anu Narayanswamy wrote.
"I would prefer if the limits were much smaller, but that's the way it is," Abraham, 92, told the Post.
Despite the large funding, permitted by the Supreme Court's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision in 2010, Clinton is hailed as someone who can change the campaign finance problem... after benefitting from it.
"It's very odd to be giving millions when your objective is to actually get the money out of poli-tics," Sussman told the Post. "I am a very strong supporter of publicly financed campaigns, and I think the only way to accomplish that is to get someone like Secretary Clinton, who is committed to cleaning up the unfortunate disaster created by the activist court in Citizens United."
Dan Schwerin, director of speechwriting, acknowledges the "complaints of hypocrisy," per the report.
"Policy alone won't make the cognitive dissonance go away, in fact it might heighten it," he told the Post. "But having her make the unilateral disarmament argument directly and maybe even some straight talk that cuts to the core of people's concerns about her relationship with donors in general, might help."Compared to the pramāṇa of pratyakṣa (perception) or anumāna (inferential reasoning), arthāpatti (postulation or presumption) has received less attention in contemporary secondary literature. This is unfortunate, since it is broadly recognized as a pramāṇa, whether as a sui generis one, as by Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta, or as a type of anumāna, as by Nyāya. As well, it is an important pramāṇa for the interpretation of Vedic texts and its purported non-reducibility to anumāṇa raises interesting questions about the relationship between epistemology and logic. In this short post I want to raise the question of how we should think about arthāpatti by laying out the interpretive territory through secondary literature. Some earlier posts have taken on the major primary texts, so I will leave that aside here.
Basically, arthāpatti is the kind of reasoning that allows us to reason from
(1) “Fat Devadatta does not eat during the day.”
to
Fat Devadatta eats at night.
and
(2) Caitra is alive; I see that Caitra is not at home.
to
Caitra is living somewhere outside of his home.
The central idea is that there is some kind of tension which arises from a new fact being cognized, against the background of another fact, which cannot be resolved without the postulation of third fact. In example (1) above, the tension is between Devadatta being fat and his not eating during the day. In (2), it is between Caitra’s being alive and Caitra’s not being at home. The tension is not strict logical inconsistency, (p & ~p) but something else–just how to analyze this is something on which Indian thinkers differ.
Major Questions and Literature Overview
There are a few questions whose answers will carve up the conceptual territory.
Is there one arthāpatti or many? If there are many arthāpatti-s, what distinctions are there? Is arthāpatti (or arthāpatti-s) a pramāṇa? (If many, are all pramāṇa?) If it is a pramāṇa, is it sui generis or in virtue of reducing to another? If it is a pramāṇa, what is its “trigger”, doubt or conflict? Is arthāpatti deductive or non-deductive?
The most familiar distinction in arthāpatti is between śrūta- and dṛṣṭa-, distinguished based on whether the bits of knowledge that jump-start the process are testimonially-given or experientially given. However, one can also distinguish in śrūta-arthāpatti between abhihita and abhidhāna. The former is where what is anupapatti (unintelligible or inexplicable) is the facts expressed and the latter where it is the expression itself.
Kanaujia 1992 rejects the distinction between śrūta and dṛṣta, and instead proposes three major kinds of arthāpatti based on (1) linguistic unintelligibility, (2) factual unintelligibility, (3) unintelligibility of contradiction, subdividing (2) into (a) explanatory unintelligibility and (b) psychological unintelligibility, where there is only a partial clash between two facts. These types do not entirely map onto distinctions in the primary texts. Kanaujia’s aim is to demonstrate that arthāpatti is a heterogeneous concept in the original sources which must be more carefully analyzed. As a result of these distinctions, Kanaujia argues that only some of the sub-types are pramāṇa-s, and some are reducible to anumāṇa.
Bharadwaja 1988 and 1990 (Chapter 4) does not make such a distinction among kinds of arthāpatti but thinks that it is simply a matter of contextual interpretation–and thus not a pramāṇa at all. Chinchore and Chinchore 1984 argue that arthāpatti is a pramāṇa, and in fact a sui generis one (contra the Nyāya position). They, too, emphasize the linguistic nature of arthāpatti, claiming that it is essentially a “semantic gap” which needs to be filled in.
Yoshimizu 2007 says something similar, that arthāpatti is propositional derivation, a kind of reasoning in which one sentence is deduced from another sentence. He proposes a formalization of some of the most common stock examples of arthāpatti, those found in Kumāila, to make his point. Like Yoshimizu, Barlingay 1965 attempts some formalization of arthāpatti, arguing that postulation is a truth-functional deductive argument. He analyzes it in terms of semantic implication, modus ponens, and disjunctive syllogism. Rastogi 1983’s brief treatment (in an appendix to the text) also says something similar, though without the formalization, saying that arthāpatti is a semantic implication whose conclusion is necessary.
One of the most commonly cited and earliest works on arthāpatti is Datta 1932. He defends its independence as a pramāna but unlike Yoshimizu and Barlingay, he thinks that arthāpatti is equivalent to hypothesis and transcendental argument. To the objection that this would strip arthāpatti of its being a pramāṇa (since more than one hypothesis is possible in any given situation), he responds that, just like anumāna can be misapplied, so can arthāpatti. When arthāpatti arrives at the truth, it is a pramāṇa. This is along the lines of Taber’s 2009 review of Yoshimizu’s article, in which he says that arthāpatti is pointing in the direction of non-deductive inference such as inference to the best explanation (IBE). Maiti 1939 says something similar, that there is a difference of degree, but not of kind, between hypothetical reasoning and arthāpatti, due to the greater degree of certainty in the latter. More recently, Kasturirangan et al 2011 have taken up this question, arguing that arthāpatti is not IBE, since its conclusion necessarily follows from the premises, although they agree that it is also not reducible to anumāna.
Moving Forward – Methodological Question
Given this (very brief survey), I want to raise methodological some questions about how to move forward in understanding arthāpatti. Kanaujia says the following (see image):
What should our approach be to understanding arthāpatti in light of its various definitions and examples in the original literature? How should we employ various formal apparatuses in our analysis? Do you have a preferred analysis of arthāpatti that is not represented here?
Bibliography
Barlingay, A Modern Introduction to Indian Logic. New Delhi: National Publishing House, 1965 (reprint 1976). pp.19-21 and 245.
Bharadwaja, V. “The Concept of Arthapatti.” Indian Philosophical Quarterly 15 (2):113 (1988)
Bharadwaja, V. Form and Validity in Indian Logic. Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, in association with Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, New Delhi, 1990.
Chinchore, Managala and Chinchore, Mangala. “Arthāpatti.” Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol. 65, No. 1 (1984), pp. 101-113.
Datta, D.M. Six Ways of Knowing: A Critical Study of the Advaita Theory of Knowledge. Calcutta University Press, 2nd Ed. 1960. Book No V, Arthāpatti, p.237.
Kanaujia, Tulsi Ram. “Heterogeneity of Arthapatti.” In Gustav Roth & H. S. Prasad (eds.), Philosophy, Grammar, and Indology: Essays in Honour of Professor Gustav Roth. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1992. pp.165-184.
Kasturirangan, Rajesh, Guha, Nirmalya and Ram-Prasad, Chakravarthi. “Indian cognitivism and the phenomenology of conceptualization.” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. June 2011, Volume 10, Issue 2, pp 277-296.
Maiti, M.P. “Arthāpatti and Epistemological Possibilities of Doubt.” The Philosophical Quarterly. Jan 1939. Vol. XIV-IV. p.314-321.
Rastogi, Maharaj Narain. The theories of implication in Indian and Western philosophy : a critical study. Delhi : Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan, 1983.
Taber, John. Review of Karin Preisendanz, ed., Expanding and Merging Horizons: Contributions to South Asian and Cross-Cultural Studies in Commemoration of Wilhelm Halbfass, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens, 52-53, 311-315, 2009-10
Yoshimizu, Kiyotaka: “Kumārila’s Propositional derivation without Pervasion” Expansion and Merging Horizons: Halbfass Commemoration Volume, Wien 2007.Advertisement Lawmakers tackle 5 gun laws including use under age 14 Share Shares Copy Link Copy
House lawmakers debated a series of gun bills Tuesday including one that would allow supervised children to use handguns.The bill would allow children of any age to use handguns with adult supervision. Current law prevents anyone under the age of 14 from using handguns.Iowans for Gun Safety delivered a petition to House members Monday, urging them to vote against it. The group expects the Republican-controlled House to pass the bill, but not the Senate.For Natalie and Meredith Gibson, this is their sport. They have been shooting guns with their father since they were 5 years old.The girls said they like shooting a pistol with their dad. They said it's only dangerous if it's handled wrong.The girls and their dad have been lobbying the legislature to change the gun law for years."It's about handgun safety. My daughter started learning at a young age how dangerous it can be. They got exposed to them," said Nathan Gibson, the girls' father.Legislators who opposed the bill said allowing children of any age to handle a lethal weapon is absurd because their brains aren't developed to handle the responsibility.Jake Highfill proposed the bill, which now moves on to the Senate."We want to make sure we turn power back to parents, allow them to make the decision if their children are ready or not. If they don't want to shoot or teach them gun safety that's also their choice," said Highfill.The bill, House File 2281, passed the House on Tuesday 62-36. Lawmakers on the other side of the issue expressed concerns about safety."What this bill does, the bill before us, allows for 1-year-olds, 2-year-olds, 3-year-olds, 4-year-olds to operate handguns. We do not need a militia of toddlers. We do not have handguns that I am aware of that fit the hands of a 1- or 2-year-old," said said Democratic Rep. Kirstin Running-Marquardt.The bill is part of a series of bills being debated in the House on Tuesday related to gun laws. The House also approved HF 2283, which is a bill allowing Iowans to carry a firearm while operating or riding on a snowmobile or an all-terrain vehicle. House also approved House File 2314 streamlining the process for obtaining and renewing gun permits.BILLS BEING DEBATED:HF 2279: A bill for an act relating to possessing and transferring firearm suppressors, providing penalties, and including effective date provisions. (Formerly HF 2043) By Judiciary. (Eligible: 02/18/2016)HF 2280: A bill for an act relating to the regulation of firearms and ammunition in a state of public emergency and providing a remedy. (Formerly HF 2044) By Judiciary. (Eligible: 02/18/2016)HF 2281: A bill for an act relating to the possession of a pistol, revolver, or ammunition by persons under fourteen years of age, and including effective date provisions. (Formerly HF 2042) By Judiciary. (Eligible: 02/18/2016)HF 2283: A bill for an act relating to carrying a firearm while operating or riding on a snowmobile or an all-terrain vehicle. (Formerly HF 2066) By Natural Resources. (Eligible: 02/18/2016)HF 2314: A bill for an act relating to the issuance and verification of, and the transfer of records concerning permits to carry weapons and the confidentiality of such records including the confidentiality of records for such permits and for permits to acquire pistols or revolvers, prohibiting fraudulent transfers of firearms and ammunition, providing for a fee and a penalty, and including effective date and applicability provisions. (Formerly HF 2129) By Judiciary. (Eligible: 02/19/2016)Hurricane Maria has intensified and regained its Category 5 hurricane strength, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Tuesday.
Maria, which made landfall in Dominica as a Category 5 storm on Monday night, is about 205 miles (325 km) southeast of St. Croix with maximum sustained winds of 160 mph (260 km/h), it said.
The storm plowed through Dominica, an island nation of 72,000 people in the eastern Caribbean, late on Monday causing widespread devastation, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said in a Facebook post.
"I am honestly not preoccupied with physical damage at this time, because it is devastating... indeed, mind-boggling. My focus now is in rescuing the trapped and securing medical assistance for the injured," he said.
With maximum sustained winds of 155 miles per hour (250 km per hour), the storm slammed into the island as a Category 5 hurricane, the NHC said.
"The winds have swept away the roofs of almost every person I have spoken to or otherwise made contact with," Skerrit said. "The roof to my own official residence was among the first to go and this apparently triggered an avalanche of torn-away roofs in the city and the countryside."
While the intensity of the hurricane may fluctuate over the next day or two, Maria is expected to remain a Category 4 or 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale, the Miami-based NHC said.
The storm was on track to move over the northeastern Caribbean Sea and, by Tuesday night or early on Wednesday, approach the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, where millions are still reeling from Hurricane Irma earlier this month.
If Maria retains its strength, it would be the most powerful hurricane to hit Puerto Rico in 85 years, since a Category 4 storm swept the U.S. island territory in 1932, Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said. The last major hurricane to strike Puerto Rico directly was Georges, which made landfall there as a Category 3 storm in 1998, he said.
The governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rossello, urged island residents on Twitter to brace for the storm's arrival, saying, "It is time to seek refuge with a family member, friend or head to a state shelter."
Puerto Rico narrowly avoided a direct hit two weeks ago from Hurricane Irma, which reached a rare Category 5 status and ranked as the most powerful Atlantic storm on record before devastating several smaller islands, including the U.S. Virgin Islands of St. Thomas and St. John.Dolphinarium suicide bombing Part of the Second Intifada militancy campaign The abandoned ruins of the Dolphinarium in 2012. The attack site Show map of Tel Aviv The attack site Show map of Central Israel Location Tel Aviv, Israel Coordinates Date 1 June 2001
23:30 pm (GMT+3) Attack type Suicide bombing Deaths 21 victims (+1 bomber) Non-fatal injuries 100+ Perpetrators Islamic Jihad
Hamas Assailant Saeed Hotari
English inscription on the back of the Dolphinarium massacre memorial
The Dolphinarium discotheque massacre was a Hamas terror attack on 1 June 2001 in which a Hamas-affiliated Islamist terrorist blew himself up outside a nightclub on the beachfront in Tel Aviv, Israel, killing 21 Israelis, 16 of them teenagers.[1][2][3] The majority of the victims were Israeli teenage girls, whose families had recently immigrated from the former Soviet Union.
Attack
Suicide bomber Saeed Hotari was standing in line on a Friday night in front of the Dolphinarium, when the area was packed with teenagers. Most of the crowd were young people from Russian-speaking families from the former Soviet Union, who were waiting for admission to a dance party at the Dolphin disco, and others were in line to enter the adjacent nightclub.[4] Survivors of the attack later described how the young Palestinian bomber appeared to taunt his victims before the explosion, wandering among them dressed in a disguise that led his victims to mistake him for an Orthodox Jew from Asia. Before detonating his bomb, he banged a drum packed with explosives and ball-bearings, while taunting his victims in Hebrew with the words "Something's going to happen".[5] At 23:27, he detonated his explosive device.[6] Witnesses claimed that body parts lay all over the area, and that bodies were piled one above another on the sidewalk before being collected. Many civilians in the vicinity of the bombing rushed to assist emergency services.
The suicide bombing followed a failed attack attempt on the same target five months earlier.[7]
Fatalities
Dolphinarium Massacre memorial at the Tel Aviv Dolphinarium site with the names of the victims written in Russian
One Israeli soldier and 20 civilians, the majority teenage girls whose parents had made aliyah to Israel from the former Soviet Union, were murdered in the attack:[8]
Perpetrators
Both Islamic Jihad and a group calling itself "Hezbollah-Palestine" originally claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing, only to later retract the claims.[30] Later on it was revealed that the attack was carried out by Saeed Hotari, aged 22, a militant linked to the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas.[31]
Official reactions
Involved parties
Israel:
Israeli officials called the attack a "massacre".[32]
Palestinian Authority:
President of the Palestinian Authority Yasser Arafat condemned the attack and called for a cease-fire.[33]
Supranational
Kofi Annan stated that he "condemns this indiscriminate terrorist attack in the strongest possible terms." and that the attack "underlines the urgency of breaking the cycle of violence."[34]
International
Aftermath
Dolphinarium discotheque suicide bombing by Victor Brindatch oil on canvas painting size 100×130
After the attack many in the Israeli public demanded a harsh military retaliation; nevertheless, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to not take any immediate retaliatory actions. US and other governments applied heavy diplomatic pressure on Israel to refrain from action.[33] Nevertheless, the attack was later on noted as one of the reasons cited by the Israeli government for building the Israeli West Bank barrier.[37]
In Ramallah dozens of Palestinians celebrated in the streets and fired in the air as a sign of celebration.[4] The bomber, Saeed Hotari, was praised as a martyr by his father.[31] President George W. Bush demanded that Yasser Arafat condemn the terrorist act.[38] The next day, Israeli-Arabs barricaded themselves in the Hassan Bek Mosque opposite the Dolphinarium site and threw objects at the police.[39]
According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, an Israeli-based organization with close ties to the IDF, among the materials seized by the IDF in the course of Operation Defensive Shield were two documents issued by the Martyrs' Families and Injured Care Establishment, which is under the authority of the Palestinian National Authority's Ministry of Social Affairs. The documents detail the transfer of US$2,000 to the father of the suicide bomber, who was living in Jordan at that time (18 June 2001). According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, the transfer was made despite the suicide bomber's Hamas affiliation, despite the father's public support of the suicide bombing attack, and despite Arafat's public condemnation of the bombing.[40][41]
Dolphinarium site
Since the bombing, the Dolphinarium discotheque sat abandoned on the Tel Aviv beachfront, covered with graffiti until its demolition in May 2018.[42] For years, family members of the victims had unsuccessfully campaigned to permanently preserve the ruined building as a monument to the attack; however, the building was demolished in order to extend the promenade along the coast.[43] Memorial services to the victims of the attack were held every year at the site by friends and family of the victims.[44]
See alsoAs unemployment rises and oil and water reserves dwindle, thousands demand an end to president's 32-year reign
Yemenis take to the streets calling for President Saleh to step down
Thousands of people took to the streets of Sana'a today, calling for an end to the reign of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in some of the biggest anti-government rallies Yemen has seen for a decade.
Spurred on by events in Tunisia and Egypt, students and opposition activists assembled across the capital chanting for Saleh to quit after 32 years in power.
"It's over Saleh, your time is up!" shouted a crowd of students, rattling the gates of Sana'a University.
The protests were organised by Yemen's opposition coalition, which includes the Islamist party Islah, as well as the Socialist and Nasserite party. However, unlike protests last weekend in Sana'a when riot police used teargas and batons to disperse protesters, a relative calm and an almost carnival-like atmosphere prevailed.
Protesters are demanding improvements in living conditions as well as political reform. One banner read simply: "Look at the gap between the rich and poor."
Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, is struggling with rising unemployment and dwindling oil and water reserves. Almost half its 23 million people live on $2 or less a day, while one-third suffer from chronic hunger.
In one protest, a group of 3,000 men gathered outside the house of Abdullah al-Ahmar, the former leader of the Islamist party Islah. "We are here to say enough, enough, the president should go," Mohammed al-Sabri, a leading opposition figure, told the crowds.
Around 15,000 students and activists wearing pink ties on their heads formed a "human wall" at Sana'a University, which has become a hub for the protests.
"We choose pink to represent the Jasmine revolution and to show that we do not want violence," said Rudhwan Masude, head of the student union at Sana'a University. "We didn't give [the security] a chance to find fault in our demonstration or attack us like they did last time."
The rallies follow several days of smaller protests calling for Saleh to quit. Tensions boiled over on Sunday when plainclothes officers arrested Tawakul Karman, an activist who had helped organise the protest. She was freed on Monday with a pledge from her family that she would "no longer offend public order and law".
Nasser Araybee, a Yemeni journalist with al-Ahram weekly, said: "These were not spontaneous or popular protests like in Egypt, but rather mass-rallies organised by the opposition who are using events in Tunisia to test Saleh's regime. This is only the start of a fierce political battle in the run-up to Yemen's parliamentary elections in April."
Earlier this month, Yemen's parliament gave preliminary approval to a constitutional amendment ending limits to the president's term of office, a measure that would allow Saleh to stay in power past his mandate, which ends in 2013.
Saleh's ruling General People's Congress staged counter marches across the capital today, attended by hundreds of government supporters.
In a bid to defuse tensions Saleh has raised army and civil servant salaries, and denied claims he plans to install his son, Ahmed, as his successor. Saleh has also ordered income taxes to be halved, and has told ministers to control prices.
Additional reporting by Shatha al-HaraziJonathan Allen is what would happen if Seahawks defensive lineman Michael Bennett and Buccaneers three technique Gerald McCoy had a baby.
(Don't question the science, just go with it.)
Combine the best attributes of Bennett and McCoy on the field and that's what you see when you watch Allen on tape.
Bennett's so versatile, playing up and down that Seattle defensive line. And he’s amazingly precise with his hands, whether when he is playing the run or the pass.
Those are two of Allen's best qualities as well.
When I watch tape, I make special note of the plays involving the player I'm breaking down that jump off the screen, whether in a good or bad play. Of those kinds of plays that I took note of on Allen, over 46 of them came at right defensive end.
Another 50 came as a defensive tackle on either side of the center.
And 10 more came at left defensive end.
Those numbers also include several times where Allen was lined up as a zero nose, head up on the center, usually in passing situations.
As well as a few other times where Alabama actually had him standing up as the edge defender.
And at no time did he look like a fish out of water at any of those positions. However, I wouldn't quite say that at 6'3 and 286 pounds, Allen will ever end up playing as a stand-up edge rusher all that much on the next level.
Then again, after watching some of the things he did in these five games, maybe I shouldn't put it past him.
That's some scheme versatility for your ass!
After all the success that he has had in Seattle, I imagine most GMs, head coaches, defensive coordinators, and defensive line coaches are constantly on the lookout for the "next Michael Bennett" in the draft every year. Allen could certainly be that kind of a guy for any franchise. Hell, I'd draft him and then tailor the defense to what he does best.
He is that damn good!
He also plays with an edge, like Bennett, which also endeared him to me in a major way. Especially after doing Myles Garrett's breakdown prior to this one.
I will go into it more later, but when I said Garrett didn't look like past No. 1 overall picks, I really wasn't expecting that subject of my next breakdown would end up looking more worthy of that pick, but dammit, if that isn't exactly what happened!
I was just trying to go with the best DT available according to various mock drafts, after having done Garrett who was supposed to be the best edge rusher available. Turns out Allen ain't too shabby on the edge either.
And he was certainly as advertised inside.
#KanyeShrug
(I'm not even really sure if we are able to #KanyeShrug in 2017, but I'm doing it anyway!)
This is where McCoy comes in. At Alabama, Allen played in a 3-4, but he was also able to showcase some very explosive rush moves on tape on passing downs. I'm not just talking about straight-ahead bull rushing either, but the kind of explosion that McCoy routinely displays when he does his jab-ole lateral/upfield arm-over moves.
And wouldn't you know it, Allen's combine performance looks a lot like Gerald McCoy's.
Thing is with Allen playing all over the defensive line, he was also able to showcase his ability to win with all kinds of moves, both power and finesse, one-on-one against centers, guards, and tackles.
Many times the only thing that saved the opposing offense's ass was that their coordinators were smart enough to double team Allen.
Whether it was a Bennett type of power move or a finesse rush like McCoy.
And all the while I'm just sitting here pitying those poor college offensive linemen. Those guys have families for goodness sake!
I swear, I tweeted out the other day that I hadn't been this giddy to re-watch a prospect's tape since Aaron Donald, and I meant that shit. Not even Jadeveon Clowney, who did some things on film that were just incredible for a guy his size, had me as sold as Donald and Allen. That's primarily because both Donald and Allen, in addition to being athletic, are also amazing technicians.
No matter whether it was a run or pass, no matter where he was lined up, Allen was generally going to have good hand placement and get good extension with his arms with good footwork. You gotta understand that being able to be consistent with all that at one position is usually hard AF. To be able to do it consistently at multiple positions is ridiculous!
Allen might be in a 2i head up on a guard anchoring down and fighting through a double team to get a tackle for a couple of yards one minute.
The next minute, he might be lining up as the left edge rusher and beating a right tackle clean on a rollout.
He wasn't perfect. No prospect ever is.
But on the overwhelming majority of plays I watched, Allen was whupping somebody's ass. That's the kind of player I want on my team, period.
Because he is so position diverse as well as scheme diverse, I can honestly say all 32 teams would benefit from drafting this kid. I will add that it would be a mistake for any of those 32 teams to pass on him if he is still on the board when they have a pick, if you get my drift.
And that brings me back to the Allen/Garrett comparison. I have to admit I might have been wrong about something in Garrett's breakdown.
Yeah, I can't believe it either.
I assumed that there wouldn't be a player in this class who was so much better than Garrett that the fans of the team that did draft Garrett would end up coveting the other guy.
After watching Allen's tape our lie detector determined that was a lie!
Allen was just so good in so many different spots, that I just feel like this guy is destined for greatness, the same way I thought Donald was destined for greatness. Allen doesn't have to worry about being labeled "too short" like they did with Donald. I don't know anybody who would say 6'3 is too short to play anywhere on the defensive line in this day and age. In some ways Allen should also benefit from what Donald has done so far in his career. A lot of teams are probably second guessing passing on him a couple years back.
*cough* Cleveland *cough*
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Maybe, just maybe, those teams will think twice about making the same mistake again.
Of course Allen isn't the same kinda athlete that Donald is. Allen's motor, on the other hand, consistently runs way higher than Donald's did on |
and a criticism of the strong position of Zoroastrian clergy, who, he believed, had oppressed the Persian population and caused much poverty. Despite the concepts of good conduct and Pacifism, the followers of Mazdak raided the palaces and harems of the rich, removing the valuables to which they believed they had equal rights.
8 Builders of the Adytum
Builders of the Adytum (or BOTA for short) is a religion created in California by Dr. Paul Foster Case. The religion teachs its adherants by correspondence but also has bases around the world where people meet and perform religious ceremonies. Most of the beliefs and teachings are based on esoteric psychology, occult tarot, Hermetic Qabalah, Astrology, and meditation techniques. BOTA is not a strictly Christian organization, nor is it Jewish. B.O.T.A believes that the Qabalah is the mystical root of both ancient Judaism and the original Christianity, but people of all faiths are accepted if they are mystically inclined. The clip above features BOTA member Sonia Choquette.
7 Asatru
Asatru is a revival of ancient Nordic religion based upon polythesitc faith and mythic tales. According to the religion, there are four key deities and several minor gods. Adherents usually live in communities called Kindreds. They ascribe to the “Nine Noble Virtues” as a model for their lives. While the original Norse would have participated in animal sacrifice, modern worshipers offer mead, a honey-wine, to the gods. Major holidays revolve around the changing seasons with Yule being the most important. It is celebrated in late December and continues for twelve days.
6 Eckankar
Eckankar was established by American John Paul Twitchell in 1965. It is a monotheistic faith, which worships the divine spirit “Eck.” Eckankar is similar to some Eastern religions in its belief that the soul is constantly reincarnated until it achieves spiritual liberation. The religion teaches that spiritual growth is only possible through special meditative exercises similar to yoga. Through these practices, the soul can escape the physical form and enter the Sugmad, or spiritual realm. Successful completion of one’s spiritual journey results in a reunification with Eck.
5 Jainism
Jainism was founded in India over 2500 years ago. It survives today with approximately four million believers, called J. This polytheistic faith preaches that many gods exist alongside humans in a complex hierarchy. The Jain gods are symbolic of common human ideas. Similar to Buddhism, the goal of “Jain Life” is to achieve spiritual perfection and free the soul from the cycle of rebirth. Those who succeed in this endeavor are called jinas. Jain worship centers on icons and numerous Jain temples in India contain images of the 24 tirthankaras, revered spiritual leaders. Offerings are frequently made to these images as part of Jain ritual. Meditation and monasticism are also key features of Jainism.
4 Aladura
Founded in the early 20th century, this religion is based around so-called “prophet healing” churches in Africa. It claims around one million adherents, mostly in Nigeria. Aladura is directly related to the Anglican movement of Christianity. It was founded as a response to missionary movements in Africa. The religion emphasizes divine healing and a strict moral code. Its practices mix Anglican traditions with African rituals. Many ritual objects are involved in the practice, and the faiths leaders are known as prophets who are entrusted with healing believers through rituals and prayer.
3 Cao Dai
This Vietnamese religion combines elements of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Catholicism. It was founded in 1926 and claims up to 6 million adherents. Believers worship a vast array of saints, which includes such notable figures as Julius Caesar and Pericles. The ecclectic nature of Cao Dai complements its idealistic mission to create a more tolerant world. Adherents see all humans as sharing a divine heritage. The practicies of this faith are somewhat occult and derived from Taoist traditions. Believers hold seances in addition to group prayer and elaborate ritual ceremonies.
2 Unification Church
Established in South Korea in 1954, the Unification Church ascribes to a unique interpretation of Christianity. Its 3 million believers praise the faith’s founder Sun Myung Moon, the religion’s founder, as the Messiah and ascribe to a doctrine known as the “Divine Principle”. This doctrine emphasizes duality in nature and the harmonious union of masculine and feminine. Subsequently, the aim of the Unification Church is to create “true families,” which is often achieved through mass weddings. These unions are also a means of fulfilling the faith’s version of God’s purpose, which is to experience joy and love through life. True joy and love can only be achieved by creating a perfect, sinless family. Only in this way does the Unification Church believe the Kingdom of God can be created. While there is no description of an afterlife, the faith preaches that the spirit will live for all eternity.
1 Falun Gong
Falun Gong is a recent religious movement with roughly three million practitioners. It was founded in China in 1992 by Li Hongzhi. It combines elements of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism with traditional Chinese folklore. Falun Gong aims to obtain mental and spiritual renewal through meditation. Adherents practice special exercises to awaken their center of spiritual energy and rid themselves of physical and spiritual ailments. The faith has received extensive criticism from the Chinese government, which initially saw the new cult as a threat. Outsiders also tend to ridicule Falun Gong’s contention that antagonistic space aliens are manipulating world leaders.
Contributor: Finding DreamsCouncilman Gil “Anything But A Bike Lane” Cedillo has attempted to kill bike lanes on North Figueroa forever with a proposal to install diagonal head-in parking on a four block stretch of Figueroa.
The money to pay for this scheme would come from Metro. The full city council is voting on a package of project applications to Metro on Tuesday.
If you can make it to City Hall on Tuesday, December 16, 2014 at 10 a.m. and speak in opposition to Item 22 (CF 14-1680) you’d do our entire city a favor.
There is a Facebook Event for this STORMING OF THE BASTILLE.
If you can’t make the meeting, send an email! The LACBC prepared an email message you can use by clicking here.
The LA County Bicycle Coalition published a call to action:
With 24-hours notice, buried in an attachment to an arcane council file, Councilmember Gil Cedillo revealed his intentions for the controversial North Figueroa “Great Streets” project on Tuesday. During years of community input into the Bicycle Plan and Mobility Plan, community meeting upon community meeting, rides and marches, safe streets advocates have rallied under a vision of a “Figueroa for All” that would create a safer street for pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users and drivers. In other words, a complete street. Squashing this community vision for an inclusive and equitable street, Cedillo’s vision swaps bike lanes for diagonal car parking–a clear violation of the City’s Bicycle and Mobility Plans as well as Metro’s new Complete Streets Policy. (Metro is the agency that Cedillo is applying to for funding.) It appears that the lofty rhetoric that accompanied North Figueroa’s selection as a “Great Street” has come crashing down amidst Cedillo’s lack of vision. While Councilmembers are treated with extreme deference on matters in their district, Cedillo is now asking the full City Council to sign off on his incomplete street and spend City staff resources applying for funding for a project that will be out of date before the ink is dry on the application. We ask you to write the City Council requesting that they uphold the integrity of citywide plans and refuse to include North Figueroa in the City’s funding application unless it includes a complete street. If you are able, please join us at City Council on Tuesday, December 16, at 10 a.m. to speak on this item (Council File # 14-1680). Email alek@la-bike.org to let us know you’re coming.
Earlier in this saga: Cedillo held a round of hastily planned community meetings to improve his Metro Call For Projects score.
You can see the results of his meeting on December 3, 2014:When Field & Stream magazine asked Vice President Joe Biden about the pluses and minuses of using a shotgun for self-defense vs. an AR-15, Biden said one of the pluses is that you can “just fire the shotgun through the door” to keep people away from your house.
Biden did not bother mentioning that shooting through an exterior door at someone outside your house would be illegal in many, if not all, states.
The law in most states–even those with Castle Doctrine laws in place–makes it clear that you are only allowed to use lethal force when you life is in demonstrable danger. The door Biden advised people to shoot through is protection against endangerment; shooting someone through an exterior door could result in manslaughter charges at the least. If the would-be criminals breach the door, it’s a completely different story.
This is the latest example of questionable gun advice Biden has given in recent weeks.
It was just two weeks ago that Biden said he tells his wife to grab a shotgun and fire two shots off their balcony to scare possible intruders.
Firing a gun into the air within city limits is illegal in many, if not all, states as well.The Detroit Pistons' move to downtown Detroit includes a commitment to build about 60 basketball courts throughout the city.
Team owner Tom Gores, Ilitch Holdings Inc. President and CEO Christopher Ilitch and Mayor Mike Duggan will announce today during a Tuesday afternoon news conference that it is moving to the under-construction Little Caesars Arena.
Other components of the Pistons moving to the city from Auburn Hills include what was described as tens of thousands of tickets for students to attend games each year, plus a workforce development component.
The Detroit Downtown Development Authority called a special meeting for 2:30 p.m. Tuesday at the same location. That meeting is to consider a resolution to enter into memorandums of understanding related to what's referred to as the "catalyst development project," which is official lingo for the Little Caesars Arena. The MOU's were approved unanimously.
The plan has been to move the Pistons from The Palace of Auburn Hills to Little Caesars Arena, which is scheduled to be complete in time for the 2017-18 hockey and basketball seasons.Tony Romo #9 of the Dallas Cowboys walks back on the field during play against the San Francisco 49ers in the fourth quarter at AT&T Stadium on September 7, 2014 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images) Tony Romo #9 of the Dallas Cowboys walks back on the field during play against the San Francisco 49ers in the fourth quarter at AT&T Stadium on September 7, 2014 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
AT&T Stadium was sold out for the Cowboys home opener on Sunday against the 49ers. But the debate rages on as to how many fans were wearing red.
Former Cowboys safety Gerald Sensabaugh was very critical of the Cowboys “home” crowd on Sunday. Sensabaugh joined Shan & RJ on 105.3 The Fan and revealed that the 49ers fan invasion was no fluke.
the thing about you #CowboysNation fans is that you guys have to make home field an advantage…. theres to many 49ers fans at the game —
Gerald Sensabaugh (@Gsensabaugh43) September 07, 2014
“It’s by far no where near a home-field advantage playing there when they bring so many fans,” said Sensabaugh, recalling similar situations when Chicago and Pittsburgh came to town.EXCLUSIVE: The indie feature comedy Ghost Team is set to start production in New York this week, with Jon Heder starring alongside David Krumholtz (Numbers), Melonie Diaz (Fruitvale Station), Broad City‘s Paul W. Downs, Justin Long, Tom Schiller and Amy Sedaris. The film is about a team of ghost hunters who get more than they bargained for when they embark on their own paranormal investigation.
Oliver Irving (How To Be) is directing a film that will cover Manhattan, Long Island and Brooklyn. Peter Warren wrote the script and Tandem Pictures’ Julie Christeas and Schuyler Weiss are producing with Mott Street Pictures’ Alex Sagalchik and Irving. Preferred Content’s Kevin Iwashinia is exec producing and he’ll be the U.S. sales agent for the film.
While nowhere near the budget of Ghostbusters, which is wrapping its shoot in New York, the makers of Ghost Team say theirs will be the first feature to use the new Steadicam Tango, an innovation by cinematographer Garrett Brown on his Steadicam invention.North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory (R)
North Carolina Republicans won control of the state legislature for the first time in over a century in 2010, just in time for redistricting. Their gerrymanders gave them nine out of 13 congressional seats and veto-proof legislative margins in 2012 despite losing the popular vote for both bodies. Once Gov. Pat McCrory took office in 2013, they set about passing voter ID and ending same-day registration. Soon they will modify state Supreme Court elections solely to avoid losing control of the body in 2016. Control of the state board of elections even allowed them to reorganize voter precincts to inconvenience college students and minorities.
But not content with their vise grip on the legislature, state Republicans have taken it upon themselves to rig the rules right down to the local level. In 2014 they lost control of the county commission of Wake County, home of Raleigh. In response, Republicans ended at-large elections, gerrymandered the map to give themselves a one-seat majority, and moved the elections solely to midterms starting in 2018 for an extra edge in turnout. Similarly, the legislature had already gerrymandered the county's school board and county commissions in other large Democratic counties such as Buncombe (Asheville) and Mecklenburg (Charlotte).
Now, they are moving on to the city council in Greensboro, the state's third-largest city and one that is majority non-white. Democrats currently have an eight to one majority on the nonpartisan nine-member council, which is unsurprising in a city Obama carried two to one. But after elections are held this November, Republicans could have as many as four of the seats and if they win the mayor's office, they would have a majority. This comes after the legislature previously gerrymandered the Guilford County commission and school board, meaning the nearly 300,000 residents of Greensboro will have literally all of their local government districts gerrymandered by the state government.
What do almost all of these local institutions have in common? Democrats can and likely will win the popular vote every single year yet might not win control despite that. As more major counties and cities trend Democratic, expect to see Republicans meddling more in local affairs and making a mockery of the concept of self government. Just imagine if congressional Republicans had the ability to gerrymander the state legislatures of California, New York, and Illinois as they have done with the three largest and Democratic-leaning county governments in North Carolina.
Despite the state's long-term Democratic trend, Republicans wield more power now than at any point since the 19th century. With the governor unable to veto redistricting, Republicans all but have a lock on the legislature for the foreseeable future. It is truly frightening that in North Carolina we are witnessing a major political party fighting a war on democracy and winning.When the Wind Blows is a hybrid of traditional and stop-motion animation. The characters of Jim and Hilda Bloggs are hand-drawn, but their home and most of the objects in it are real objects that seldom move but are animated with stop motion when they do.
The film was Briggs' second collaboration with TVC, after their efforts with a special based on another work of his, The Snowman, in 1982. It was distributed by Recorded Releasing in the UK, and by Kings Road Entertainment in the United States. A subsequent graphic novel by Briggs, Ethel and Ernest (1998), makes it clear that Briggs based the protagonist couple in When the Wind Blows on his own parents.
James and Hilda Bloggs are an elderly couple living in a tidy isolated cottage in rural Sussex in southeast England. James frequently travels to the local town to read the newspapers and keep abreast of the deteriorating international situation regarding the Soviet–Afghan War; while frequently misunderstanding some specifics of the conflict, he is fully aware of the growing risk of an all-out nuclear war with the Soviet Union. James is horrified at a radio news report stating that a war may be only three days away, and sets about preparing for the worst as instructed by his government-issued Protect and Survive pamphlets. As Hilda continues her daily routine, and their son Ron, who is implied to have fallen into fatalistic despair, dismisses such preparations as pointless (referencing the song "We'll All Go Together When We Go" by Tom Lehrer), James builds a lean-to shelter out of several doors inside their home (which he consistently calls the "inner core or refuge" per the pamphlets) and prepares a stock of supplies. He also follows through seemingly strange instructions such as painting his windows with white paint and readying sacks to lie down in when a nuclear strike hits. Despite James' concerns, he and Hilda are confident they can survive the war, as they did World War II in their childhoods, and that a Soviet defeat will ensue.
Hearing a warning on the radio of an imminent ICBM strike, James rushes himself and Hilda into their shelter, just escaping injury as distant shock waves rack their home. They remain in the shelter for a couple of nights, and when they emerge, they find all their utilities, services and communications have been destroyed by the nuclear blast. Over the following days, they gradually grow sick from exposure to the radioactive fallout, resulting in radiation poisoning. Ron and his wife Beryl are not heard from again, though their deaths are heavily implied.
In spite of all this, James and Hilda stoically attempt to carry on, preparing tea and dinners on a camping stove, noting numerous errands they will have to run once the crisis passes, and trying to renew their evaporated water stock with (contaminated) rainwater. James keeps faith that a rescue operation will be launched to help civilians. Apparently oblivious to the dead animals, destroyed buildings and scorched, dead vegetation outside their cottage (apart from their own garden), they initially remain optimistic. However, as they take in the debris of their home, prolonged absence of other human company, lack of food and water, growing radiation sickness, and confusion about the events that have taken place, the couple begins to fall into a state of despair.
After a few days, the Bloggs are practically bedridden, and Hilda is despondent when her hair begins to fall out, after vomiting, developing painful sores and lesions and experiencing bleeding gums. Either in denial, unaware of the extent of the nuclear holocaust, unable to comprehend it, or trying to comfort Hilda, James is still confident that emergency services will eventually arrive, but they never do, as they were also presumably destroyed in the attack. The film ends with the dying James and Hilda getting into paper sacks, crawling back into the shelter, and praying. James begins with the Lord's Prayer, but then switches to the first lines of "The Charge of the Light Brigade", whose militaristic and ironic undertones distress the dying Hilda, who weakly asks him not to continue. Finally, James's voice mumbles away into silence.
Outside the shelter, the smoke and ash-filled sky begins to clear, revealing the sun rising through the gloom. At once, the skies clear fully as the fallout fades away, revealing a beautiful blue sky with clean white clouds drifting by. At the very end of the credits, a Morse code signal taps out "MAD", which stands for mutual assured destruction.The environmental has found it’s latest target, and it’s in your bathroom:
ELMWOOD PARK, N.J. — There is a battle for America’s behinds.
It is a fight over toilet paper: the kind that is blanket-fluffy and getting fluffier so fast that manufacturers are running out of synonyms for “soft” (Quilted Northern Ultra Plush is the first big brand to go three-ply and three-adjective).
It’s a menace, environmental groups say — and a dark-comedy example of American excess.
The reason, they say, is that plush U.S. toilet paper is usually made by chopping down and grinding up trees that were decades or even a century old. They want Americans, like Europeans, to wipe with tissue made from recycled paper goods.
It has been slow going. Big toilet-paper makers say that they’ve taken steps to become more Earth-friendly but that their customers still want the soft stuff, so they’re still selling it.
This summer, two of the best-known combatants in this fight signed a surprising truce, with a big tissue maker promising to do better. But the larger battle goes on — the ultimate test of how green Americans will be when nobody’s watching.
“At what price softness?” said Tim Spring, chief executive of Marcal Manufacturing, a New Jersey paper maker that is trying to persuade customers to try 100 percent recycled paper. “Should I contribute to clear-cutting and deforestation because the big [marketing] machine has told me that softness is important?”
He added: “You’re not giving up the world here.”
Toilet paper is far from being the biggest threat to the world’s forests: together with facial tissue, it accounts for 5 percent of the U.S. forest-products industry, according to industry figures. Paper and cardboard packaging makes up 26 percent of the industry, although more than half is made from recycled products. Newspapers account for 3 percent.
But environmentalists say 5 percent is still too much.Do you get your medical advice from "America's doctor," Dr. Oz? Well, you should probably stop doing that. Because a new study out from the British Medical Journal says that his advice is baseless or wrong about half the time.
Researchers randomly selected 40 episodes of his show and examined 160 recommendations. Their measure for whether something was truthful hinged on an ability to find at least one case study that supported what he said. Researchers were only able to do that 54 percent of the time.
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Dr. Oz first made a name for himself on Oprah Winfrey's show back in 2004 and from there became a household name, launching his own show in 2009. But the doctor has come under fire in the past year for using his show to peddle unproven cures and unscientific ideas. He even had to testify in front of a Senate subcommittee this past June where he was grilled for being full of shit.
At the time, Dr. Oz presented a spirited defense of his snake oil peddling. But ultimately he conceded that some of what he says on his show wasn't scientific.
"I actually do personally believe in the items I talk about in the show," Dr. Oz testified in June. "I passionately study them. I recognize oftentimes they don't have the scientific muster to present as fact, but nevertheless, I would give my audience the advice I give my family." [Emphasis added, obviously.]
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During the Senate subcommittee hearing in June, Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri read Dr. Oz some of the things he'd said on TV. The guy sure loves the words "magic" and "miracle."
"'You may think magic is make believe but this little bean has scientists saying they've found the magic weight loss cure for every body type—it's green coffee extract." "'I've got the No. 1 miracle in a bottle to burn your fat. It's raspberry ketones." "'Garcinia Camboja. It may be the simple solution you've been looking for to bust your body fat for good."
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Yeesh. Yeah, you should probably stop listening to Dr. Oz. At least if you prefer that your medical advice come from someone who knows what the hell he's talking about. [Washington Post]
Image: Dr. Oz testifies on Capitol Hill June 17, 2014 before the Senate subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance via the Associated Press
Factually is Gizmodo's new blog of fun facts, interesting photos, and weird trivia. Join us on Twitter and Facebook.A bipedal robot can now put its best foot forward, stepping with a heel-toe motion that copies human locomotion more closely than flat-footed robot walkers can.
By rocking its "feet" forward from the heel and pushing off at the toe, the DURUS robot closely imitates the walking motion of people, making it more energy-efficient and better at navigating uneven terrain, according to Christian Hubicki, a postdoctoral fellow in robotics at the Georgia Institute of Technology and one of the researchers who helped DURUS find its footing.
Enhanced walking capabilities could help robots navigate environments that people move around in, and could improve the performance of bots created for disaster response, Hubicki told Live Science. [Robots on the Run! 5 Bots That Can Really Move]
The humanoid robot DURUS was designed collaboratively by the research nonprofit SRI International and Georgia Tech's Advanced Mechanical Bipedal Experimental Robotics (AMBER) Lab. An earlier DURUS design was modified to accommodate the new manner of walking, enabled by a novel mathematical algorithm that adjusts the robot's momentum and balance, one step at a time.
Well-heeled
Robots that walk on two legs typically have "feet" that are large and flat, to provide a more stable platform, Hubicki told Live Science.
"Bigger feet mean a bigger polygon of support, and the harder it is to fall," Hubicki said.
The algorithms that dictate a robot's forward momentum typically keep those big feet flat on the ground when pushing off, to minimize the risk that the bot will tip over.
"As soon as you lean on an edge, you're like a pendulum—on a pivot point that can fall forward or backward," Hubicki said.
But while a flat-footed walker might perform well on a treadmill, uneven terrain in the real world that doesn't accommodate a flat foot could confound the algorithm and stop a robot in its tracks.
Enter the AMBER Lab researchers, who designed a new algorithm that works to keep a robot upright and moving forward even if only parts of the foot are engaged. Hubicki and his colleagues tested DURUS using a modified foot with an arch; every step began with the heel making contact—the "heel strike," according to Hubicki—and then rolling to the ball of the foot to push off from the ground. Springs installed by the robot's ankles act like tendons, storing the heel strike's energy to be released later, as lift.
On July 12, AMBER Lab posted a video of a confidently striding DURUS on YouTube. DURUS' new feet are about the same size as human feet—about half as long as the feet on the original model. And to emphasize the similarity, the team laced them into a pair of sneakers.
"We wanted to show that our algorithms could make it walk with human-size feet," Hubicki said. "What better way to do that than [by] putting shoes on it?"
The algorithm may even have applications beyond robotics, Hubicki added, suggesting that it could be used to improve the design of prosthetics and exoskeletons to help people who use assistance to get around.
Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Story highlights The blacktip shark bit the 14-year-old boy at a Volusia County, Florida, beach, officials say
The boy had been surfing with friends, and he paddled back to shore after punching the shark
He had some "pretty significant lacerations" on his left hand and was taken to a hospital
(CNN) A blacktip shark bit a teenager at a Volusia County, Florida, beach Sunday, local officials told CNN.
The 14-year-old boy was surfing with four friends at New Smyrna Beach and paddling out when he encountered the 4- or 5-foot-long blacktip shark, a species common in the area, Volusia County Beach Safety spokesman Capt. Aaron Jenkins said.
The shark bit the teen "on the left hand and he punched it away and it only bit him one time," Jenkins said. "And then he turned around and paddled to shore and he flagged down one of the beach safety officers and they treated him on scene."
Jenkins said the boy had some "pretty significant lacerations" and was taken to Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach.
"He was transported just in case. We don't know this for certain, but with the nature of the serious lacerations, he may be looking at ligament damage," Jenkins added.One question is often asked by the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty community regarding our new leagues and ladder system: "Who are the best players on the ladder?" We have plans to one day have the best players, based on their current rankings, compete against each other. In the meantime, we can pull some internal numbers, do a little math, and come up with a list of the best players in each region. Here are the top 200 players in North America. We'll update this list approximately every week until it's time to have them compete.
Here are the top 200 players in North America.
Congratulations to these players. Your skill is an inspiration to the entire StarCraft II community.
Rank Character Name Wins Losses 1 SeleCT 467 183 2 AlLaboUtyOu 599 430 3 HuK 387 135 4 SLoG 256 160 5 Katari 765 455 6 CellaWerra 246 127 7 qxc 281 110 8 Axslav 482 332 9 Hincram 285 147 10 Levin 450 310 11 HasHe 787 582 12 Yakero 135 39 13 Mark 378 273 14 Fenix 273 123 15 dde 219 155 16 StrifeCro 409 276 17 MasterAsia 297 194 18 SLush 512 309 19 linko 439 319 20 Cranklodocus 434 329 21 ViBE 292 200 22 PainUser 222 97 23 DeAtHRoW 306 179 24 Gretorp 221 145 25 Taurent 317 185 26 Perplexity 396 307 27 OpTiKzErO 312 220 28 Zelniq 823 621 29 iNcontroL 453 318 30 theognis 285 207 31 DdoRo 629 486 32 Cheese 340 213 33 Kyhol 382 297 34 LuckyFool 320 235 35 OnEMoReTrY 246 171 36 Neans 480 350 37 AlexCMoi 321 211 38 KiWiKaKi 218 89 39 LiquidTyler 178 98 40 MurDeR 254 134 41 Silver 348 195 42 drewbie 228 108 43 CrunCher 222 160 44 Stalife 380 243 45 SwIsS 259 192 46 ostojiy 289 206 47 Antimage 280 195 48 Mcleod 1082 920 49 Masq 184 111 50 BrokenRhythm 436 348 51 aloOla 105 33 52 Nadagast 219 138 53 BldSwtTrs 582 469 54 sikatrix 340 244 54 Trump 386 302 56 Malice 541 391 57 Spades 551 431 58 CocoA 471 349 59 CatZ 620 486 60 Machine 187 124 61 rsvp 347 290 62 PiQLiQ 396 321 63 lamp 220 144 64 dayvie 419 315 65 Monkey 588 475 66 Devaztayta 667 562 67 NGry 183 121 68 MattDamon 510 431 69 iCCfoReVeR 597 505 70 azzlol 342 275 71 avilo 379 296 71 MoMaN 163 99 71 LzGaMeR 383 281 74 hotsauce 457 371 75 ThisIsJimmy 472 365 76 GoSu 373 287 77 DuFFmAn 445 363 78 Fayth 249 177 79 Dhalism 508 418 80 BoO 412 329 81 RuFF 699 585 82 Ryze 690 600 82 Agh 512 406 84 Capoch 316 222 85 KiLLeR 147 105 86 ReSpOnSe 569 487 86 EnvY 473 387 88 Rigid 444 351 89 Attero 150 94 90 hyungbean 193 131 90 SoFtBalL 90 42 92 Lombrastic 321 262 93 NeverDawn 143 102 93 Syndicate 338 281 95 owmygroin 786 701 96 prosu 312 253 97 StyGGeN 154 109 97 Time 748 646 97 Arcology 317 252 100 Bubba 295 216 100 Lost 323 264 102 Bamboocha 189 125 103 Obituary 148 92 104 Gerbil 242 188 105 Copperhead 422 327 105 OyEdith 494 433 107 Skillet 153 94 108 Sheth 209 116 109 cVen 286 226 110 Qwerty 248 195 110 SUGGY 235 136 110 KawaiiRice 179 83 110 bLuR 428 365 114 AhhBoxxah 117 55 114 TwoJZGTE 246 188 116 Deph 253 192 117 TTOne 474 291 118 Nostra 690 608 118 Warden 557 470 120 Mantra 336 281 121 Fuzzyweebit 334 267 122 FireZerg 376 299 123 Humble 181 132 124 zCore 532 478 125 scvrusher 112 51 126 oGmanaburn 108 58 127 HybridFrog 236 172 127 Destiny 519 460 129 Broom 156 105 130 iNkA 282 179 130 iaguz 80 47 132 SeriousGamer 85 43 133 Hocari 221 169 134 greatman 150 104 135 Kurtz 566 451 136 GplaysNet 76 46 137 stimaholic 318 252 138 Perfect 449 378 138 stev 291 247 140 Minigun 722 627 141 Despiron 327 265 142 Blendio 507 323 142 EternuS 210 164 144 IefNaij 394 254 144 sLeepisT 325 266 146 REBUKED 684 525 147 IdrA 146 40 147 RedAlert 259 200 149 petzergling 224 178 150 LimeNade 636 564 150 Drew 269 209 152 Titan 153 98 153 UREZ 346 288 154 Etherone 321 262 155 Kookiez 254 192 156 tehredbandit 256 208 157 magnolia 406 364 157 Clonze 159 108 159 OGBizzle 169 81 160 BigMac 145 107 160 BigBadBeaver 612 538 162 Jobless 357 294 163 Darrenc 322 250 163 lizzuma 493 428 165 HelenKiller 266 208 166 Cloud 364 306 167 jungik 187 148 167 Dog 191 141 167 oDieN 146 90 170 Kangwook 352 291 170 NadaViKinG 143 107 172 Aoratha 327 269 173 Mug 231 200 174 AvOiD 133 86 174 Xog 498 438 176 FrOsTy 143 106 177 Fenneth 225 183 178 arf 412 331 178 Namkung 233 183 180 AlwaysYou 116 72 180 TOP 486 435 180 Sanis 253 202 183 Thugnificent 832 741 184 Looky 660 584 185 iDoMiNaTe 273 217 186 Brink 250 205 186 ViRaLRuSh 519 460 186 Kvz 301 249 189 junny 205 161 190 DoNtGiVeUp 863 786 191 Mankeyz 158 114 192 eyeQ 178 130 192 Zerker 469 406 192 pigtheman 242 191 195 LeeHyoRi 196 146 195 Gatored 214 160 197 Kandy 138 94 197 Just 682 610 199 KeNzkis 248 197 199 Amandil 558 505
(Ranking as of 11:00 AM PDT, 10/18/2010)
The top 200 1v1 players are determined across divisions by comparing their relative rankings and skill, while meeting certain requirements, such as ensuring that they're active.SANTA ANA, Calif. -- The family of a California woman missing for more than two months is offering a $5,000 reward for information that leads to her whereabouts, according to police.
Erica Alonso, 27, vanished after going on a Valentine's Day date at the a Costa Mesa lounge, family tells 48 Hours' Crimesider.
Alonso and her on-again, off |
randomly to various topics, with the intent of later editing it down to the parts that just make the points you want, is the video version of quote-mining and is fundamentally dishonest".[62] Dawkins said, "At no time was I given the slightest clue that these people were a creationist front", and Scott said, "I just expect people to be honest with me, and they weren't."[5]
Mathis called Myers, Dawkins and Scott a "bunch of hypocrites", and said that he "went over all of the questions with these folks before the interviews and I e-mailed the questions to many of them days in advance".[67]
Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association wrote a letter to the editor of The New York Times, writing, "If one needs to believe in a god to be moral, why are we seeing yet another case of dishonesty by the devout? Why were leading scientists deceived as to the intentions of a religious group of filmmakers?"[68]
Charles Darwin quotation issue [ edit ]
In support of his claim that the theory of evolution inspired Nazism, Ben Stein attributes the following statement to Charles Darwin's 1871 book The Descent of Man:
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.[69]
The original source shows that Stein's selective reading of Darwin significantly changed the meaning of the paragraph by leaving out whole and partial sentences without indicating that he had done so. The original paragraph (words that Stein omitted shown in bold type) and the subsequent paragraph in the book state:
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with a certain and great present evil. Hence we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely the weaker and inferior members of society not marrying so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased, though this is more to be hoped for than expected, by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage.[24][70][71]
According to John Moore writing for the National Post:
Stein quotes from a passage in Darwin's writing that appears to endorse the notion that for a species to thrive the infirm must be culled. He omits the part where Darwin insists this would be "evil" and that man's care for the weak is "the noblest part of our nature". When I asked Stein about this on my radio show he deadpanned, "If any Darwin fans are listening and we have misquoted him, we are sorry; we don't mean to diss Darwin."[72]
The National Center for Science Education's Expelled Exposed: Why Expelled Flunks website also points out that the same misleading selective quotation from this passage was used by anti-evolutionist William Jennings Bryan in the 1925 Scopes Trial, but the full passage makes it clear that Darwin was not advocating eugenics. The eugenics movement relied on simplistic and faulty assumptions about heredity, and by the 1920s evolutionary biologists were criticizing eugenics. Clarence Darrow, who defended the teaching of human evolution in the Scopes Trial, wrote a scathing repudiation of eugenics.[73]
In a supplement to a review of Expelled, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County curator Kirk J. Fitzhugh cites Darwin's two paragraphs in their entirety, and says that in the context shown by the second paragraph "What we find is that Darwin's position is diametrically opposed to what Stein intimated."[74]
Pre-release screenings [ edit ]
As part of the pre-release marketing for the film, a web-based RSVP system page was publicized, offering free private film screenings.[75] Persons filling out an online entry form were sent a reservation confirmation via email which stated that no ticket was needed and that IDs would be checked against a list of names.[76][77] The producers also held invitation-only screenings for religious organizations and government officials, including screenings for legislators to promote anti-evolution Academic Freedom bills.[78]
Conservative Christian groups [ edit ]
In advance of release, the film was shown at private screenings to various Christian conservative leaders, including American evangelical Christian author and psychologist James Dobson.[79] On March 11, 2008, a preview screening was held in Nashville, Tennessee, for attendees at the annual convention of the National Religious Broadcasters. The young Earth creationist organization Answers in Genesis reported that its leader, Ken Ham, met Ben Stein beforehand to discuss promoting the film. It requested supporters to ask local movie theater managers to show the film, and to encourage their church leadership to buy out a local theater to show the film to as many people from that church as possible.[80]
Screenings in support of Academic Freedom bills [ edit ]
Expelled was given pre-release screenings for Florida and Missouri legislators in support of Academic Freedom bills in those states.[78] Such bills, often viewed as attacks on the teaching of evolution, have been introduced in state legislatures in the United States since 2004, based on the claims by the Discovery Institute that teachers, students, and college professors face intimidation and retaliation when discussing scientific criticisms of evolution, and therefore require protection.[81] The Florida screening, held in the IMAX theater of the Challenger Learning Center of Tallahassee, Florida, on March 12, 2008, was restricted to legislators, their spouses, and their legislative aides, with the press and public excluded. Under the Florida sunshine law they had to watch the film without discussing the issue or arranging any future votes.[82] Commenting on this, and the controversy over Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel viewing the film despite attempts by the promoters to withdraw the invitation they had given him,[83] House Democratic leader Dan Gelber of Miami Beach, Florida, stated, "It's kind of an irony: The public is expelled from a movie called Expelled."[84] The screening was attended by about 100 people, but few were legislators,[85] and the majority of legislators stayed away.[86][87]
Shortly before the film's general release, Walt Ruloff held a press conference at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., on April 15, and announced his plans to use the film as part of a campaign to pass Academic Freedom bills in a variety of American states.[88] At least one Discovery Institute press conference on the bills has included a screening of Expelled.[59] The issue was revived in 2009 when Florida Senator Stephen R. Wise cited the film as one reason that he is sponsoring plans to introduce a bill requiring biology teachers to present the idea of intelligent design.[89]
PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins at Minnesota pre-release screening [ edit ]
Expelled interviewee PZ Myers was turned away from a pre-release screening of the film by a hired security guard as Myers, fellow interviewee Richard Dawkins, and members of Myers' family waited together in line to enter the theater. Myers said that he applied for tickets for himself and his guests on the website where the film's producers were offering free passes to the screening to the general public. Dawkins and Myers' family were allowed to attend, but Myers and Dawkins both concluded Dawkins would have been turned away as well if those promoting the film had recognized who he was.[90]
This rejection of one of the evolution supporters prominently featured in the film created a furor as critics and supporters volleyed conflicting accounts of the incident. Myers wrote, "I went to attend a screening of the creationist propaganda movie, Expelled, a few minutes ago. Well, I tried … but I was Expelled!"[91] Prior to this screening, Myers and Dawkins were both very public in their condemnations of the upcoming film, leading them to conclude this was the reason Myers was banned from the screening. Dawkins charged "P.Z. is in the film extensively. If anyone had a right to see the film, it was him."[92]
Walt Ruloff countered that they were using the screenings to stimulate favorable publicity for the film,[93] and Mark Mathis confirmed that he ordered Myers turned away.[91] He wrote, "In light of Myers' untruthful blogging about Expelled I decided it was better to have him wait until April 18 and pay to see the film. Others, notable others, were permitted to see the film. At a private screening it's my call." But he went on to say, "Unlike the Darwinist establishment, we expel no one."[91]
Critics of the film publicly ridiculed Myers' ejection as a public relations blunder. Eugenie Scott, who also appeared in the film, was quoted to say she and fellow supporters of evolution were enjoying "a horselaugh" over the episode.[93] Myers said, "I could not imagine a better result for this. They've shown themselves to be completely dishonest and that they're trying to hide the truth about their movie, which is to my advantage. And they've shown themselves to be such flaming idiots."[92] Dawkins described the event as "a gift" and said "we could not ask for anything better".[93]
Promotion [ edit ]
The promotion of Expelled was primarily managed by Motive Entertainment, an agency that promoted the 2004 blockbuster film The Passion of the Christ, with another three public relations firms also hired. The producers spent an estimated $8.5 million to market their film, with an additional $3.5 million spent on the production, resulting in a $12 million total budget.[94] The promoters targeted primarily religious audiences, providing sweepstakes and rewards to churches selling the most tickets, and offered sums of up to $10,000 to schools that sent their students to watch the film.[95] In advance of the film's release, producers Walt Ruloff, Mark Mathis, and Logan Craft provided interviews to various Christian media outlets promoting the film and emphasizing its potential to impact the evolution debate.[96] Motive Entertainment also sent a representative to meet with religious leaders and stress the film's intelligent design creationist message, inspiring many to actively promote the film within their own religious communities.[95] Some Christian media outlets promoted the film as well.[97]
Organizations affiliated with the Discovery Institute helped publicize the film.[98] It used its Evolution News & Views website and blog to publish over twenty articles tying its promotion of Expelled to its effort to pass the "Evolution Academic Freedom Act" (SB2692) in Florida.[99]
Stein appeared in the cable television programs The O'Reilly Factor and the Glenn Beck Program to talk about the film. In his interview with political commentator Bill O'Reilly, O'Reilly characterized intelligent design as the idea that "a deity created life", and Stein responded that "There's no doubt about it. We have lots and lots of evidence of it in the movie."[100] The Discovery Institute quickly issued a statement that when Bill O'Reilly conflated intelligent design with creationism he was mistakenly defining it as an attempt to find a divine designer, and lamented that "Ben referred to the 'gaps' in Darwin's theory, as if those are the only issues that intelligent design theory addresses."[101]
Stein and the producers hosted a telephone press conference facilitated by Motive Entertainment's representative Paul Lauer. Participating journalists were required to submit their questions in advance for screening and just two questions posed by members of the press were answered. One of the journalists participating, Dan Whipple of the Colorado Confidential, contrasted the carefully staged and stringently controlled press conference with Ruloff's statement that "What we're really asking for is freedom of speech, and allowing science, and students, people in applied or theoretical research to have the freedom to go where they need to go and ask the questions". He called it "hypocritical in its supposed defense of 'freedom of expression.'"[102]
Reception [ edit ]
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was not screened in advance for film critics,[103] and when the film was released, it received negative reviews. The film received an 11% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 46 reviews with an average rating of 3/10. The website's critical consensus reads "Full of patronizing, poorly structured arguments, Expelled is a cynical political stunt in the guise of a documentary".[104] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 20 out of 100, based on 13 reviews.[105]
The film's extensive use of Michael Moore-style devices was commented upon,[106] but the film was mainly characterized as boring, exaggerated, and unconvincing.[107] Others found it insulting and offensive to the religious.[108] The Globe and Mail's film review called it "an appallingly unscrupulous example of hack propaganda".[109] Vue Weekly called it an "anti-science propaganda masquerading as a Michael Moore-ish fool's journey, full of disingenuous ploys, cheap tricks, and outright mendacity".[110] While noting that the film is technically well made (with good photography and editing), Roger Ebert lambasted the content of the film:
This film is cheerfully ignorant, manipulative, slanted, cherry-picks quotations, draws unwarranted conclusions, makes outrageous juxtapositions (Soviet marching troops representing opponents of ID), pussy-foots around religion (not a single identified believer among the ID people), segues between quotes that are not about the same thing, tells bald-faced lies, and makes a completely baseless association between freedom of speech and freedom to teach religion in a university class that is not about religion.[111]
Multiple reviews, including those of USA Today and Scientific American, described the film as propaganda.[2][3][112] The Chicago Tribune's rating was "1 star (poor)",[113] while The New York Times described it as "a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry" and "an unprincipled propaganda piece that insults believers and nonbelievers alike".[2]Christianity Today gave the film a positive review, earning a rating of 3 out of 4 stars.[114]
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) issued a statement to say it was "especially disappointed to learn that the producers of an intelligent design propaganda movie called Expelled are inappropriately pitting science against religion".[115] It went on to say the organization "further decries the profound dishonesty and lack of civility demonstrated by this effort", and said the film "seeks to force religious viewpoints into science class--despite court decisions that have struck down efforts to bring creationism and intelligent design into schools".[116] They also described the film as dishonest and divisive propaganda, aimed at introducing religious ideas into public school science classrooms.[115] Paul Kurtz, founder and late chairman of the Center for Inquiry, called the film "anti-science propaganda" and an "exercise in anti-intellectualism at its worst”.[117]
Response to the film from conservative Christian groups was generally positive, praising the film for its humor and for focusing on what they perceive as a serious issue.[118] Tom Bethell, a senior editor of The American Spectator, said that the "only complaint about Expelled, scheduled for April release, is that its ending came all too soon".[119] Screen Rant gave Expelled 4.5 out of 5 stars, saying that "your opinion of the film will with almost complete certainty be predicted by your opinions on Darwinism vs Intelligent Design".[120]
The film has been used in private screenings to legislators as part of the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaign for so-called Academic Freedom bills.[78]
Stein received the Freedom of Expression Award for his work in Expelled from the Home Entertainment Awards at the Entertainment Merchants Association's Home Media Expo 2008 held at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada.[121][122]
Box office and home video sales [ edit ]
As of September 2018, Expelled has grossed over $7.7 million and was the 33rd highest-grossing documentary film in the United States since 1982, and was the 9th highest-grossing political documentary film since 1982.[10][123] Expelled opened in 1,052 movie theaters, earning $2,970,848 for its opening weekend with a $2,824 theater average.[124] Prior to the film's opening, producer Walt Ruloff said the film could top the $23.9-million opening for Michael Moore's 2004 polemic against President George W. Bush, Fahrenheit 9/11, the best launch for a documentary to date.[125] Expelled's returns were impressive for a film in the typically low grossing documentary genre, but it was far surpassed by both Moore's 2007 Sicko and Fahrenheit 9/11.[10]
Expelled's home video releases distributed by Vivendi Entertainment grossed over $5,990,000 in total sales as of January 2016.[126]
Bankruptcy and film rights [ edit ]
Premise Media Holdings, LP, the company that produced Expelled, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on December 29, 2009. On May 31, 2011, the company filed a motion, declaring its desire to sell all properties and rights related to the film at auction pursuant to the bankruptcy proceeding.[127] The rights to the film were sold at an online auction for $201,000 on June 28, 2011, to an unnamed bidder.[128]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
^ Puig calls the film a "controversial documentary", but characterizes it as "propaganda, a political rant disguised as a serious commentary". She notes, "A documentarian is not required to be objective, but Stein's point of view is blatant advertising."
Bibliography [ edit ]… The fight’s next chapter.
Chapter 242: Denial of Justice
Justice Bow?
It dispels brainwashing and lets others understand you…?
There’s no way that others would sympathize with you so easily.
And Itsuki, you aren’t even trying to come to an understanding with me right now.
You’re the one who’s doing the brainwashing.
What do you mean, Justice?
“Princess Malty told me that this bow was too much for me to handle. She told me to rest here until my power stabilized, but it seems that things won’t go as planned.” (Itsuki)
I see… I skimmed through the data on the way here.
There was an important piece of information among them.
And from it, I can come to a simple conclusion.
Itsuki is… their Hero Research sample. In order for him to act as a power source for those daggers, he’s been put to sleep here.
Most likely, Witch tempted him with sweet words and got him to feed a strange weapon fragment into his bow. They then analyzed the resulting bow.
And, because the effect was useful, they put him to sleep so he could assist in their mass production.
They probably were able to advance their ability to replicate Legendary Weapons as well.
Let’s consider it from Itsuki’s perspective.
After losing to the Spirit Turtle, Witch’s influence allowed him to unlock the new power known as the Curse Series.
It’s a plot right out of Mecha Anime, and, out of those same Anime, he would have to rest until the power of his Bow settled within him. (TL: I don’t know what reference this is)
Even so, there’s no doubt that Itsuki has been devoured by some form of curse.
Though, that seemed apparent from the start of the incident.
“Itsuki, let me tell you something. There’s no Justice in that bow. It’s a sinister weapon with the power of brainwashing.” (Naofumi)
“You’re wrong! This Bow is without a doubt my Justice! How else would Mald, who I was at odds with, come to an understanding with me so quickly?” (Itsuki)
He’s acting like he’s some sort of protagonist throwing out an irrational argument. Like in Manga and Anime, he thinks that everything’s fine as long as he can get his enemies to understand his cause.
It may appear to make sense at first, but there’s no way an enemy can come to understand you just because you beat them.
That just means they didn’t have enough willpower to stand up to violence from the start.
“Now, everyone, fight with me! I’ll make you understand what’s right and what’s wrong!” (Itsuki)
This is a different matter altogether from Ren’s case.
Ren knew in the depths of his mind that what he was doing was wrong. Itsuki is different.
He honestly believes in his idiotic Justice, and he feels obligated to force it onto others.
If I were to equate it to a deadly sin, I guess it would be pride… But that’s also a delicate line.
It could also be Vainglory. But there’s something about that that feels off.
With his Chuuni imagination, he could have created his own, new sin altogether.
If he did create an eighth sin, I guess there are two possibilities.
The first is Justice.
When Justice goes too far, it can be crueler than any sin.
No small sin will be forgiven. Everyone has to atone with death.
Another possibility is… Fanaticism.
Believing too much in a single idea and forcing it onto others, continuing even when you know that what awaits is nothing but destruction.
There’s also the chance that his power could be a mix of the four.
Motoyasu got the Lust and Envy Spears or something.
And Ren was simultaneously devoured by Greed and Gluttony.
I’ve only confirmed that having two at once is possible. But, I can’t deny the possibility of three, or even four.
Anyways, I’ve once again confirmed my belief that Justice is a disgusting existence.
I’ve caught a glimpse of just how twisted the Justice that Itsuki wants to enforce on the world truly is.
“You’re wrong!” (Rishia)
In a very loud voice, Rishia denies Itsuki’s words.
“Itsuki-sama is misunderstanding Naofumi-san’s actions!” (Rishia)
“Is that you, Rishia-san? You are merely one of the many who are being brainwashed by that man.” (Itsuki)
“Itsuki-sama, you said it, right? That Naofumi-san put slaves through hard labor and reaped all the profits, right?” (Rishia)
Itsuki nods with an unpleasant face.
“Then why are all the people working at Naofumi’s place always healthy? Did you ever hear of a slave he abandoned? Have you ever heard of any slave he’s worked to death? Have you ever heard of any slave he’s even shown cruelty towards?” (Rishia)
“That’s none of my concern. The information I have comes from the many people who live in this base.” (Itsuki)
“Then, that’s nothing but hearsay! Itsuki-sama, I’m asking whether you, yourself, have witnessed any of this man’s misdeeds!” (Rishia)
What’s this? Rishia’s acting much more outgoing than usual as she’s conversing with Itsuki.
At least, in the time I’ve known her, I’ve never seen Rishia this angry before.
Wasn’t Rishia supposed to be a childish girl who said ‘Fueee’ whenever she was troubled and trembled when faced with hardships?
“I’ve been watching Naofumi-san for a long time. I saw him extend his hand to the slaves and build them a home from scratch. The slaves… the Demi-humans who work at Naofumi’s village are always working happily as they earnestly try to make the village a better place! Itsuki-sama, for the people who had lost their status as human beings and dropped into slavery, do you know just how much of a savior Naofumi-san was to them!? And he… put them through hard labor and reaped all the profits? Please don’t make a fool of him!” (Rishia)
“Right! I’ve never seen a single child unwilling to do the work given to them there!” (Ren)
Ren hops on board the bandwagon and tries to persuade Itsuki.
For some reason, Taniko is being especially quiet. I hear her whisper under her breath to Gaelion, ‘Are all the Heroes like this?’
I think the current Gaelion will only respond with ‘Kyua’s though.
“No matter what happens, until the culprit confesses to his sins, my resolve will not be shaken!” (Itsuki)
“Confess? About working my slaves hard? Yeah, I do that.” (Naofumi)
“… The people at Naofumi’s place are a bit different. Classifying them as slaves is difficult.” (Ren)
… Are they different?
From society’s perspective, as long as they have slave crests, aren’t they slaves?
“It’s more like Naofumi-san is the one being treated as a slave there.” (Rishia)
“Wha…!” (Naofumi)
“Yeah, every day he works late into the night assisting everyone in their work! After that, he works on compounding medicine by himself! I can’t tell who’s the slave here!” (Ren)
“What are you… What the hell are you people saying!?” (Naofumi)
Rishia, are you asking me to activate your slave crest?
I’m definitely no one’s slave.
“Naofumi’s pretty much a parent to the children in the village!” (Ren)
“Wrong!” (Naofumi)
What are these people misunderstanding?
Is it that they’re acting out of desperation and saying whatever comes into their heads?
Hm? Taniko pokes me in the side.
“Are they wrong? Everyone says you’re like a mother.” (Taniko)
“They’re wrong! I work all of you hard as slaves.” (Naofumi)
“That was your intention? I think you’re failing.” (Taniko)
“You know-” (Naofumi)
“Master may have a bad mouth, but he’s really kind. The only time he scolds us is when we actually do something really bad.” (Firo)
Even Firo hops on board.
Isn’t it stranger to scold people when they haven’t done anything?
That would impact morale.
In the past, I remember my neighborhood convenience store’s manager had a bad personality. The employees would constantly change.
After a few years, when the manager changed, the nostalgic, help-wanted sign disappeared from the window.
And of course, when you have a good leader, you can work people beyond their own limits.
My thoughts may be going astray here. Anyways, the point is that there’s no reason to unnecessarily drop troop morale. It’s clearly not kindness at work here.
“You’re all definitely wrong!” (Naofumi)
“Naofumi-sama, I believe.” (Atlas)
Believe in what!?
These people… Along with the other villagers, they’re going to get a lecture.
“No matter what you say, the truth is as it is! Naofumi is definitely evil!” (Itsuki)
Itsuki won’t step down.
But Rishia continues speaking.
“Itsuki-sama? Does that mean you’re a perfect, honest, and upright person? Right now, it doesn’t seem that way to me.” (Rishia)
“Please quit it with your trite performance. It makes me want to vomit. Your evil is making me nauseous!” (Itsuki)
Itsuki has a bitter expression as he stares at Rishia.
He’s giving off quite an oppressing aura.
Should he really be saying such things?
“Yes, I have committed sins. I can’t deny the fact that my actions have led to many deaths.” (Itsuki)
“Itsuki-sama…” (Rishia)
“That means there is one thing I must do. I must destroy all of the evil in this world. I must destroy it personally. For eternity!” (Itsuki)
“That’s not happening.” (Naofumi)
As long as humans exist, there will be conflict. Itsuki will never be satisfied until the end of the world.
And so, based on Itsuki’s criteria, Ren, Motoyasu, and I have been labelled as evil.
Perhaps everyone who does not bow down to his ideals will be labelled as Evil.
That means that the only time Itsuki will be able to end all evil is when all life comes to an end.
“…My powers may be insignificant. Even so, I… I can’t forgive this unfairness!” (Itsuki)
Itsuki shouts a line from some main character as he points his bow at me and draws it back.
And on it, an arrow appears.
“Naofumi! Let me pierce through your unfair existence!” (Itsuki)
I hear the air being cut as the arrow Itsuki releases flies towards me.
I use my Float Shield to redirect it.
“Unfair… is it?” (Naofumi)
That’s my line.
I wondered what the man ruining the country with his brainwashing bow was going to say.
Oh, but I’m not allowed to kill heroes.
“…Itsuki-sama, no matter what, you won’t try to understand?” (Rishia)
Rishia draws her sword and enters a fighting stance.
“Itsuki-sama, I deny your justice. My own justice prevents me from accepting you!” (Rishia)
“Itsuki! Return to normal! If you lose yourself to that cursed power, there will be nothing left of you in the end!” (Ren)
“Don’t get in my way!” (Itsuki)
Itsuki raises his bow once more.
Another arrow comes flying.
The target is… Me again.
This time, I just grab the arrow out of the air.
「Shining Arrow!」
Itsuki pulls back his bow once more, and an arrow made of light manifests.
But it seems it will take a while before he can shoot it.
“I understand that nothing will change your opinion. So I will step forward as your enemy and fight you with all of my might!” (Rishia)Image caption Mr Wilders was in court in Amsterdam
Dutch prosecutors have recommended acquitting leading anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders on all five charges of hate speech.
They said his comments had targeted Islam, not Muslims, and he had the right to comment on social issues.
The trial will continue next week and judges may still disagree with the prosecution and convict Mr Wilders.
Prosecutors were obliged to look at the case again after an appeals court decision last year.
The trial of Mr Wilders, who compared the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf, has gripped the Netherlands.
His Freedom Party's support is crucial to the country's new coalition government.
'Sowing hatred'
Prosecutors had initially declined to press charges against Mr Wilders in June 2008.
Criticism [of religion] is allowed Birgit van Roessel, Dutch prosecutor
But they were ordered to do so in January 2009 by the appeals court, which ruled that there was significant evidence that the politician had sought to "sow hatred".
Prosecutors Birgit van Roessel and Paul Velleman reached their conclusions on Friday after studying interviews with, and articles by, Mr Wilders as well as his anti-Koran film Fitna.
"Criticism [of religion] is allowed," Ms van Roessel told the Amsterdam district court.
"It would be hurtful to many Muslims when Wilders calls for a ban on the Koran but the feelings of this group can play no role in determining the facts of the case."
Mr Velleman told the court that most of the politician's remarks seemed to have targeted Islam as an ideology rather than singling out Muslims for abuse.
Mr Wilders is accused of inciting hatred against Muslims and inciting hatred against Moroccans specifically as well as non-Western immigrants.
Since receiving death threats, Mr Wilders has had 24-hour state protection.
A week ago, a centre-right coalition was formed in the Netherlands between the Liberal and Christian Democrat parties, to rule as a minority government dependent on the support of the Freedom Party in parliament.
While the party of Mr Wilders will remain outside government, the new coalition says it plans to ban the full Islamic veil in the Netherlands.A United Church minister in Ontario, Canada, accused of criminal negligence in the manslaughter death of his wife, was sentenced to three years in jail yesterday. The judge left no doubt as to the intention of the verdict.
[T]he message to the public has to be loud and clear: In this type of case, the sentence must be denunciatory and exemplary and reflect society’s abhorrence in letting someone die in such a horrific manner.
The reverend Nico Vanderstoel had pleaded guilty to the charge, which came after his wife of 44 years, Heather, became bedridden with the effects of multiple sclerosis. Vanderstoel soon stopped providing adequate care, neither requesting medical nor social help for his wife.
By the time the state intervened, Heather Vanderstoel’s fate was sealed. She died of complications from decubitis ulceration, or bedsores.
The facts of the case require a seriously strong stomach.
On March 15, 2011, a For Seniors Only employee arrived at the home to do paperwork for the provision of homecare help for Heather and “the smell of rotting flesh was overwhelming,” said assistant Crown attorney Karen Lische. The employee talked to Heather, but could only see her face as the rest of her body was covered by blankets. The next day, For Seniors Only employees arrived to start providing homecare services and found Heather immobile, “living in a state of squalor and filth” and her body covered with infected bedsores.
They immediately decided to get Heather to hospital by ambulance, but the efforts to remove her by six paramedics were hindered by the home’s overpowering odour. “There was a wall of smell that hit them as they walked toward the front door,” said Lische.”It was 15-20 feet from the front door of the home.” On more than one occasion, a paramedic had to stop, go outside and throw up, said Lische, adding that Heather was described as “a corpse that speaks to you.” … The ambulance that brought Heather to Health Sciences North … had to be decommissioned. After surgery, it took two to four people two to four hours to change Heather’s dressings daily, said Lische. The process was extremely painful for the woman. “Her screams could be heard on other hospital floors.”
What Nico Vanderstoel did was obviously wrong, but I don’t know enough of the circumstances to unequivocally condemn his behavior. In fact, I feel a soupçon of compassion for a septuagenarian who possibly grew overwhelmed by the task of caring for a chronically sick and obese (200-plus-lbs) spouse.
That’s what the case hinges on for me. Did Vanderstoel let Heather die out of callousness and convenience; or was he psychologically compromised and physically not equal to the task? If the former, three years behind bars isn’t nearly enough. If the latter, he may need care and counseling more than he does lots of time in a small cage.About
Don't Die! is a game of speed, strategy, and a little bit o' luck. Players take turns pulling hazards from the deck, then attempting to avoid it or pass it onto another player. Side Effects on the cards allow you to mess with your opponents die rolls, which can result in some fast paced, card slapping mayhem.
Players will also have to watch out for special death cards, like Death Clock!, Death Transfer!, or Suddenly, Death! which interrupt typical gameplay and can be a nasty surprise for some unwitting player.
We have fully produced this game, but we need you to help us finish it. Printing and shipping the game is the biggest expense in bringing our card game to life.
Thank you!
Patrick James and Alex Williams
WHY WE NEED YOUR HELP
Though our minimum goal is setup simply to print and distribute the game to our backers here on kickstarter, the more we raise, the more likely we are able to take Don't Die! to gaming conventions and further spread awareness of our game, our company, and our future projects. Raising funds will also help us develop expansion packs and sequels for Don't Die!
GAME CONTENTS
Base Game
104 unique Hazard Cards (more to come with stretch goals)
4 of each Special Death Card
Custom Don't Die! Die
Player Token
Instruction Booklet
Kickstarter Exclusive Expansion
25 more ways to Don't Die! COMPLETELY exclusive. These cards will NEVER be available outside of this campaign. (may be expanded to 40 cards during stretch goals.)
We would like to thank our friends for helping us get this thing started!AC/DC survived the sudden departure of co-founding member Malcolm Young, but that doesn't mean they haven't considered calling it quits.
“Y’know, retirement is like anything,” Brian Johnson tells the Morning Sun. “A good footballer, a good ice hockey player, they don’t want to retire, but unfortunately sometimes there’s a time when you have to call it quits. So, it’s an ongoing thing with us. |
.S. labor from 1948 on with Israeli government policies, invoking a potent combination of Holocaust guilt and perceived moral and political affinity. In fact, willful blindness about ethnic cleansing, discrimination and renewed colonization after 1967 was not all that cognitively dissonant for a party that embraced the Cold War, brought us Vietnam, has backed bloody despots around the globe and mostly gone along with the so-called “war on terror.”
Though focused more on fighting Wall Street, racism, sexism and chauvinism at home, younger Democrats (with some of us veteran progressives), are increasingly recognizing the links to U.S. policies of domination abroad and taking seriously the idea that all peoples deserve freedom and equality. Sanders was able to take a markedly, if limited, progressive turn on foreign policy thanks to the backing of his mostly young minions, and to the extent he went out on that limb, its support grew stronger.
A similar phenomenon occurred last weekend. The convention swarmed with California “Berniecrats,” many of them newly active and most elected in a January sweep of local caucuses held to choose about a third of the delegates. (Another third come from county party committees, a mixed bag politically; and the rest are mostly more conservative elected officials and their generous quotas of appointees, a sore point for the progressives. Votes are not secret, so appointees mostly vote as the officials who chose them dictate.)
The progressives were galvanized primarily around the Ellis campaign for party chair, in alliance with the powerful nurses and several other unions that broke last year for Sanders. Around 500 Berniecrats gathered for a dinner on opening night, and their presence in the convention hall was loud, accented visually with the nurses’ red and Ellis’ pink T-shirts, and festooned with thousands of signs, banners, buttons and stickers.
The progressive wave wasn’t quite strong enough to outvote the old guard candidates, but its presence was very much felt in the room when the Resolutions Committee met. Several groups of activists had been collecting endorsements through Berniecrat and other progressive networks, preparing to force their resolutions to the floor if necessary by collecting at least 300 delegate signatures in a 20-hour window.
Other resolutions among the few the committee passed and sent to the floor that were pushed by progressive forces, mostly in mutual alliance with each others’ causes, included ones for rent control and curbs on evictions; for single payer healthcare; for abolition of money bail; and against corporate rights and the money/speech equation. Numerous others approved by the committee but not fast tracked will be considered by the party Executive Board in August.
Proponents of the Israel-Palestine resolution organized for weeks before the convention to line up delegate endorsements – around 220 by opening day – and let it be known that they fully intended to force it to the floor via petition.
There was hostile opposition, to be sure. A two-page flier, dripping with sarcasm and hasbara mythology, was aimed at persuading the Resolutions Committee to dump the proposal, or at least not send it to the floor. And an activist with Democrats for Israel, Los Angeles, submitted eight separate resolutions condemning – with heavy doses of anti-Arab, racist and Islamophobic buzzwords – every human rights violation he could think of in an atlas of Middle East/North African countries – except Israel, of course.
The committee pushed the Dems for Israel author to combine his resolutions into one, then withstood heavy pressure to include it among those going to the floor. Along the way, we were able to call attention to the fact that it would be religiously and/or culturally offensive to many delegates present.
The Israel-Palestine resolution’s initially recommended disposition by the committee was to “substitute” alternative language. Minutes before it came up on the agenda, we were handed two proposed replacements, one saying very much the opposite of ours, as a committee member noted, getting it cast aside. To our great surprise, though, the other, while it deleted some of the factual details we had included and eliminated an unambiguous call for ending U.S. aid to Israel, maintained the main principles and most of the language of our original.
After a quick huddle of co-authors and other supporters, punctuated by some testy, stressful negotiating, we decided it was best to accept a compromise resolution based on the substitute, with some of the points from the original added back in. These included “occupation of Palestinian lands” and “occupied territories” instead of “West Bank,” and “illegal” instead of “controversial” settlements.
In exchange for the amendments, we achieved not only approval but also a lot of good will from members of the staid, mainstream Resolutions Committee, along with a commitment that it would include the resolution among those sent to the floor and recommended for passage. Reverberating from that development, lots of other progressives in our Democratic circles, with whom we work on other issues but who had been hesitant to speak out on Palestine, agreed to support the resolution if it went to a floor vote. We continue to distribute copies of the original resolution, for educational purposes.
At the Sunday morning plenary we still expected someone to oppose the amended resolution, which would have triggered a floor debate and vote. We were prepared to deliver our three minutes of speeches in favor. But no one did. In a way, that was disappointing – we were relishing the opportunity to say our piece before 3,000 delegates, confident the resolution would have passed overwhelmingly.
Apparently, the Democrats for Israel crowd was resigned to this outcome and preferred to have the resolution proceed instead as part of the “consent calendar,” without debate, under the radar.
But Resolution No. 17.05.05, “Opposing Trump’s dangerous provocations; supporting peace, justice and equality for Israelis and Palestinians – and robust discourse in California,” is now the official position of the California Democratic Party. We’ll do our best to get it known … and prepare for the next round, where we can take that debate to the next level.
RESOLUTION 17-05.05 (PDF)
Opposing Trump’s Dangerous Provocations; Supporting Peace, Justice and Equality for Israelis and Palestinians — and Robust Discourse in California
WHEREAS for decades some members of both parties and Congress have expressed criticism of Israel’s now nearly 50-year occupation of Palestinian lands, while failing to back up that criticism with actual steps to change the status quo and bring about a real peace process; and
WHEREAS the new administration has indicated that it is likely to adopt an even more one-sided policy, threatening to provoke havoc and further instability by moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and appointing an ambassador (opposed for confirmation by all but two Democratic senators) who is an avid supporter of illegal settlements and opponent of Palestinian statehood; and
WHEREAS empowered by the new administration’s policy, the government of Israel has accelerated its construction of illegal settlements in the occupied territories and has adopted new anti-Democratic measures internally, denied entry into the country of representatives of mainstream human rights organizations and passed a law that would bar many visitors with critical views;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the California Democratic Party favors a U.S. policy that would work through the United Nations and other international bodies as well as with Israel and the representatives of the Palestinian people for a just peace based on full equality and security for Israeli Jews and Palestinians alike, human rights and international law, in line with the words of Sen. Bernie Sanders in his 2016 message to AIPAC: “Peace also means security for every Palestinian. It means achieving self-determination, civil rights and economic well-being for the Palestinian people”;
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the CDP rejects any effort to restrict or discourage open public discourse on issues surrounding Israel and Palestine; disavows conflation of criticism of a country’s policies with hatred of its people; but also opposes anti-Semitic or Islamophobic language brought into the debate and opposes any attempt to restrict or penalize those who exercise their right to express their views through nonviolent action to effect change.
Authors: David L. Mandel, AD 7; Murad Surama, AD 7; Karen Bernal AD 7Foo Fighters frontman also explains why The Kardashians scared him off smoking pot forever
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl has praised Arctic Monkeys and Alex Turner, but admitted that watching an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians while stoned scared him off smoking pot forever.
Grohl discussed both Kim Kardashian and Alex Turner in a new interview with The Sun today (November 21), saying that he prays new bands like Arctic Monkeys don’t “self-destruct”.
“They are fucking awesome. They’re taking over America,” Grohl said of the ‘AM’ band. “The American audiences fucking love them. Alex Turner, fuck yeah, he’s a rock star. I’ll see a young band like them become that popular and think, ‘Please God, don’t let them self-destruct’. Because it happens, you know. But they seem like a band of brothers. Those four dudes seem like they’re doing really well and will be for a while.”
NME PHOTOS: The story of Arctic Monkeys’ ‘AM’
Meanwhile, on the subject of smoking pot, Grohl added: “I stopped doing drugs when I was about 20 years old. But I recently thought, ‘Oh, I’m going to start smoking pot again to cure insomnia. I’d put the kids to bed, go upstairs and smoke a bit of pot. But then I’d get stuck in front of the Kardashians on TV for 45 minutes. And it freaked me out. I was like, ‘I’m never doing this ever again. It’s definitely not for me.'”
Grohl recently shared his theory that “People have forgotten what it’s like to really rock out because they spend all day in front of a freakin’ computer”, which he claims “they hail as the new god”.
An Interactive Guide To Foo Fighters’ Sonic Highways: 8 Cities, 8 Songs, 8 Stories
Sharethrough (Mobile)
Foo Fighters announced plans for a 2015 tour of the UK this week. The jaunt is set to take place in May and June of next year, with a open window to appear at Worthy Farm for Glastonbury, which will take place between June 24 and 28. They will play Sunderland Stadium Of Light on May 25, Manchester Emirates Old Trafford on May 27, London’s Wembley Stadium on June 19 and 20 and Edinburgh Murrayfield Stadium on June 23. Tickets are on sale now.
Meanwhile, drummer Taylor Hawkins has revealed that he thinks new album ‘Sonic Highways’ is as close to being perfect as the band could have possibly made it.
Speaking to NME about the album, which was released on November 10, in the video below, Hawkins says: “We like the way our band sounds, naturally. I want drums to sound like drums, as opposed to a drum machine. We kept it as humanly perfect as possible but nothing more. It’s as perfect as we can be, which is not perfect.”
See below to watch now.
https://link.brightcove.com/services/player/?bctid=3872247196001Pin Share 1 2 Shares
I bought shares of Facebook yesterday on its opening day on the market after its initial public offering (IPO). Well…it was actually more like one single share of Facebook. I bought it from OneShare.com where I got one single share framed for my wife. Should you buy shares Facebook IPO?
It all started on Thursday when my wife asked me if I was going to purchase any shares of Facebook on Friday when shares began trading on the public market. My wife and I do not really see eye to eye in most cases about finances and investing. She loves the idea of Facebook as a company but does not really care to look at the fundamentals of the company as an investment.
Why Facebook Makes A Poor Investment
While Facebook may be a great company and website that over 900 million users enjoy using, it also may be a poor investment at these price levels. Here are a couple of things to consider when looking at the company’s fundamentals.
Facebook share price sells for 20 times its projected 2012 revenue. Google trades at about six times its projected revenue for this year.
Facebook’s $100 billion value is lofty. Apple debuted with a market value of less than $2 billion in 1980. Microsoft had a market value of less than $1 billion after its 1986 IPO, and Google had a market value of nearly $25 billion in 2004 after its IPO.
Facebook has generated less than $1 billion in net income over the past year. It has a massive user base that still needs to be tapped. They haven’t figured out how to capitalize on so many eyeballs and translate that into profits yet.
Facebook is struggling to earn advertising revenue from mobile users which have rapidly been increasing over the past couple years.
Facebook is still locked out of China thanks to the Chinese government’s ban on the website.
Facebook’s IPO almost certainly represents a poor long-term investment at or above the IPO price of $38 per share. That is why I am not buying a large amount of shares for my investment portfolio. But, that has not stopped me from buying a single share for my wife as a gift.
How To Buy One Share Of Facebook As A Gift
OneShare.com provides customized gift stock ownership by making it easy and affordable to buy a framed single share of real stock. The real stock certificate represents true ownership in publicly traded companies. OneShare.com offers single framed shares of stock in America’s favorite companies like Facebook, Disney, Harley Davidson, World Poker Tour, Starbucks, Dreamworks, and tons of other public companies.
The owner is entitled to annual reports, declared dividends and any other shareholder perks just as you would if you had bought the shares through a discount broker making this an everlasting gift that is interesting and educational. GiveAshare.com has companies that fit all gift-giving occasions.
Should you buy Facebook IPO shares?
Should you buy Facebook IPO? Did you buy shares of Facebook on Friday? Are you going to buy shares next week?Microsoft’s brand new 12-inch Surface Pro 3 tablet is available for purchase and comes with a fantastic stylus called the Surface Pen. The stylus connects to your Surface Pro 3 via Bluetooth and is powered by batteries. If you are having trouble with the Pen’s connectivity, you might have the battery inserted backwards.
“When I try to pair the new pen with my Surface 3, it says connected for a second or two, then it says not connected. Pen doesn’t work at all except the purple button on the top will launch OneNote. Any ideas? I’ve paired it manually several times and it’s always the same. I paired a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard without issue,” one Surface Pro 3 owner asks on Microsoft’s official support forum.
Sounds like an interesting issue, right? Perhaps a faulty pen? Wrong. The issue was a result of having the battery inserted backwards. Let me explain.
The Surface Pen uses one AAAA battery to feed the digitizer and two small size 319 lithium coin cell batteries, which come pre-installed in the top of the pen, to power the Bluetooth section. The AAAA battery is manually installed by the user and can be accidentally inserted backwards, resulting in issues with Bluetooth connectivity even though the indicator light on the pen will be on. The indicator light might confuse you into thinking the pen is working fine, when it is not.
The solution? Check the AAAA battery and make sure you inserted it correctly. “This is really embarrassing, but I hope it at least helps someone else out there. I just got off of a chat with MS support… the battery was installed backwards. I can’t believe how much time I wasted on this today just because of a backwards battery,” the same user stated, after speaking to Microsoft’s technical support.
Keep in mind the Surface Pen utilizes Bluetooth to launch OneNote – that’s it. The AAAA battery is crucial for the stylus functions, but the two small batteries at the top of the pen are simply for the ability to launch OneNote via the top of the pen. You can turn off Bluetooth and the pen will work fine – except that you will not be able to launch OneNote.
The Surface Pen is quite expensive and runs for $50 if purchased separately. The pen is cased in aluminum, has over 250 levels of pressure sensitivity, and Palm Block technology. This means you can write and draw without worrying about resting your hand on the screen and messing up your creation.
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Further reading: MicrosoftOverview
The Bomb Disposal Suits is designed with the use of state of art material which provide high level of protection in personal protection for modern day EOD technicians enveloping from head to foot, which easy to wear and allows the wearer far greater comfort and ease of movement compared to the normal EOD Suit.
Certification & Testing
All our products are tested both in the field & in International Laboratories around the world.
All Body Armour manufactured by Hard Shell is tested strictly to ensure ongoing compliance.
Through rigorous field & Laboratory testing we certify that our products offer protection as per standards set by the National Institute of Justice of America.
Testing methods followed by Hard Shell
Self satisfactory Independent testing in the field
Consumer testing
Main Parts of Bomb Disposal Suit
Jacket
Provides front, back, side, shoulder and neck protection with HAP inserted in front and back. The high collar is designed to work in conjunction with any Helmet providing extra protection. Also extra protection for spine is provided. SAP designed and inserted in the jacket to fit the body shape. Immediate removal of the suit is achieved by use of the quick release straps attached to the side and shoulder.
Arms
SAP manufactured using mix of Kevlar fabrics is made to provide extra protection. Pockets are provided in the sleeves for keeping instruments.
Groin Protector
Is made of high ballistic strength Kevlar fabric and provides maximum comfort.
Trousers
Fully adjustable supporting stout braces, this unique design provides freedom of movement and optimum protection to the legs and also pockets for insertion of HAP’s are provided.
Helmet & Visor
The helmet and visor provide unequalled protection to head and neck areas.
Colours
Black
Blue
Olive Green (or as per customer requirement)
Optional Accessories
Ballistic Helmet with Face Shield
Carrier Bag
Hard Armour Panel
Bomb Disposal Suit / EOD Suit Features
Engineered from high strength DuPont Kevlar® Soft Armour
High Strength, Hardwear outer shell using Nomax fire retardant fabric.
STANAG 2920 with a V50 rating upto 1800m/s for front portion is achieved.
Incorporates front and rear pockets for the insertion of Hard Armour Panels.
Available in olive drab (standard color), navy blue or desert tan, each with black webbing trim
Helmet Remote Control Module to better control EOD HS Helmet functions
Ergonomic design allows an operator to use EOD tools and related equipment
Technical Specification of HARD SHELL Bomb Disposal Suit:
Sr. No Part Protection upto Velocity JACKET 1 Front Collar (c/w Hard Ballistic) 1200 m/s 2 Back Collar 600 m/s 3 Body Front (c/w Hard Ballistic) 1800 m/s 4 Back Body 600 m/s 5 Sleeve 600 m/s Trouser 1 Upper thigh (c/w Hard Ballistic) 690 m/s 2 Pant 600 m/s 3 Ankle 600 m/s 4 Back Leg 280 m/s 5 Boot 480 m/s
Warranty
10 years performance warranty on Hard Armour Panel
5 years performance warranty on Soft Armour Panel
1 year performance warranty on Outer Carrier (Subject to usage conditions)Elon Musk's Boring Company, which was founded to create tunnels for an underground transportation system in Los Angeles, has released a map illustrating a proposed network for those tunnels.
The Boring Company was inspired by Musk's frustrations with LA's notoriously congested traffic. Operating beneath Interstate 105, the tunnels would hold large electric skates that could transport cars at speeds of up to 150 mph (241 km/h).
Commuters without their own vehicles would be able to travel in communal passenger cars.
The tunnels could also one day be used for Hyperloop, a high-speed rail system that would allow passengers to travel at speeds up to 700 mph (1,125 km/h).
The first step in the construction process is to create a 6.5-mile (10 km) "proof-of-concept" tunnel that would allow the Boring Company to run tests that could eventually lead to approval from the Los Angeles county and city governments to expand the tunnels and use them for public transportation.
Below, you can see the proposed map. The red segment represents the proof-of-concept tunnel for running tests. The blue segments are potential expansion routes if the tunnels are approved for public use:
A 500-foot (150 metre) segment of the tunnel is already complete.
Musk also hopes to build tunnels in Chicago and between New York City and Washington, DC.
This article was originally published by Business Insider.
More from Business Insider:Researchers have found that generic American parents, faced with a child who can’t do math or science, will say “Don’t worry, Johnny, because you have so many other talents.” Asian parents, supposedly, will say “Since you aren’t apparently naturally gifted at math or science you’ll have to study extra hard in these areas,” and not stop nagging until the kid is doing well.
This evening I encountered a woman talking about her kids. “They’re just not numbers people. I tell them it doesn’t matter if they can’t do math or work with numbers because we’re English and Social Studies people.”
[The mother who was speaking has an administrative job with a company contracting to the government of Massachusetts and her innumeracy has not, as far as she knows, hindered her ability to earn a living.]Diablo fans finally had their 12-year wait come to an end on Tuesday with the release of Diablo III. In fact, there was such intense demand to revisit Sanctuary, the world that’s always coming under attack from all manner of hellspawn, that many fans weren’t even able to log in to Blizzard Entertainment’s Battle.net site — a requirement whether you’re slaying demons solo or in multiplayer droves. EW spoke to Blizzard’s senior VP of creative development, Chris Metzen, a living legend in the gaming world for his work developing Warcraft, StarCraft, and all three Diablo games. He sees Diablo III as the “end of a trilogy” and an opportunity at last to tell stories in that universe that he’s always wanted to tell. So is this the last Diablo game? And why did it take 12 years to get made? Read on and find out:
EW: Fans have had 12 years to speculate about Diablo III. What’s the one question you’ve been asked the most?
CHRIS METZEN: The really easy answer is “When the hell’s it coming out?” But from a lore standpoint I think the biggest question is “How does Diablo fit into this one when we apparently kicked his butt at the end of the last two games?”
Why did it take 12 years to get Diablo III made?
It was in development for a few years at Blizzard North, but we ended up restaffing the team and rebuilding a lot of the technology and tools for the game. We pretty much started from scratch. We’ve been trying to find our feet in a post-World of Warcraft world, and there have been a number of growing pains that maybe took us a little longer than we’d expected. The development team has killed it, though. They’ve built a beyond-worthy Diablo sequel, even if it took a little longer to get the oil that it needed. It’s felt like we’ve been a pregnant mother in month eight for awhile now. It’s ready to come out.
Was some of the delay also attributable to, as you said, the character Diablo being so thoroughly trounced in the last one? Did it take a while to pin down the concept?
Oh, not at all. Not at all. I think we had some pretty strong intentions for this game’s story right out of the gate. Story elements you see in Diablo III are things I’ve always wanted to see in a Diablo game, since the first Diablo. For one reason or another it wasn’t the right time to chase those ideas back then. But for this one it was, since it’s the end of a trilogy in some ways, even though it happens about 20 years after the last product, according to the timeline. It’s really the ending of a cycle, the ending of a meta-storyline in many ways.
What were some of those ideas you had going back to the original Diablo?
I always wanted to see the angels come forward, the other side of the argument in the Diablo universe. In the past couple games we’ve been fighting Diablo and his kooky cousins, the Lords of Hell — it’s been a series defined as much by its villains as its hero characters — and there’s only a few NPCs apart from the player characters that are very noticeable, like Deckard Cain or Tyrael. But we never heard from the other side, the angels, to get a sense of the grander conflict that’s playing out within the franchise. I knew from the get-go that this sequel, Diablo III, would be a little more informed by the broader tapestry of the universe and mankind’s role in it. It’s not just demons going crazy, although certainly it’s predicated on that.
NEXT: Metzen on the end of the Diablo “trilogy.” Does that also mean this is the last Diablo game?Minister for Transport Shane Ross has accused some Oireachtas members of giving in to lobbying from publicans over drink-driving limits.
Mr Ross made the criticism because of a three-month delay for a bill that would impose a mandatory disqualification for any reading over the alcohol limit of 50 milligrams.
At present there is only mandatory disqualification for readings in excess of 80 milligrams.
He was speaking at the annual conference of the Road Safety Council, which heard drink-driving arrests are up 18% this year compared to the same period last year.
"Publicans are very powerful people and they appear to have been quite successful in influencing certain members of the Oireachtas," he said.
Superintendent Con O'Donohue of the Garda National Roads Policing Bureau said the increase was due to more activity on the roads, but also because of more targeted operations by the gardaí.
Professor Denis Cusack, Director of the UCD School of Medicine, told the conference that of the drivers who were killed in road traffic accidents and had taken alcohol, the average blood alcohol reading was 192mg - nearly four times the legal limit.
Fixed Charge Notice loophole to be closed
Meanwhile new laws are being introduced to close the loophole that allowed some motorists to escape convictions by claiming they did not receive a Fixed Charge Notice in the post.
Motorists who have failed to pay a Fixed Charge Notice within 56 days will receive another notice with their court summons and a final chance to pay.
People who appear in court will be unlikely to be able to say they did not receive a FCN, according to Susan Gray of the PARC road safety group, who welcomed the new law.
She said that she and members her group had attended courts where the "vast majority" of those summonsed for road traffic offences had walked from court without penalty points or a fine by saying they had not received the fixed charge notice.
Up until now motorists who received a FCN could pay up within 28 days without penalty, after 28 days and up to 56 days they could pay the charge plus 50%.
However after that they received a summons and had to go to court.Victorian Planning Minister Richard Wynne (left) and Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle have gone to VCAT to get the Corkman Irish Pub rebuilt. Credit:Eddie Jim It was demolished by Shaq Demolition and Excavation, half owned by Mr Shaqiri. Building waste and rubble - including asbestos - from the historic pub were later found dumped in Cairnlea. The waste was dumped on another property the two men own, where they are midway through developing townhouses and apartments, in an estate called Havenlea. Public outcry over the illegal demolition and subsequent asbestos dumping has been strong, putting pressure on the government and its agencies to act. Mr Wynne said the law changes would, in effect, mean any re-build would force the developers to "replicate the site immediately prior to demolition".
"Any application for a permit for buildings and works on the site will require the restoration and reconstruction of the Carlton Inn in its entirety in the form it was in prior to demolition," he said. Neither Mr Kutlesovski nor Mr Shaqiri have been contactable since the demolition, despite repeated attempts by The Age to reach them. The pair are now being represented by lawyer Kimble Stynes, who is negotiating with the state government's agencies over the penalties their companies could face over the illegal demolition. This may include fines of up to $750,000 for the asbestos and building waste dumping, which caused outrage among residents of Cairnlea on Wednesday. Some of the dumped waste from the Corkman Pub at new luxury development site called Havenlea in Cairnlea. Credit:Justin McManus
The new planning overlay to be placed on the Carlton site will also allow it to be temporarily used for parkland if Melbourne City Council supports it - although the site is opposite a park. The planning law will be created, Mr Wynne said, so the council had "time to consider permanent controls and involve the community". Mr Wynne said it was not possible for the Corkman Irish Pub to be replicated perfectly. "But the overlay requires that its built form is as close as possible to what was there prior to demolition". He said if the owners decided to sell, it was a decision for them, but the planning law changes meant nothing could be done on the site for now without the pub being replaced by another heritage-style building. Main image shows the Corkman Irish Pub in Carlton. Inset: Rubble is all that remains of the pub.
If Mr Kutlesovski and Mr Shaqiri's company 160 Leicester Pty Ltd went into liquidation or bankruptcy, the planning rules would still apply to the land, Mr Wynne said. He said the combined actions would show that the government wanted to preserve public confidence in the planning system, so that rogue developers and demolition teams could not knock down buildings without permission and suffer no consequences. The planning law amendment will not force the owner to rebuild by a set date, although this is being pursued via the action in Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. The changes being pursued by the state government and city council will not remove penalties being pursued over the illegal demolition. Possible penalties the owners of the site face include up to $186,552 for breaking planning laws, $466,380 for illegal demolition and a range of other fines for illegal dumping of building materials and asbestos.
"No one in the community would expect that we would have such behaviour, such brazen behaviour demonstrated in a way that has really left people aghast," Environment Minister Lily D'Ambrosio said. She said the government was also looking at restructuring the fines in response to the pub's destruction. "Fines need to be a deterrent, they should not be incorporated as part of the usual cost of doing business," she said. "We want to make sure that these cowboys do not get away with what they've done." Opposition leader Matthew Guy on Wednesday said tough penalties needed to be sought against the owners of the demolished pub. "You can't have a bunch of rogues running around the city demolishing buildings - heritage buildings that could have and should have been saved."
Loading "There should be an overlay put on that site so that any approval given in the future means that the original facade must be rebuilt," Mr Guy said. Multiple sources have told The Age on and off the record of the pair's plans to develop the site for apartments.I'll be blunt - the icons in iOS 7 are ugly. If Apple wanted to ensure that Samsung would never copy it again, it succeeded.
While everyone is heaping praise upon Apple for implementing an entirely refreshed mobile OS design, the new icons that accompany said design are embarrassingly horrible.
Now, if Apple wants to move away from skeuomorphic design and lean towards a flatter aesthetic, by all means. But in the company's zeal to move in an entirely new direction, they, pardon the cliche, threw the baby out with the bathwater.
Apple-designed icons are often works of art in and of themselves. The icons in iOS 7, however, look like something a 10th grader might put together for a school project. The color palette is hideous, and the overall look of the homescreen is unbalanced, cartoonish, confusing, and again, ugly.
RELATED: Apple's most important WWDC milestones
Susan Kare: Apple's new iOS icons are a step in the right direction
At the same time, Apple, along with others who curiously are on board with Apple's new icons, can easily come up with flowery prose and ostensibly interesting diagrams that attempt to justify curious design choices. For instance, Apple writes on its iOS 7 webpage:
With iOS 7, every detail warranted the same rigor toward design. Like refining the typography down to the pixel. Redrawing every icon around a new grid system. And sticking to a precise color palette. On their own, these may not be details you consciously demand or even expect. But they all work together to create a more harmonious relationship between individual elements. And a better, more delightful experience overall.
That may sound nice, but it doesn't rescue users from the visceral and negative reaction that many people experienced upon first laying eyes upon iOS 7's new icon set.
As twitter user Kontra noted last week, "We shouldn't have to care by what department/theory/grid system/time pressure/etc iOS 7 icons were designed. They're confidence deflating."
iOS 7 represents Apple's first new iOS design without Scott Forstall and as Kontra noted in another tweet," icons should have been the easiest wins in the iOS 7 design overhaul. But since they're the most visible, the disappointment is amplified."
But enough talk, let's let the icons speak for themselves on an app-by-app basis. Below are some of Apple's more curious icon choices.
Camera
The camera icon from previous iterations of iOS was elegant, sophisticated, and, not too sound too much like Jony Ive, simple yet complex. Its replacement is just, well, simple. A boring image of a camera that looks like it would feel more at home in a collection of old-fashioned clip art.
Notes
I personally never found anything objectionable about the old, tried-and-true Notes app. But OK, Apple wants to change things up. I get that. But did they have to use such a putrid shade of yellow? What's more, when coupled with plain-old white loose-leaf, the new Notes app looks like drab epitomized. It's boring. It has no soul. It's mildly less skeuomorphic than its predecessor, but it's overwhelmingly dull. And while I'll save a look into the actual UIs of these apps for a later date, I couldn't help but post this photo comparing life in the new notes app vs life in the old notes app.
If I may harness Will Ferrell's character from Zoolander, am I on crazy pills here? In what universe could anyone possibly think the new Notes app is better than the old implementation. The image on the left looks like an unfinished mock-up of what a Notes app could look like with just a little bit more care.
Calculator
Moving on, we have Apple's new Calculator icon. OK, sure, there's not much you can do if you're going to stick with an orange-dominated color scheme, but at least the gloss and depth Apple used on the previous Calculator icon made it somewhat approachable. Contrast that with the new Calculator icon, which looks like an icon you might have found on Windows circa 1994. Somehow, with all of its design prowess, Apple chose the most blah shade of 70s-inspired orange it could find.
Game Center
Wait a minute, wasn't Apple trying to move towards flat icon design across the board? Say what you will about the old Game Center icon, but the new one is just mind-numbingly confusing. Spheres? Bubbles? Balloons? Just what exactly is this icon supposed to convey? There is no shortage of visual cues to suggest that games lurk beneath this icon. A joystick, a game board, a video game controller. The possibilities are endless. Instead, we're given something that looks like the balloons from the movie UP.
Newsstand
It's frustrating when people broadly paint skeuomorphism as a horrible design choice when, in many instances, it actually serves a useful purpose. As John Maeda recently wrote in Wired:
Design, like many disciplines, is about a diversity of approaches as soft solutions rather than hard truths. It’s a spectrum, not an either-or decision about whether to skeu or not to skeu.
That said, the Newsstand design in iOS really worked - a bookshelf where you might find newspapers and magazines. It was sleek. And then, on the other hand, there is Apple's new Newsstand, icon which looks like a collection of generic magazines that one might find in the background of a 1960's comic book. I'd even go so far as to say that someone completely unfamiliar with iOS might look at the new Newsstand icon and assume that it's a portal to the web. After all, where else would one go to get daily updates of news, sports, travel, and art information if not the Internet?
Contacts
Again, there has to be something in between skeuomorphic and this. Some sort of balanced icon design must exist between these two extremes!
Photos
With the new Photos icon, Apple exchanged a flower for a flowery geometric design. I can see where Apple is going with this, but did they have to choose such a muted color palette?
Maps
And speaking of muted, we now have Apple's new Maps app to get used to. The old Maps icon in iOS 6 was pretty solid, but with Apple blindly choosing to make everything flat, we're left with something that leaves oh so very much to be desired. The iOS 6 icon, with a touch of gloss and 3D perspective, is aesthetically pleasing. Contrast that to the new Maps icon where Apple, yet again, went with a putrid shade of yellow and utterly lifeless shades of blue and green. The Maps icon in iOS 6 just looks more alive. Perhaps this icon by itself wouldn't be so objectionable, but when put together with the rest of the lot, it's just another example in a long string of curiously bad icon design choices.
So did Apple get any icons right in iOS 7?
Well sure, there are a few exceptions. The weather and mail icons come to mind.
OK, back to some more questionable icon design choices. Are the icon updates below really improvements?
And then, of course, we also have Apple's new Settings icon, which is just beyond words.
When taking a look at Apple's iOS 7 icons altogether |
to Saraswati Puja being banned from government schools to preserve communal harmony?
Share This Post and Support:Two years ago, Kevin Ollie was celebrating as his UConn Huskies cut down the nets as a national champion.
Last season, his Huskies fell short of expectations, failing to make the NCAA tournament while losing to Arizona State early in the NIT.
Ollie could have sulked and pouted. He could have left Storrs and taken a job in the NBA; he was mentioned prominently as a candidate in Oklahoma City.
Instead, Ollie got in the trenches and battled. He worked hard to secure new talent to come in and revitalize UConn.
The Huskies utilized the rule that allows a graduate transfer to become eligible immediately. Schools like UConn, Louisville and Georgia Tech have really helped their respective causes.
Ollie landed two immediate-impact transfers that will help. Start off with former Seton Hall Pirates guard Sterling Gibbs, a second-team All-Big East selection. It is not easy to sign a scorer late in the recruiting process, but Gibbs will give a boost to the Huskies' offense after averaging 16.3 PPG. Connecticut also brought in 6-7 Shonn Miller from Cornell, an All-Ivy League choice. Miller ranked second in the Ivy in scoring (16.8 PPG) and rebounding (8.5 RPG) last season.
The future was made brighter when former VCU player Terry Larrier also transferred in, though he must sit out the upcoming campaign.
Ollie had previously added a nice recruiting class, led by point guard Jalen Adams out of Brewster Academy, ranked 25th on the ESPN Top 100.
The Huskies also have returning talent, keyed by Rodney Purvis and Daniel Hamilton. Ryan Boatright is gone, but UConn has reloaded.
I expect big things from Ollie and company in the season ahead.The days when international wire transfers were actually made over telegraph lines seem like ancient history in light of today’s sophisticated global financial networks. Our ability to move and exchange vast sums of dollars, yuan, and dozens of other currencies in minutes has become essential to our super-powered system of e-commerce.
Despite how freely money flows, however, merchants can face daunting barriers to enter into the international payments system. It’s a big reason why less than 1 percent of American businesses sell their wares overseas. To help make sense of the current state of the ever-changing global payments ecosystem, we’ve partnered with Braintree to highlight the obstacles and innovations companies should consider as they look to take business beyond their borders.
Doing Your Homework, Part I: One Payment Approach Fits Some, Not All
One major hurdle for merchants entering the exports game is the lack of a universal standard for cross-border payments. If a U.S.-based seller seeking to expand into Kenya can only process credit cards, she’ll be in for an unpleasant surprise upon finding that 70 percent of the country makes payments through a mobile text-messaging service.
A shifting latticework of regional systems also places a burden on banks and card networks, as described in a recent ModusLink report, as they attempt to ensure that financial information doesn’t fall through the cracks. That extra work doesn’t come cheap.
“When I think about trying to [make payments] cross-border, it comes down to risk,” Brendan Miller of Forrester Research says. “Transactions are expensive and more complicated because of differing regulations, currencies, and messaging formats between banks and different countries.”
Working with third-party payment service providers (PSPs) like PayPal and China’s Alipay can help to smooth the kinks in this process for sellers and buyers alike. “The ability to basically just turn on a new currency at the flip of a switch and start operating there — things like that are hugely important,” says Aunkur Arya, SVP of Mobile at Braintree.
Doing Your Homework, Part II: Taxes And Regulations
After a merchant determines the proper currency and mode of payment, there are also taxes to consider. In the 28-member-state EU, for example, sellers of certain digital goods such as media, software, and Web hosting must pay the VAT of the country where the consumer lives. There’s no minimum sales threshold, so this additional administration expense disproportionately affects small businesses, dissuading some from selling in Europe at all.
Byzantine regulatory frameworks can be just as much of a hassle for exporting merchants. Depending on where in the world their products are landing, they may have to pay close attention to what captures headlines in the local papers. For instance, Russia was recently spurred by privacy concerns to implement a new law requiring companies that process the personal data of its citizens to store this information on local Russian servers.
For a time, the only way to tackle this issue would have been to hire local experts to guide a seller through the regulatory quirks of her chosen marketplace. But, increasingly, businesses are innovating digital solutions. For sellers hoping to break into the U.S. market, third-party platforms like TaxJar calculate sales tax by state, seamlessly integrating with shopping cart software. Similar products will soon crop up in other global export markets.
Extra Credit: The Market-Disrupting Potential Of The Blockchain
In the face of these challenges, help may be coming from an unlikely source: the controversial bitcoin. Or rather, the technology behind the cryptocurrency.
Insiders like Miller believe the blockchain could solve one of the biggest problems inherent in the sprawling architecture of international banking: risk. The need to place one’s faith in many different operators is what leads to high fees and time-consuming checks that can gum up the process of moving money.
Trust is a real issue, which is why alleged bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto sought to solve the problem simply by requiring none at all.
A fraudster can cheat an online payments system by engaging in a kind of counterfeit 2.0 known as double spending. Since electronic files are easily copied, she can buy Product A (let’s say a chicken), then immediately reuse the digital funds to purchase Product B (let’s say an egg) before either transaction can be authenticated.
But the blockchain protects against this scenario, requiring the computers in a network to collectively order each transaction through proof-of-work — put another way, the system as a whole has to agree on which came first, the chicken or the egg. The end result is a distributed public ledger in which every transaction made is essentially set in digital stone.
The blockchain’s potential to eliminate costly points of failure in a payments infrastructure has sparked a scramble to innovate on the technology. And while no one has quite cracked the code yet, Miller says, the advantages for international online sellers could be big: reduced cross-border transaction fees, as well as a greater ability to offer customers attractive purchasing solutions like gift cards, which normally might be too fraud-prone for smaller businesses to use.
Together with payment service providers and virtual regulatory consultants, this technology could round out an online merchant’s arsenal, enabling her to effortlessly reach customers in every corner of the globe.
At Braintree, security is of paramount importance. The global online payment processor provides a secure environment that goes above and beyond industry security standards and guidelines. For more information, click here.— Scott Brooks was in the Windy City for the annual NBA head coaches meetings, organized by the National Basketball Coaches Association. But like a lot of folks in the basketball community this week, his thoughts were out in Springfield, Mass. -- at least they were when NBA.com asked Brooks and a number of his peers about the Naismith Hall of Fame's Class of 2016.
Given the diversity and breadth of experience of this year's enshrinement group -- players Shaquille O'Neal, Allen Iverson, Yao Ming, Zelmo Beaty, Sheryl Swoopes and Cumberland Posey, referee Darell Garrettson, coaches Tom Izzo and John McLendon and owner Jerry Reinsdorf -- it was inevitable that the league's 30 coaches had crossed paths with, had personal connections to or had stories about the honored individuals.
Brooks, who played 10 NBA seasons as a backup point guard for six teams (1988-98), had several.
"A.I. crossed me up so many times, I said, 'What the heck? I've got to get out of this league,' " the Washington Wizards' new coach said. "Shaq was incredible. Just to see him do the things that he did was mind-boggling. People see Shaq in person, they can't believe. You see him on the court or on TV, you go, 'OK, he's big.' But in person, whoa.
"One time he blindly threw an inbounds pass and I was hanging out on the [baseline] and stole the pass. So I'm going up for a layup and he got so frustrated, he threw me into the basket stanchion. I thought I was gonna die! I had never been hit like that before. And I've been hit by Karl Malone and Rick Mahorn, a lot of big guys. But I'm still in pain."
Yao Ming's Ultimate Career Mixtape Check out Yao Ming's mixtape spanning his Hall of Fame career.
Here are thoughts on the 2016 Hall of Famers from some of the NBA's coaches:
Steve Clifford, Charlotte Hornets: "With Yao, we got there [to coach Houston, with Clifford as an assistant to Jeff Van Gundy] his second year. Not only the kind of player he was, but how hard he worked. The kind of teammate he was. It was a great four years... Just his whole approach, to working, to winning. He did it all, from the weight room to the way he took care of himself.... He has great wit, a very personable guy. A terrific player, a great teammate and a great guy."
You'd talk about his height and his weight, but his heart and his basketball IQ were the size of Yao's or Shaq's.... He wasn't afraid to get hit and he knew he was going to get hit. – Milwaukee Bucks coach Jason Kidd, on Allen Iverson
Brett Brown, Philadelphia 76ers: "I'm making my third Hall of Fame journey especially to watch Allen Iverson. His history and his impact on the city of Philadelphia, with the organization is well-documented. I feel it's a night of true appreciation for people who have done great things in our sport. He's a gym rat like I am, so you bump into him in the summertime at different street-ball or pro-am events. You see him immerse himself in the city still. Those things along with his impact on the team I coach make me feel very obligated to go show support and let him know that people in the organization recognize his achievements."
Tom Thibodeau, Minnesota Timberwolves: "To watch the way Yao grew every year [like Clifford, in four years as a Van Gundy assistant], the work he put into it, to make himself who he is. Not only here but what he did over in China and what it means to basketball.... He had a very unusual skill set. to be dominant in the post, to be able to shoot away from the basket, the way he did. He had incredible touch. And good vision. Obviously the length at the rim. And then what he did with his body, to change his body.... Of course Jerry Reinsdorf getting in is a great honor. To build two championship teams in Chicago the way he has, with the Bulls and the White Sox, I'm just very happy for him as well."
Shaq's Career Mixtape Check out Shaquille O'Neal's mixtape spanning his Hall of Fame career.
Alvin Gentry, New Orleans Pelicans: "I had the privilege of coaching Shaq for a couple years [in Phoenix] and I really do think he's the most dominant big man who's ever played the game. I understand Wilt's numbers and what he put up, I'm not belittling that in any kind of way. But athletically, what Shaq brought to the table was unbelievable. There are so many things -- [practical joker, very serious guy. Unbelievable from a charity standpoint -- he did so much that people never will know. Go in, buy bicycles, take 'em to neighborhoods, give 'em away. With no camera crew around.... A.I., what can you say? As a competitor, you would rank him right there with Michael Jordan. The most impressive thing about him was, he played every night. Injuries didn't stop him. As far as Yao, he came over and really kind of changed the game here -- a guy that big with such a great touch. And obviously Sheryl Swoopes, when you think of what that Houston Comets team did at the start of the WNBA. It's a pretty impressive class."
Dwane Casey, Toronto Raptors: "One man wasn't going to stop Shaq or Yao. They were dominant in a time when it was kind of a big man's league. Everyone had to have a big body to put on them.... No one man could stop A.I. either. You wanted to trip him. The first time I saw him, I was over coaching in Japan and he still was in college, playing in some junior-world tournament or something. I was amazed at that time by his speed and he has a toughness that you can't coach, you can't teach. I remember Gary Payton trying to stay in front of him -- it's impossible. Gary slowed him down but he didn't stop him. And you might slow him down one time but he was going to figure out a way to beat you. He would beat double-teams with speed. I think he really set the tone to let small guys know, if you have a heart and soul and a competitive spirit, you can compete at that size.
Shaq was incredible. Just to see him do the things that he did was mind-boggling. People see Shaq in person, they can't believe. You see him on the court or on TV, you go, 'OK, he's big.' But in person, whoa. – Washington Wizards coach Scott Brooks
Mike Malone, Denver Nuggets: "I was with him (O'Neal) in Cleveland on the staff there. And he mentioned in one of the stories I just read that he missed so many games that year, going into the playoffs -- Big Baby hit him and broke his thumb. If he was healthy, I think we would have been a very tough out in the playoffs. I coached in college at Providence when Allen Iverson still was at Georgetown.... I could tell way back then that Allen Iverson was one of the fiercest competitors anybody had seen. Nobody wanted to play against that guy, he was that relentless as a player."
Dave Joerger, Sacramento Kings: "We all wanted to have the Iverson crossover. Not many could! I had the chance to work with Iverson in Memphis -- it was a short [stay]. But you saw what kind of a heart that dude had. To take the hits he took, 160 pounds dripping wet. He was very, very competitive."
Frank Vogel, Orlando Magic: "I grew up in Jersey as a Philadephia 76ers fan. Obviously Allen Iverson was a unique player in this game's history. Got to coach him one year as an assistant [in Philadelphia] with Jim O'Brien. He was such a prolific scorer but always a willing passer, and his guys loved him. He's a really good person and just an icon, so I'm really excited for him to get in.... And I'm really happy for Shaq -- my new neighbor, so to speak. I live right up the street from where he's got a place in Windermere, Fla. And he's always been very supportive of me through the years, on the studio show and everything. So I'm real happy for him too."
He had a very unusual skill set. to be dominant in the post, to be able to shoot away from the basket, the way he did. He had incredible touch. And good vision. – Minnesota Timberwolves coach Tom Thibodeau, on Yao Ming
David Fizdale, Memphis Grizzlies: "I would say, a lot of pain they caused me as a coach. Watching those guys play, they really changed the game for me. and I've always looked up to and admired Tom Izzo. He always cares about his kids. He always bring incredible attention and intensity to his teams. His team often overachieve. Whenever they talk about Michigan State -- 'Aw, they're not very good this year,' and then they end up in the Final Four."
Brooks: "Darrell Garretson, seeing him my rookie year, was just like seeing a legend. I followed the NBA so seeing him and Earl Strom, I was like, 'Oh my gosh, I'm on a special court.' As a player you're in awe of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, but if you love the game, you see everything as a kid. To this day, I don't get into it much with the referees -- they've got a hard job. Having a relationship with him through the years was pretty cool. And now with Ronnie [Garretson, Darrell's son], to talk with him. And Ronnie's son is trying to make it as a ref too. The family business."
Quin Snyder, Utah Jazz: "Coach Izzo, when I was coaching in college, I had a tremendous amount of respect for what he did. In 2002, I was fortunate to be chosen to be his assistant coach for the Pan-American Games. So I was able to spend a couple of weeks in the summer, and looking back, there were things that he did to build the intensity level. The basketball intelligence of his teams. Not only do they play defense but they execute better than anyone on the offensive end. It's a credit to him, both what they do at Michigan State and how his players do in the NBA."
Allen Iverson Highlights A look back at new Hall of Fame inductee, Allen Iverson's highlights.
Jason Kidd, Milwaukee Bucks: "It was just amazing what A.I. did on a nightly basis in Philadelphia. I don't think anybody ever [dealt successfully] with his quickness. You didn't want to get the killer crossover, so you'd try to back up. I gave him a lot of room. He was so talented -- I tried to use my size but he was the best at what he could do. You'd talk about his height and his weight, but his heart and his basketball IQ were the size of Yao's or Shaq's. And something that probably goes a little bit unnoticed, just the pounding he took on a nightly basis. He wasn't afraid to get hit and he knew he was going to get hit. It would be interesting to see him in today's game, without so many hits, how would he have done."
Fred Hoiberg, Chicago Bulls: "When I think of Yao and Shaq and Iverson, their greatest quality was their competitiveness. You look at Iverson, a guy 6-feet tall, doing what he did was an amazing feat. The way he scored the ball effortlessly, his athleticism, his ability to shoot, make big shots. He was not afraid of the moment and he was so tough to cover. I remember taking a foul on him and he kind of fell hard, and Philadelphia fans threw stuff at me the rest of the night. I actually had a jump ball with Yao one time that my kids thought was pretty cool. I didn't even jump. And then Shaq is probably the most dominating player physically. And Tom Izzo was great to me -- when I got into college coaching, I'd see him on the recruiting trail. He went out of his advice to talk to me and give me advice about the right way to do things. I'd sit with him in a gym and rarely watch the action -- I thought it was more productive for me to be a sponge and absorb his knowledge."
Luke Walton, Los Angeles Lakers: "For me, that was a generation of players I really was looking up to when I was getting good at basketball. When I was in high school, they were in their prime and a big part of the reason that I loved the game of basketball so much. My rookie year was with Shaq -- he made coming to work fun every day. Always had a smile on his face. The most physically dominating player I've ever seen. A prankster, but just an incredible athlete and phenomenal talent. Shaq would joke around a lot but when it came to winning and performing, he took himself very seriously.... He and Yao and Allen Iverson, I believe, are some of the reasons basketball is so popular all over the world. You can be 5-foot-whatever Iverson is, and be so quick that nobody can stay in front of you, or you can be the biggest, strongest man on Earth. And they can play this game and succeed."
Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Turner Broadcasting.Due to the forecast of snow on Thursday, February 9 FEBTOBERFEST is rescheduled for Thursday, February 23 from 6:00-9:00 p.m. See the new date on the calendar here!
Join us for adventures in Bier & History at the 4th Annual Febtoberfest. Enjoy an array of regionally brewed beers, paired with delicious foods and music. Must be 21+. Buy tickets now!
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Advanced: $35, Day of/At the Door: $40Whoot! Happy my-100th-deviation! (on this account)I realised that I was up to 100 and wanted to do something that I actually put effort intoMy brain has definitely been in holiday mode, and I've been too lazy to do proper art.I decided to do a picture of Applejack because her design is my favourite out of the mane six. Plus it's an excuse to draw an outdoor background since I still can't do indoors. I know that Applejack never actually had a parasprite in the episode, but I realised that she was sort of staring into nothingness and a parasprite seemed more My Little Pony-ish than a butterfly.Pinkie Pie is next because she's the best pony. It may take a while though, since she's going to have an indoor background and that will take me forever (literally, I will never finish it...EVER).In one afternoon, we are seeing reports about two practice squad players being promoted onto the Green Bay Packers' active roster. First, we learned about tight end Jake Stoneburner's promotion from his own twitter account, and now we finally have word on wide receiver Myles White being the second.
Leslie Spoon of WFRV (CBS 5) in Green Bay just tweeted this report:
NFL Source tells us WR Myles White will be promoted to #packers active roster. — Leslie Spoon (@SpoonWFRV) October 15, 2013
As with Stoneburner, we do not have any more information on which player will be released in White's place, so we'll have to speculate in the short term. It seems feasible to that one of the moves would be to place Randall Cobb on the Injured Reserve/Designated for Return list, which would keep him out for a minimum of eight weeks. The other roster spot could then come from the release of a recently-added player like running back Michael Hill or cornerback James Nixon, or by placing offensive lineman Greg Van Roten on injured reserve as well.
With White, Jordy Nelson, and Jarrett Boykin, the Packers have three healthy receivers ready to go for Sunday with James Jones still a possibility to play. They would also likely go into the game with five tight ends thanks to Stoneburner's addition.
More from Acme Packing Company:With all of the trauma and turmoil surrounding the Columbus Crew’s potential relocation to Austin, it feels like my Crew life has been flashing before my eyes. I’ve thought of a lot of people. One of them is Eddie Gaven.
Eddie Gaven is the only Crew player I have ever slapped in the face. So far, anyway. It was his own damn fault. He failed to dislodge a water bottle from my hand during a sneak attack as I interviewed another player. The face-slap was the required penalty under the rules of the “fumble” game that he loved to play in the locker room.
Gaven was fan favorite and had many huge moments on the field. He scored the game-winning goal in the 2008 Eastern Conference Final against the Chicago Fire. He won back the ball at the edge of the 18-yard box to initiate the immortally iconic Schelotto-to-Hejduk goal that sealed the Crew’s 2008 MLS Cup championship. He once had a hilarious, mostly-effective five-minute stint as a goalkeeper. And, without a doubt, he had the most legendary beard in Crew history.
On May 29, 2013, Gaven scored a goal and added an assist in 2-1 win over the Dayton Dutch Lions in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. In the closing minutes of that game, he suffered a tackle that tore his ACL. He never played another game for the Crew. On October 31, 2013, Gaven quietly announced his retirement from professional soccer with no fanfare whatsoever. He was 27 years old.
The decision, while shocking, also wasn’t a shock upon further reflection. Gaven loved the game of soccer, but I don’t know that he loved being a professional soccer player. From a sporting perspective, yes. But from a personal perspective, he never seemed very into the idea of being a public figure or an entertainer or someone that people idolized. I don’t mean that he was aloof in any way, and he certainly wasn’t misanthropic. At every turn, he was unfailingly humble, polite, and accommodating. He was gracious and grateful for the support of the community. But life to Eddie Gaven was much more than just soccer. By the fall of 2013, he apparently achieved what he wanted to achieve as a professional. Being true to himself, he walked away from hundreds of thousands of dollars in future earnings and left the spotlight for good, content to focus on his family and the other callings in his life. To my knowledge, he has not commented publicly on pro soccer matters since announcing his retirement.
Until now. Sort of. In a way.
I know that many Crew fans still think of Eddie Gaven. During this difficult and anxious time, please know that he is thinking of you too. I am honored to share with you a statement from Eddie Gaven. It’s just a few words from a man of few words, but it’s something he wanted every Crew fan to know right now:
“Columbus will always hold a special place in my heart.”
– Eddie Gaven (November 12, 2017)For use on external sites w/exclusive video premieres.
One wouldn't automatically think that "Mad Men" and "The Walking Dead" would share a huge fan base. One's a show about lethal moves in the business world; the other is simply about the undead.
But "The Walking Dead" will feature a shout-out to Don Draper and the Sterling Cooper crowd when it airs its season finale this Sunday. As Rick & Co try to fend off the walkers, the network will showcase a new teaser spot for "Mad Men" that riffs on the "Dead." (You can watch it above.) The spot follows a promo during last week's "Walking Dead" episode in which a "Dead"-like voiceover jokily alludes to a small group struggling to survive (the ad agency staffers) and one man (Draper) keeping them safe.
Though relatively quick, the new "Men"-centric spot offers a visual ode to the "Dead"--think rising and walking--as well as borrowing its musical theme. "Zombies are back," the ad pronounces, riffing on "Mad Men's" larger campaign about everything else --Draper, envy, adultery--being back when the drama's fifth season kicks off March 25.
There's a reason why AMC is using "Walking Dead" as a "Mad Men" marketing platform." The Jon Hamm series is looking to maintain its strong fourth-season ratings as it ramps back up again after a 17-month layoff. "Walking Dead" offers a good weapon--it's a large audience, and it's a young audience.
Do executives worry that those who follow the genre series aren't necessarily concerned with the exploits of the '60s smoking set? "'Walking Dead' has a passionate audience base and 'Mad Men' has a passionate audience base," AMC senior vice-president of marketing Linda Schupack told Show Tracker. "And both of them care about great character drama."
RELATED:
Mad Men:' New trailer asks if fans miss Don Draper
Jon Hamm recounts the dangers of the "Mad Men" set
"Mad Men" gets well-timed PR leak from Christina Hendricks photos
--Steven Zeitchik
twitter.com/ZeitchikLATI love thin cut steak, but it’s virtually impossible to cook well. On a thick cut steak I love crispy blacken outside and a super rare middle. Adding a little drama to the table is no bad thing.
If I was doing this again I’d cut the steak into two inch squares, which I did with a couple of the offcuts and they were better than the main course! The edges crisped and I could cook each piece with 10 seconds either side to perfection.
You will need
A pack of thin cut beef steak. I’d guess that it was thin sliced silverside or topside
A pack of premixed grill marinade I used Schwartz Grill Mates Mojito Lime and it was excellent.
A blowtorch. YEAH, A BLOWTORCH!
Do
Rub marinade into the steak and cut into 2 inch pieces Support a metal tay on something heat proof At the table blast a piece at a time, putting the brightest one of flame on the edges and work your way round. Flip over and repeat. Move round the metal board if it gets too hot.
Result
The sugar in the marinade carmelises, the fat edges crisp and yet the middle of the beef is still rare and tender.Controversy
“We will burn you in Doha. We will kill you. We will put you in jail,” are some of the threats RJ Sooraj says he has received in the past few days.
In the first video, you hear a man say defiantly, “A lot of people will outrage against this video, but it’s fine.”
But just a few days later, a second video appears. Here, the same man takes a humble, self-deprecating tone, and says: “I apologise. I hereby request all my Muslim friends to put this controversy to rest. Please don’t blow this up further and harm the radio station. I had no communal agenda when I put out the first video.”
Between these two videos are a story of the storm that has hit RJ Sooraj, who hosts the primetime evening show called Doha Junction on Radio Malayalam 98.6FM in Doha. Sooraj’s apology video has come after he received alarming threats, and he and his radio station were targeted by a systematic smear campaign.
What did Sooraj do? On December 2, he put out a video congratulating the three Malayali girls who had danced to the song Jimikki Kammal in a flashmob on AIDS awareness in Malappuram. The flash mob was part of the district health department's campaign to commemorate World AIDS Day on December 1.
“I saw these three smart girls doing a flash mob. How many of us will have the courage to stand on a public road and do a flashmob? And that too for AIDS awareness!” Sooraj said in the video.
He then went on to hit out at Muslim fundamentalists who had outraged over the three girls dancing, imitating some of their comments in a parodic uncle-voice.
“Can I ask these kinds of people a question— a few days ago hadn’t you asked for Hadiya’s freedom as brothers? You even questioned the Supreme Court on it? But don’t these girls have the same kinds of rights like Hadiya? Why can’t they live life freely like you want Hadiya to? What is your definition of personal freedom? Is personal freedom a gift you give to people who convert and come to your religion?” Sooraj then asked in the video.
Signing off with the defiant statement that he wouldn’t care about outrage against his video, Sooraj seemed prepared for some abuses to come his way. But the vitriol that emerged seems to have surpassed anything that Sooraj imagined.
On Monday, Sooraj posted a video insisting that he had merely spoken about women's rights and had no communal intentions. But as the outbursts against him and the radio station grew, Sooraj’s tone and tenor changed drastically in the video he posted on Tuesday where he apologised profusely and requested people to stop their hate campaigns.
In the last video, Sooraj details the threats that he has received in the past few days. “We will burn you in Doha. WE will hit you, we will kill you. We will put you in jail. We will make you lose your job,” are some of the threats he lists out.
He then says that the mocking tone and mimicry he did of fundamentalist voices seems to have outraged people the most. “But it was not intentional on my part. I hereby apologise for this. I did not know that this would hurt religious sentiments,” he says.
He clarifies that contrary to the things being said about him on social media and elsewhere, he does not hold anti-Islamic sentiments. “I am not someone who ridicules any religion. I am now being painted as an RSS supporter and a Hindutva bhakht aiming to insult Islam but that is not true. My politics is not RSS Sangh Parivar or any Hindutva politics. I would only call myself a Communist sympathiser, not even a supporter.”
He also says that the vitriol against him has been so strong that he is no longer hosting the primetime show he did, and may not even continue to be associated with the radio station. He also pleads that the radio station should be left out of the entire controversy.
“I request everyone not to pull my radio station into the controversy. A lot of young men from Kerala work in my radio station. if they were to lose their jobs because of the video I put up, that would hurt me. Please take my radio station out of this controversy. I admit that it is my personal blunder,” Sooraj says in the video.
Even as he apologises, however, Sooraj also cautions any right-wing Hindu groups or sympathisers from trying to take advantage of the controversy that has grown around him.
“I have been getting a lot of messages saying, ‘We will protect you, let’s see what they can do to you.’ But I don’t want those elements to take advantage.”
Also read: ‘End of world!’: Kerala Muslim girls dance in flash mob, fundamentalists are losing itBehold, the newest user-created official Lego set, voted by thousands of users around the world as part of Lego's Cuusoo initiative. This Lego Space Exo Suit is a really beautiful and fun design by Peter Reid, one of the authors of the great book Lego Space: Building the Future.
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It's a fantastic addition to any official Lego space set, especially the classic ones from the late 70s. It'd also work incredibly well with a custom Alien-themed set. I can totally see a Ripley minifig battling a xenomorph in one of these bad boys.
According to Lego: “The detail makes it come alive and it’s easy to imagine it working in a shuttle-bay, a team of them constructing a space-station, or engaged in an epic mecha battle.”
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Huge congratulations to Peter Reid on this incredible achievement! You should also check out his awesome Lego Space book, which is coming out soon.
The Exo Suit model will be available in stores in mid-2014. Just look at all those greebles!
Here's the official announcement:
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You're reading Leg Godt, the blog with the latest Lego news and the most awesome Lego models in the web. Follow us on Twitter or Facebook.SeaPort Airlines, an 8-year-old commuter carrier that tried to carve a niche serving subsidized routes to small regional airports, will ground its flights Tuesday as it faces liquidation in bankruptcy.
The airline's bid to reorganize collapsed this month after the airline learned it would lose a key contract and a line of credit helping keep it afloat. A judge on Tuesday ordered the airline's Chapter 11 bankruptcy to be converted to a Chapter 7 liquidation effective at noon on Wednesday.
An attorney for the airline's creditors said its fleet would be grounded by 6 p.m. Tuesday.
"This is certainly not the result hoped for by SeaPort's employees or its creditors who have patiently cooperated as the company has tried to reinvent itself," said Douglas Pahl, a partner at Perkins Coie LLP and attorney for the airline's unsecured creditors. "This is further evidence of the difficulties facing those attempting to service rural, underserved communities."
Employees would be paid through Tuesday, Pahl said.
In a statement posted on its Facebook page, the company said customers with tickets for future flights can apply for a refund through their credit card company.
"This is a very sad day for our employees, shareholders, and the communities we serve," SeaPort President Tim Sieber said in the statement. I would like extend my heartfelt appreciation to the employee team that I have been honored to lead and who delivered industry leading operational performance. While we made great strides, a successful financial reorganization did not appear possible and we were forced to make the difficult |
mental sketch pad" in the absence of stimuli from an action-based task.
The researchers had previously found that in young brains, nerve cells in the prefrontal cortex excite each other to keep working memories on the brain's slate.
"Those connections depend on the neurochemical environment, [which] has to be just right, like Goldilocks," she said.
But when people get into their 40s and 50s, that part of the brain begins to accumulate too much of a signaling molecule called cAMP, which can stop the cells from firing as efficiently—leading to forgetfulness and distractedness.
The number of seniors in the United States will likely double by 2050, and many of them will struggle to cope with the frenetic information age, according to the study.
Monkey See, Monkey Remember
For their study, Arnsten and colleagues spent years training six rhesus macaques of various ages how to play simple video games that require the use of working memory.
"The youngsters do it great for a long time—they're just like humans," she said.
Once the monkeys had mastered the task, the team made recordings of single neurons firing using a tiny fiber inserted painlessly into the brain—a first in any elderly living animal.
Not surprisingly, the team found that the younger animals' neurons fired often during periods when there were no stimuli. Neurons in the older animals tended to be less active during the same periods, according to the study, to be published tomorrow in the journal Nature.
But when the team administered certain drugs to the older animals via the fibers—including a chemical called guanfacine—the chemicals blocked the cAMP pathways and revved up neural activity.
Memory-Boosting Drug in the Works?
Guanfacine is currently an ingredient in a drug used to treat high-blood pressure in adults. The chemical is also in separate clinical trials to see if it improves working memory in the elderly.
Arnsten added that she and her team led previous studies showing that the drug improved working memory in monkeys, and those results have been repeated by other groups in both monkeys and humans.
She cautions that even if the drug is approved as a brain booster, it's too early to say how much memory improvement a person could expect—"we can't say it [would] bring you back to being a 30-year-old," she said.
Meanwhile, neuroscientist James L. McGaugh, who was not part of the study team, says that the previous studies "did not, as I understand it, provide evidence that the enhanced performance was directly associated with'restored firing' of the neurons. That was an implication."
Importantly, the evidence of enhanced working memory from the previous studies comes from different methods for administering the drugs than those used in the new study, said McGaugh, a fellow at the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine.
And for the new experiment, in which the drugs were delivered directly to the brain, the team didn't show conclusively whether monkeys' working memory got better after treatment—though past studies have shown a link.
Thus, it's still an "open question" whether more nerve cell activity actually caused memory improvements, McGaugh said.
"This is not to question the importance of the findings—just the missing piece of information as I understand their experiments."
Paul Aisen, a neuroscientist and director of the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study at the University of California, San Diego, said the study is "another incremental advance" from a strong group of scientists, but it's "uncertain whether this will have implications for treatment for humans."
That's because "measuring... firing at the level of a single cell, a neuron, is difficult to extend to human behavior, which is highly complex."
"It's not so much that a monkey is not a human—it's that this kind of single-cell recording is a very isolated aspect of brain function."
Are Brain Boosters Needed?
A bigger question, Aisen added, is whether age-related memory decline really needs drug treatment.
"In the absence of a disease such as Alzheimer's, people [compensate] quite well despite the decline in memory," he said. For example, some elderly people combat forgetfulness by simply writing things down.
But study leader Arnsten argues that the fight against cognitive decline is still crucial for many otherwise healthy people.
"These abilities are critical for managing one's finances, for being able to manage one's medical treatment, and [to] live independently."Stewart Lawrence | Stewart J. Lawrence is a Washington, D.C.-based public policy analyst who writes frequently on immigration and Latino affairs. He is also founder and managing director of Puentes & Associates, Inc., a bilingual survey research and communications firm.
When Hillary Clinton began a campaign speech on Labor Day last week with a two-minute coughing fit, the incident seemed to confirm what many critics have been saying for months about the former First Lady: She’s not well.
But instead of an honest on-air discussion about the Democratic candidate’s health status, nervous MSNBC reporters began circling the wagons, suggesting that Clinton’s heavy campaigning and the stress of the race were beginning to “take their toll.”
Never mind that Clinton had just come off a week’s vacation punctuated by low-impact fundraisers in the Hamptons with fawning admirers like Cher and Bon Jovi. She was hardly in stress mode. In fact, until that speech in Cleveland, she hadn’t made a real campaign appearance in weeks.
And it wasn’t her first coughing fit. Even longer ones have interrupted public appearances from New York to Reno. Some have lasted close to four minutes. Generally, her defenders shrug these off as a bag case of pollen – or just a cold.
Clinton’s media lap dogs are clearly intent on protecting their political darling. Editorialists in all the major newspapers have railed against Hillary’s health critics, calling them “conspiracy theorists.” (One columnist even compared them to “birthers”). Apparently, these labels apply to anyone – conservative or not — who has the temerity to suggest that Clinton should be held to the same standard John McCain was in 2008, when Democrats demanded that the 70-year old skin cancer sufferer release his full medical records. McCain did, of course, and passed with flying colors.
Just how high are the stakes? Consider this: A columnist at the uber-liberal Huffington Post who dared to raise issues about Hillary’s health was terminated and two of his previously published columns unrelated to the issue were pulled down as an added punishment for speaking out.
Even worse was the case of Dr. Drew, the popular radio host, who said on-air that he saw mounting evidence of Clinton’s health problems. After reviewing a portion of her medical records, he also expressed astonishment at the quality of medical care she was receiving, calling it “1950s era.”
When Drew’s comments hit the Internet, just when the Clintons thought they had nipped the entire issue in the bud, corporate reaction was swift. Drew’s open-ended contract, which had already lasted five years, was summarily fired with no official explanation.
The extremes to which opinion writers will go to try to protect Clinton are truly mind-boggling. In a recent opinion, Washington Post columnist Chris Cillizza gamely tried to distinguish the McCain medical controversy from Clinton’s, suggesting that McCain’s history of skin cancer was real and documented, while future threats to Clinton were merely “presumed.”
Cillizza’s argument is patently absurd. Clinton’s own doctors described her brain clot in 2012 as “life-threatening” and openly suggested the likelihood of future episodes, as well as complications from the clot. This is hardly idle speculation. Assuming that McCain was susceptive to major cancer probably was.
Blatant partisanship aside, the public clearly has a right to know whether Clinton — and Trump, for that matter — might be concealing conditions that could limit their efficacy. Right now, all we have to go on is a short letter from Clinton’s doctor attesting to her good health. Trump has a letter, too. Private physicians are paid by their clients to represent them in a manner that their clients see fit. That means neither of these letters can be considered dispositive.
Trump has agreed to release his medical records and says he expects Clinton to do the same. Maybe that will place added pressure on Clinton to relent, but don’t count on it.
Trump, of course, has yet to release his tax records, and probably won’t. Clinton has released her tax records and Trump’s failure to do so would seem to undermine his demands for greater transparency from Clinton.
But we the public don’t have to play this tit-for-tat game. Ronald Reagan suffered from Alzheimer’s while in office and many people at the time were aware of his memory impairment. Might his condition have affected his judgment during Iran-contra scandal, when he literally seemed not to remember whether he had approved the illicit arms transfer?
Clinton recently told FBI chief James Comey that she couldn’t remember some of her earlier decisions regarding her email server, and Comey, it appears, believed her. Clinton’s own top aide, Huma Abedin, the “body woman” who never leaves her side, has confided to third-parties that her boss is “often confused.”
Who needs to try to figure out from You Tube videos – or the latest incident during the 9/11 celebration — whether Hillary has Parkinson’s or some other serious disease? The stakes in this election – and the security threats facing the country — are simply too high.
Clinton and Trump need to release their full medical records and independent experts should be allowed to examine them.Antawn Jamison has never been to the conference finals. He’s been open about his desire to get there. In the last two offseasons, Jamison has signed a pair of relatively cheap contracts in hopes of advancing deep into the NBA playoffs. Last season he went to the Lakers, and that didn’t work out. This season he moves across the hall to the Clippers. If it’s true that Jamison just wants to end his career playing for a competitor, this move could easily be read as the latest sign of an ongoing power shift within Staples Center.
Jamison had an awful season last year. He publicly disagreed with coach Mike D’Antoni over his playing time and put up the lowest numbers of his career in several categories, including points, rebounds, and assists. To add injury to insult, Jamison hurt his wrist in late March and was forced to play the remainder of the season in pain.
It’s hard to judge what Jamison is bringing to the Clippers. On one hand, his poor performance last season could be blamed on that infamously rigid D’Antoni “system” that’s unable to accommodate “unusual” basketball talents like Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, and Pau Gasol. On the other hand, maybe Jamison is just old and past his prime. He is 37 and made his NBA debut last century. He’s had a productive career, but there’s no question his best years are gone now.
As a scorer, Jamison is much less aggressive than he used to be, which is typical of aging NBA players. Last season, more than 40 percent of his shots came from beyond the arc. During his recent run in Cleveland, that number was only 27 percent. Furthermore, Jamison also set a career-low in field goal attempts per 40 minutes last season. Although his overall field goal percentage spiked last season with the Lakers, this has more to do with his shooting fewer 2-point jumpers than it does with any improvement in his shooting accuracy. In fact, Jamison hardly shot any long 2s last year — he attempted only 1.3 per 40 minutes, down from 4.9 only one year before, a stunning depletion.
The bottom line is that the current incarnation of Jamison is pretty much a 3-and-D guy without the D. His shot chart resembles that of Shane Battier or Martell Webster, with lots of distance shooting and activity close to the basket, while the midrange cupboard is bare — something that has never been the case with him.
While skeptics clearly have enough ammunition to downplay Jamison’s potential impact in Clipperland, Clips fans can still be hopeful that he can make a meaningful bench contribution to his new team. It’s fair to assume that he will be happier with Doc Rivers than he was with Mike D’Antoni, and it’s probably also fair to imagine he’ll find a more compatible role with the Clippers as well.In 1969, a brave 14-year-old boy named Jerry Levitan armed with a tape-deck snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and charmed the legend into doing an interview about peace, music, the USA, life and the Bee Gees. Thirty-nine years later, Levitan offered the interview to the world.
Only he did it brilliantly.
I Met The Walrus is an animated short, in which Lennon’s original voiceover comes to life through wonderful pen animation by the tremendously talented James Braithwaite.
Listen to Lennon’s detached yet passionate musings on politics, human nature and marijuana. And appreciate the irony of how true some of what he said 39 years ago rings today.
It’s up to the people. You can’t blame it on the government and say, ‘Oh, they’re doing this, they’re doing that, oh, they’re gonna put is us into war.’ We put ’em there. We allow it. And we can change it. If we really wanna change it, we can change it.” ~ John Lennon
*** UPDATE ***
Levitan’s once-in-a-lifetime Lennon adventure is now available in book form, as the wonderful I Met the Walrus: How One Day with John Lennon Changed My Life Forever — a priceless first-hand recollection of the unusual encounter. It features Jerry’s memorabilia from the day — notes from John and Yoko, the secret code to contact him, drawings, John’s doodles and more — as well as the animated film and the original audio interview. It is, as we certainly don’t need to point out, a cultural treasure and a Lennonphiliac must-have.It's a good thing for Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper that he's been out of the country.
Last weekend, in an apparent attempt to distance himself from whatever was about to emerge at the trial of disgraced Senator Mike Duffy, the Conservative leader took off for Iraq and Kuwait.
He ostensibly made the surprise trip to bolster the troops there who are training Kurdish fighters. However, to more cynical political observers, the visit was a blatant attempt to win back military support after last year's brutal budget cuts to veterans services and benefits. But really? It was all about the photo ops, the stage-managed appearances before the red maple leaf blazing behind fighter jets carefully arranged nose-to-nose just so.
All of which gave credence to Liberal leader Justin Trudeau's flip remark during last fall's parliamentary debate on the mission: that Harper was just "trying to whip out our CF-18s and show [ISIL] how big they are".
Promotional reports
But Harper ended up being shot down. That's because his personal video entourage, who produce promotional reports called "24 Seven" at the taxpayers' expense, took images that revealed the troops' faces. That despite the prime minister's office (PMO) receiving at least two separate briefings on security measures prohibiting exactly that.
Still, the government claimed that the two videos it had posted on Harper's webpage had been vetted by the defence department - except that they hadn't. Nobody in the Canadian Armed Forces had ever previewed them. And so, the videos were vapourised, the government was embarrassed and a PMO spokesperson apologised.
Then there was the case of Omar Khadr, the Canadian-born man captured at age 15 in Afghanistan and imprisoned for nearly half his life at Guantanamo Bay. In 2012, he was finally repatriated to Canada after pleading guilty in 2010 before a US military tribunal to five war crimes. Sentenced to eight years to be served in Canada, he won bail late last month in an Alberta court.
Khadr's appearance put the lie to the Harper government myth of the cut-throat, murderous terrorist, the political football they kick around as they play to their base in their terrorists-under-every-bed tactics.
The Harper government, which trots out Khadr as the very scary model of a terrorist, going so far as to bar media access to him, did everything it could to fight his release - as expected. It announced an appeal of the bail decision and then, when it seemed that the proceedings couldn't be stopped, tried for a stay.
But, on Thursday, Khadr won his freedom on strict conditions and emerged before a horde of reporters. Social media exploded with Canadians' overwhelmingly favourable reactions to his charisma and humble demeanour, with many remarking on how Khadr's appearance put the lie to the Harper government myth of the cut-throat, murderous terrorist, the political football they kick around as they play to their base in their terrorists-under-every-bed tactics.
The week grew worse still.
Damaging revelations
Damaging evidence was being produced in the Ottawa courtroom where Duffy, a former Canadian TV star, is facing 31 charges of bribery, breach of trust and fraud related to his living and travel expenses.
Conservative MPs were called to testify that taxpayers were subsidising party fundraising efforts by flying Duffy around the country. Even more detrimental to the PMO were revelations of emails exchanged between Harper's most trusted senate appointees and his top staffers documenting attempts to alter an audit report and conceal its findings.
"This is pure Richard Nixon," charged opposition leader Tom Mulcair of the New Democratic Party (NDP). "The cover up was orchestrated in the Prime Minister's Office."
To those following the trial, it now seems most unlikely that Harper can continue to profess ignorance of the goings-on in his own party, not to mention his office, related to the Duffy scandal.
Probably the week's most stinging blow came from Harper's home province of Alberta where, on Tuesday, in a stunning election upset, the provincial NDP won a majority, toppling a 44-year reign by the Conservatives.
Only winning an international hockey game would make Canadians more jubilant than they were on Twitter on Tuesday night. The "Orange Crush", named for the NDP colours, had rolled over tar sands country, hard hit by the tanking price of oil, right in the Harper heartland.
'Albertastan'
Resource sector shares immediately dropped. Newly elected premier Rachel Notley had promised to terminate government support for the Northern Gateway pipeline to the British Columbia coast, and the Keystone XL pipeline to the Texas Gulf coast, two projects that have been the centrepiece of the Harper government's economic strategy. She also discussed raising the royalties that resource companies pay to the public treasury, royalties that are reportedly the lowest in the world.
In the aftermath, while Harper was not yet back from celebrating VE Day in Holland, federal Justice Minister Peter MacKay emerged from the Conservative caucus room in Ottawa to a media scrum.
Asked what the mood inside was like, he replied: "It was more like a morgue. Someone said it was like - it's Albertastan now."
Whether an NDP win in Alberta signals a Conservative defeat in Canada is fodder for the analysts. But the immediate question is, how will Harper recover from the week's setbacks - and how many more will spin off from them?
When the prime minister returns from his travels, he may find that the political chickens have come home to roost.
Antonia Zerbisias is an award-winning Canadian journalist. She has been a reporter and TV host for the Toronto Star, the CBC, as well as the Montreal correspondent for Variety trade paper.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.Consumers could wind up with many more choices about what they watch on TV and how they pay for it, given sweeping new proposals from the country’s broadcast regulator announced Thursday. According to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s “Let’s Talk TV” draft paper, Canadian TV could change drastically, from the cost of basic TV programming being capped at $20 to $30 monthly, to American Super Bowl ads being aired north of the border.
The CRTC is proposing a new pick-and-pay plan be made available to Canadian television consumers as one option to the current system used by providers like Rogers that pre-package channels in a bundle. ( Colin McConnell / Toronto Star file photo )
“The way of watching TV is morphing. It’s evolving with time and we don’t want to be stuck in a regulatory framework; we want to adapt to how Canadians are consuming TV in the new reality,” said CRTC spokeswoman Patricia Valladao. “We want that to change with them. Everything is on the table for discussion.” The document, produced after consultations with industry and more than 10,000 public online comments, is meant to focus a public hearing taking place in Quebec from Sept. 8 to Sept. 19 that will explore the future regulation of the Canadian television system. The paper states it is “intended only to provide parties with a possible model and to stimulate discussion and debate.” The CRTC aims to make regulatory changes by December 2015.
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According to the paper, the commission could require broadcasters to offer a basic service made up primarily of local Canadian channels, to which users could add individual channels in a pick-and-pay structure.
What do you think?
“I think that’s positive. Where I say they could have gone a bit further is with their proposal to include all local Canadian channels, including channels not taxpayer supported, such as the big telecom channels City TV and CTV,” said David Christopher, spokesman for Internet freedom advocacy group OpenMedia.ca. “Perhaps they could have gone a bit further with flexibility there and simply said the basic package needs to include CBC, APTN and a few other taxpayer-supported channels and then perhaps let people pick and chose whether they really want to get City TV or CTV.” One consumer group says the CRTC hasn’t gone far enough and should allow Canadians a “pure choice.” “What store do you walk into, or anywhere else, where you’re told you’ve got to buy certain things before you can buy what you want?” said Bruce Cran, president of the Consumers’ Association of Canada.
Consumers should be allowed to buy TV channels one at a time, without having to pay for a basic service, no matter how pared down, he said. “It makes absolutely no sense as far as the consumers’ point of view.”
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Still, Cran said he understands the CRTC has a mandate under the Broadcasting Act to ensure a certain amount of Canadian content, and that programming is delivered that reflects “Canadians to Canadians.” Under the CRTC proposal, viewers could also chose from build-your-own channel packages, or continue to buy the pre-assembled packages currently on the market. And they would no longer have to seek out American Super Bowl commercials online, since simultaneous substitutions would no longer be allowed. “Every time there is a Super Bowl game, people come to us and we have to clarify. There is a fact sheet on the website to explain it’s not us. We don’t force them to do that. They have to do that because of the benefits of having local advertising in big games,” said Valladao. For the first time, broadcasters could be allowed to count what they spend on original programming produced for the Internet toward what they are required to spend on Canadian programming. According to the draft, this would encourage broadcasters to make more Canadian content online. And it proposes allowing television stations and networks to count revenues from online or other delivery platforms toward their overall revenue base. At the same time, the commission is considering allowing local TV stations to shut down their transmitters — a move that might not go over well with consumers who prefer to get TV programming over the air. Canadians, especially members of multicultural communities, would have access to more ethnic and third-language programming, with the elimination of the requirement that consumers must first subscribe to Fairchild TV, Telelatino, Talentvision, Asian Television Network or Odyssey if they want to subscribe to any other Canadian or non-Canadian channel in the same language. Christopher is disappointed that the changes won’t come into force until December 2015. “Given that this consultation has already been running all year, it seems like a long lead-in time before Canadians can actually benefit from some of these changes,” he said. “You have to get the broadcasters to comply. To make the changes that are necessary, you have to give them time,” said Valladao. The CRTC is accepting online comments and suggestions until the last day of the hearings. With files from The Canadian Press
Read more about:When Mercedes-Benz starts selling self-driving cars, it will choose to prioritize driver safety over pedestrians, a company manager has confirmed. The ethical conundrum of how A.I.-powered machines should act in life-or-death situations has received more scrutiny as driverless cars become a reality, but the car manufacturer believes that it’s safer to save the life you have greater control over.
“You could sacrifice the car. You could, but then the people you’ve saved initially, you don’t know what happens to them after that in situations that are often very complex, so you save the ones you know you can save,” Christoph von Hugo, Mercedes’s manager of driver assistance systems, told Car and Driver in an interview published last week. “If you know you can save at least one person, at least save that one. Save the one in the car.”
However, Hugo went on to say that the whole discussion may become moot. Computer-driven cars will be able to react in ways that human drivers will not be able to handle. Besides, most of the time the car will prioritize not crashing in the first place.
“This moral question of whom to save: 99 percent of our engineering work is to prevent these situations from happening at all,” Hugo said. “We are working so our cars don’t drive into situations where that could happen and [will] drive away from potential situations where those decisions have to be made.”
It’s not clear whether Mercedes will run afoul of future car regulations. Germany has outlined three rules that it expects manufacturers to abide by: property damage always takes precedence over personal injury, the car cannot classify people based on age and other attributes, and the manufacturer is always liable. As these rules are fleshed out, German officials could be forced to clarify whether manufacturers are allowed to prioritize the driver.
Mercedes has big plans for the self-driving future. Alongside cars, the company has previewed a driverless bus that could revolutionize public transportation. The bus drove nearly 13 miles in the streets of Amsterdam in June, giving the company a big boost to its future driverless prospects.
Watch a preview of Mercedes-Benz’s self-driving concept car, the F 015, here:No-one in France's business sector believes populist presidential candidate Marine Le Pen will win the presidency in the upcoming general election, the chief executive of France's Publicis group told CNBC Tuesday.
"No-one in business really believes, at least in France, that Marine Le Pen will make it," Maurice Levy, chief executive of Publicis, told CNBC on Tuesday.
Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigration National Front party, has promised to renegotiate the terms of France's membership of the European Union if elected president, though her chances of success appear limited.
"Clearly she is leading in the first round but if you look at history and what has been the case (for) many years there is no chance that she is getting elected," Levy added.
Elections for the new French president are due to take place in a two-round process beginning in April and ending in May.
Levy, who is due to step down in June, was speaking with CNBC on Tuesday ahead of the group's Viva Tech event which is aiming to become the largest tech event in Europe. The chief executive stressed France has been the number one country on the continent in terms of supporting tech start-up companies and expected around 5,000 start-ups to attend this year.
The world's third largest advertising group reported weaker than expected underlying sales in the final three months of 2016 on February 9. Publicis had cited a challenging calendar year that led to a write-down to part of its digital business as a key factor in the earnings result.Somewhere toward the beginning of a career as a published author, many of us are asked by our new publicist how comfortable we are on social media and whether we have, or would be interested in, an active account on Facebook, Twitter, or any of the other big social sites out there. It's a pretty important question, because (and this is something that won't necessarily be spelled out for you right off the bat), an author's presence on the internet may end up being the majority of the public marketing for his or her books.
Finding out the size of the marketing budget (hint: it's probably not much) for your books is one of those big wake-up calls as a new author. Not that they'll tell you in so many words—you'll just get the gist of it eventually. But don't worry! No one else out there (except the million-dollar advance people) is getting much more. Publishers don't have the cash these days to buoy the mid-list authors, and our publicity teams have very strict instructions on where to put the little money they have. So it's sink or swim to everyone who just found themselves in the deep end.
This means that you can either let the book go on its own merit and trust to luck that it'll take off, or you can wade into the internet looking for soap boxes from which to tout your new novel.
Let's talk about the first problem with self-promotion: most of us find it distasteful. From the reader's perspective it feels like just one more person trying to sell us something and seriously aren't we already being bombarded by that on a daily basis? It's annoying. Many readers have the misconception that authors tend to be wealthy people (they're not), which makes being sold to by them even more annoying. There are also a number of readers who think that writing is art and that all artists should do art for art-sake and not for money, which is an elitist, idiotic opinion I won't say any more about because it makes my ears bleed.
It's easy to forget that self-promo is just as awkward, or even more so, for the author themselves. You, the reader, will dismiss a tweet from an author with an Amazon buy link in it in as little time as it takes for the signal to travel from your eyes to your brain. But that author just spent fifteen minutes composing and rewriting that tweet, wringing their hands over the idea that someone will be annoyed by it and unfollow. "Am I being too much of a bother with this self-promotion" is a genuine anxiety-causing question for many authors.
I wrestled with the self-doubt over self-promotion for a very long time (and I still do sometimes) after I got involved with social media as an author. I worried that I'd lose followers each time I mentioned my books. The anxiety didn't stop until I realized that https://twitter.com/BrianTMcClellan is my area, filled with content created by me. If someone wants to follow me to see recipes or pictures of castles or my cat or whatever else I put up there, the cost of that free content is to see me tweet about my books. If they don't like it, then they don't have to follow me. We go our separate ways and nobody's feelings are hurt! This applies to all social media to a greater or lesser extent than Twitter, but you get the idea.
Once authors get over the psychological aspect of self-promotion they have to move on to the next big problem: where do they focus their time? There are a slew of free things an author can do to promote themselves; guest blogs, social media, blogger interviews, being active on large forums, etc.
For Promise of Blood, I said yes to just about everything I could get my hands on, big and small. I must have done a dozen interviews, as many guest blog posts, an AMA on Reddit, and a number of other things that I've since forgotten, all of which added up to the equivalent of a full work week (or more), not including all the time I spent on social media to promote all said projects. That's a lot of hours! So was any of it effective?
I have no idea. Nobody knows! I'll let that sink in for a moment. Terrifying, right?
Super terrifying.
All that work was exhausting and burnt me out so much that for Crimson Campaign I did only a fraction the amount of online self-promotion. Crimson Campaign had a great launch, so again, I had no idea whether it could have been better with more work or would have been worse without the little I did.
There's a theory with all this internet promotion that surely it must do some good because everyone does it. I'm sure you can see the flaw in that logic pretty quick. There's another theory that surely it must do some good because, from a marketing perspective, getting your product in front of new eyes is the only way to actually sell it and, despite the glut of content and over-saturation of advertising on the internet, there's always someone who will pay attention and those are the people who will pick up your book on the whim and then tell their friends and maybe one day, half a dozen new novels from now, you'll hit the New York Times List and yay!
That last sentence made me tired just writing it. But it's the theory that publicists and many authors hold to because it's the best they have.
Autumn Republic, my latest book, came out just last week which is why all this stuff is on my mind. I decided to spend an amount of time on promotion somewhere between what I spent on Promise of Blood and what I spent on Crimson Campaign. I set up guest posts on Tor.com, Terribleminds, and Whatever, three websites that I knew get a ton of hits every day. I set up an interview with Sword and Laser because they're awesome people and they have a huge audience. I had to ignore many of the smaller blogs and podcasts I've done before because frankly, I didn't have the time or mental or emotional energy to do anything that would not pay for itself in sales.
Not that I know if those posts and interviews did pay for themselves in sales. All I can do is examine the data: how many readers do they get each day? How many hits did the buy links at the bottom of the page get? How many comments did my post receive? Were those posts positive or negative? Did the posts get much traction on social media? And even if I know the exact answers to all these questions, I won't know whether the effort sold any books. I can only hope that the one commenter who said they rushed out to buy my book was not, in fact, a bold-faced liar, but instead representative of a hundred other people who did not comment.
If this is all sounding incredibly uncertain and maybe a tad depressing that just means you've been paying attention.
So I guess the next question is, for many authors, should they even bother? Before reading the previous two pages of information I'm sure most of you business-minded folks would have said "of course!" Now that you have read it, there's probably at least a niggle of doubt.
As far as social media is concerned, I don't think an author should do it unless they enjoy it. For one, because as this recent article from The Atlantic tells us, Twitter may be essentially useless for driving traffic. But also because people, even over the internet, will be able to tell if someone is just there to sell them something and for no other reason. I hang out on Twitter because I enjoy bantering with my author friends and musing about cake. Because I'm already there, I post buy links and updated information about my authorial activity. Same goes for Facebook (though I use it mostly to keep track of family and real-life friends). I've gotten to have a reasonable presence over on /r/fantasy and I do that because I genuinely enjoy the community and have fun commenting from time to time. I do consider taking the extra time to respond to and interact with fans on all these platforms an extension of my work week, but again, if I wasn't finding it all rewarding and enjoyable I would stop.
As a side note, I've found on social media and in forum communities that being a generally likeable, self-aware person can sometimes be the quickest way to sell a book. I like to tell new authors that people don't mind if you haunt these corners of the web with the intent on selling books as long as you don't look like you're trying to sell books.
It's harder to say whether or not an author should bother with all the guest posts and the interviews. Some authors can write a guest post in an hour, while others take days, and with few exceptions no one is paying us directly for that content. I have no doubt that I've expanded my audience by getting people to take the chance on books because of my guest posts, but I have no idea how many times that's happened. Maybe one or two of you that reads this post will think all of this is very reasonable and decide to check out the Powder Mage Trilogy.
Or maybe you won't.
Regardless of all of this, self-promotion has become an integral part of the average author's work week. Mileage varies depending on the author and their ambition (do you want to chase down an interview in a local paper or NPR show?), but from the mega-bestsellers like GRRM going on late night TV all the way down to the brand new, small-advance author tweeting about their book to forty-six followers, it is an exercise that most authors get caught up in to some degree or another. And they have to decide exactly how much mental, emotional, and physical effort they put into it without ever knowing what they'll get back.This article is over 7 years old
• Swiss club say Fifa threat is unacceptable blackmail • Fifa has threatened to suspend Switzerland from world football
The Swiss club Sion have announced that they have filed a criminal complaint against members of Fifa's executive committee over its threat to suspend Switzerland from world football.
Sion said on their website that the threat made on 17 December by football's ruling body amounts to unacceptable blackmail and a breach of basic legal rules.
Fifa said it wanted the Swiss national association to discipline Sion within one month over a long-running legal battle.
Sion are contesting their expulsion from the Europa League in September for fielding players signed during a Fifa transfer ban imposed in 2009.
If the suspension takes effect, Basel would be prevented from playing Bayern Munich in the Champions League round of 16. The first leg is scheduled for 22 February.
Basel knocked Manchester United out of the Champions League at the group stage, leading to suggestions that the English champions may be reinstated in the competition, though Uefa, the European governing body, has refused to comment.The CrushTheStreet Staff Is Consistently Researching The Most Important Investment Research. Our Goal Is To Magnify Your Financial Education At These Critical Times. Gain Immediate Access To Our Wide-Range of Top-Conviction Reports HERE!
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.’s Corey Bellemore once again broke the world record for the beer mile, completing the ordeal in 4:33.6. It breaks a previous world record, also held by Bellemore, of 4:35.35, which he set in the U.K. in July, 2016.
The Canadian’s time is so fast that it comes close to rivalling the record that once stood for running a beerless mile. In the 1850s, Englishman Thomas Horspool briefly claimed the title of world’s fastest mile runner with a time of 4:29.
Bellemore’s beer mile is also faster than the women’s mile record that stood for much of the 20th century. Only in 1973 did Italian sprinter Paola Pigni bring the women’s world record down to 4:29.5. It now stands at 4:12.56., a record set by Russia’s Svetlana Masterkova.
A proper beer mile consists of four quarter mile laps of a track, each of them preceded by the downing of a beer. The clock is running throughout, so the able beer miler is judged partly on the quickness of their drinking.
They must also avoid vomiting, which necessitates a penalty lap.
While beer miling may have once been the domain of potbellied weekenders, it has now been taken over by legitimate runners eager to master the gastrointestinal challenges of mixing vigorous exercise with carbonated alcohol.
Bellemore, for one, can normally be seen running for Canada at alcohol-free events such as the recent Francophone Games in Cote d’Ivoire. His personal record for a beerless mile is 4.01, although as he told the National Post “we don’t do many miles in Canada.”
His new beer mile record was set Saturday night at San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium during halftime at a San Francisco Deltas soccer game.
A Facebook video of the run records Bellemore’s clear dominance of the other competitors. As other runners visibly struggled to choke down their brews, the Canadian smoothly chugged his four bottles of Flying Monkeys amber ale without a twinge of discomfort.
Bellemore, who appears to be a man of few words, greeted the victory by addressing the cheering San Francisco crowd with a soft-spoken “thanks a lot to everyone.”
It’s all about having fun 🤘🏽 — Corey Bellemore (@CoreyBellemore) October 30, 2017
Irish runner Cathal Dennehy was in Saturday’s race with Bellemore, and in a subsequent article for Runner’s World described feeling his body shut down by the onslaught of foamy beer.
“Breaths became shorter, more frantic, the need for oxygen in the muscles now greater than before,” he wrote.
In a clear illustration of Canada’s relative supremacy in beer miling, Dennehy came in 52 seconds behind Bellemore and still managed to snag the Irish world record for a beer mile.
“Despite my nation’s long and proud tradition in both miling and drinking, it was apparently the fastest ever by an Irishman,” wrote Dennehy.
One of Bellemore’s secrets is that he runs with a bottle opener, thus allowing him to save precious fractions of a second with a well-rehearsed flick of the cap. All it takes is a second of cap-fumbling, and the record is lost.
“Honestly, it’s just about getting it down as quickly as you can, continuing to move in the chug zone, get out the carbonated burps and keep your laps fast” he told the National Post by email.
“All I am thinking about during a beer mile are those simple things.. run fast, chug fast, burp and breathe.”
BeerMile.com is the globally recognized arbiter for beer mile records. Of the top ten titleholders for the men’s beer mile, four are Canadians. The others comprise three Americans, two Australians and a Brit.
In the women’s category, however, the sport has been seized by the U.S. American women occupy the top four spaces for the beer mile, with North Vancouver triathloner Kirsty Jahn in fifth place with a time of 6:38.38.
• Twitter: TristinHopper | Email: thopper@nationalpost.com“This is a significant conversation, my friend... ” says a voice identified as that of Ontario Liberal Party fixer Gerry Lougheed, speaking to wannabe Sudbury Liberal MPP byelection candidate Andrew Olivier. And it is a significant conversation, or it should be.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne poses with Sudbury Liberal candidate Andrew Olivier during the 2014 provincial election. Olivier was beat by the NDP's Joe Cimino, who resigned in November.
“I come here on behalf of the premier,” Lougheed says, going on to ask Olivier to step aside to allow local former NDP MP Glenn Thibeault to win the nomination by acclamation. “The premier wants to talk to you. They would like to present to you options, in terms of appointments, jobs, whatever. That you and her and [the premier’s deputy chief of staff] Pat Sorbara can talk about.” This recording, released by Olivier and now under investigation by the OPP and elections officials, seems to me to pretty straightforwardly capture Olivier being offered an inducement to step aside, which is a direct contravention of election laws. The Liberal party has denied that interpretation. Back to the tape: “If you say fine, I’m going to go along with this because it’s the right thing for the premier and the party, but in turn I have to be guaranteed a future in what’s going on, I think they should give that to you,” Lougheed says. Then later, “What’s in it for you?... If you take the high road on this, what is your reward? They say Andrew Olivier took a bullet for us, so what do we give to Andrew Olivier?”
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There may be facts not apparent to us that somehow make this conversation something other than it appears to be, but what it appears to be is pretty straightforward: a quid being offered directly pro quo, what I would call a bribe. Indeed, as the police investigating the matter write in the information they filed in a warrant application, the use of the premier’s name in such a conversation “threatens the appearance of the government’s integrity.” Yep. Lougheed appears then to offer his advice on how to effectively solicit a good inducement from the premier, even as Olivier insists he’s still leaning towards running. “You need to say... What’s in it for me? Politically, what’s in it for me? In my long term, short term, is there an appointment, are you going to let me head up a commission? What are you giving me to step down that is worthwhile? Otherwise, guess what, I’m going to go sell memberships and see what my chances are.” A subsequent conversation with Sorbara was also captured on tape and is also part of the OPP’s investigation. In the end, as we all know, Olivier ran as an independent and lost on Feb. 6, while Thibeault won the riding. Justin Ling, an Ottawa reporter for Vice who often covers federal politics, recently wrote about the tapes and then remarked on Twitter, “This is the sort of thing that should be a huge friggin’ deal. How is it not?”
Sure, the OPP is investigating and we’ll eventually sort out some degree of criminal guilt or innocence, but on the face of it the scandal doesn’t seem to have rocked the public consciousness. The Liberals won despite the investigation. The public debates beer store options and rumours of a carbon tax with more enthusiasm than this allegation of a major ethics breech staring us in the face. Indeed, the Lougheed-Olivier conversation is like dialogue from House of Cards, confirming our worst suspicions of how our political class approaches elections and the task of governing. What’s in it for me? What are you giving me? I suspect the answer Ling’s question is that it is not received as a bigger deal precisely because we suspect this is routine. Everybody knows the fight is fixed, that’s how it goes.
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Former Ottawa parliamentary secretary Dean Del Mastro is not just charged but convicted of election fraud, and while he faces a possible jail sentence, his party remains competitive in the polls — even after robocalls and a Senate scandal seemed to confirm a pattern of integrity violations. Toronto Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti was reprimanded by city council over an improper fundraiser that appeared to funnel money into his own pocket, and then was found guilty by a court of violating election spending laws, but he remains in office — re-elected by a comfortable margin. Integrity laws? Bald-faced perversions of our very democratic process? Ho-hum. If our failure to be shocked isn’t exactly shocking, it may be ultimately more disturbing than the specific allegations themselves. For if we no longer consider the laws that govern how we govern ourselves inviolable, if we accept that the rules are there to be broken with a wink and a nudge and all’s fair for those who don’t get caught, then our democracy itself is severely broken. Government by the people depends on a belief that the system runs fairly, even if it runs imperfectly. Respect for the rule of law demands our faith that lawmakers are bound by the laws. If the public grows so alienated and cynical that it no longer expects integrity in government, then democracy itself is undermined. Nothing will warp the system faster than the widespread understanding — and acceptance — that the system is already warped. Does that sound hopelessly naïve? I suspect it does: a further symptom of the corrosion we’re talking about. We should pay close attention to the OPP investigation in Sudbury. A lot more than a single nomination is at stake in cases such as these. As Lougheed’s voice on the tape says, this is a significant conversation.
Read more about:With Breeze, regular Bitcoin users will experience what the 1MB block size limit really means the first time
nopara73 Blocked Unblock Follow Following Mar 16, 2017
I decided to write the lightest Bitcoin wallet that can provide the same level of privacy as Bitcoin Core, or more generally a full node. The vast majority of Bitcoin users don’t understand how using a full node as a personal wallet is crucial to preserve one’s privacy, Core doesn’t even have a built-in mixer, right?
Why am I doing this?
Before I’d get into anyting I’d note that I suspect a regular Bitcoin user doesn’t run a full node and cares a about his/her privacy. And this is why I think what I’m working on is so important, because it dissolves this discrepancy.
Transparent Wallet
Now imagine a wallet that only uses one Bitcoin address. You send and receive money for years using only that address. How much privacy are you expecting this wallet to provide to you?
The issue is if you are not using a full node, blockchain surveillance companies and/or various third parties see almost the same when they look at your not full-node wallet, yes all your addresses are linked together. They achieve this by combining clustering strategies with network analysis. And a full node tackles the network analysis perfectly, because it doesn’t tell the network or a server what addresses and transactions it is interested in, it rather asks for all the transactions the network has and locally decides which transactions it is interested in, and no, bloom filtering sadly doesn’t make it better, either. Previously I conducted a comprehensive reasearch on the topic, what you can read here.
Full Block Downloading SPV Wallets
But we can do better than a full node, at least in the viewpoint of useability while not compromising privacy. We can build a wallet that downloads all the blocks, notes the transactions it is interested in, then throws away the rest. The obvious bottleneck of a wallet like this is the block size. In this article I will examine how performant, convenient this wallet can ideally be with the current maximum block size, without Segregated Witness, which further degrades it.
But before that I’d like to recap the current developments on these kind of wallets, since none are in existence today.
On the one hand Jonas Schnelli, is working on adding a full block SPV functionality to Bitcoin Core.
On the other hand I am working on such a wallet with the Stratis developers to create the base for TumbleBit, which is a mixer that cannot deanonymize you or steal your coins.
Today if people would be participating in a TumbleBit mix without using a full node, that not only worsen their own privacy, but their full node using peers’ too, because the anonymity set of a mix worsen with every peer that can potentially be deanonymized. Note: I am talking about the Classic Mixer mode of TumbleBit, tehere are more.
You can read more about Breeze here and about TumbleBit here.
Ideal performance of Breeze
Brace yourself, a very sloppy calculation is coming!
Initial syncronization takes as long as any SPV wallet: a few minutes. This is for downloading the headers. The wallet starts to download full blocks from the creation of the wallet, so that means 1MB every 10 minutes.
What happens if you don’t turn on your wallet for one day? How long the syncing will take ideally?
An average Bitcoin user’s internet speed might be around 4–8Mbps and there are 144 blocks a day.
This means this wallet should sync within 1 minute. A week of not using it would result 7 minutes of waiting.
Both my calculation and the future viability of this concept is debateable, however this is the only compromise if you are not able to use a full node as your personal wallet, but not willing to give up your privacy.Federally supervised cell phone alerts about national emergencies came one step closer to reality Thursday when regulators released their final rules for how mobile providers must implement the Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS).
CMAS is a voluntary system available to wireless providers that will send text out message blasts in the event of a national disaster like Hurricane Katrina, or the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Though providers are not required to join the CMAS, major providers like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint have already pledged their support.
Alerts will be available in three forms: presidential alerts; imminent threat alerts and child abduction emergency or Amber alerts.
Initial implementation of the system is not expected until at least April 2010. Providers have until October 2008 to complete a CMAS industry standard, while development and testing will be conducted from October 2008 to October 2010, the FCC said.
The system has its origins in the Warning, Alert, and Response Network (WARN) Act, a bill Congress passed in 2006 as part of a larger port security bill. It allocated $106 million to create the voluntary, national emergency alert system.
Since then, the FCC has been working with wireless carriers as part of the Commercial Service Alert Advisory Committee (CMSAAC) to develop recommendations for how to execute CMAS. The FCC adopted an initial framework for CMAS in April and adopted further rules for educational and public broadcasting stations in July.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) pledged in late May to be the federal agency in charge of sending out the alerts, but not without some controversy. FEMA initially refused to coordinate the CMAS, prompting a public tongue lashing from the FCC commissioners.
The FCC did not take on that role itself because it did not have experience with originating emergency alerts; had received federal funds for operating an emergency alert system (as FEMA has); and did not have statutory authority to borrow money against the DTV Transition Fund to implement the WARN Act, as the Departments of Homeland Security and Commerce have, Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps said in April.
So far, FEMA has no concrete plans for the CMAS, but if they do not provide the FCC with specifications about the system by December 31, 2008, the FCC will convene an emergency CMSAAC meeting to address the issue, the order said.
But what does this mean for the average cell phone user?
Though most of the major providers are currently on board to participate in CMAS, it is not a done deal, and they have the option to back out at any point.
The FCC said Thursday that providers must notify the agency within 30 days about whether or not it will participate in the CMAS. If they opt out, providers will have to notify potential and current customers that they are not participating, but the FCC left it to the provider as to how that notification should occur.
Customers of providers who opt out will not receive alerts until 60 days before the CMAS is operational, or approximately February 2010.
"We believe the relevance of this decision may be lost if notification is delivered to prospective and existing customers too far in advance of CMAS' commercial availability," according to the FCC order.
If you are a customer of a provider that opts out or signs up and then backs out, you can cancel your service without incurring a penalty or an early termination fee, the FCC said.
Similarly, if you subscribe to a service that will be provider alerts, you cannot opt out of presidential alerts, but can select not to receive "imminent threat" texts or Amber alert notifications.
As for the cost, providers are banned from imposing a "separate or additional charge" specifically for the CMAS, but they "have the discretion to absorb service-related costs" and pass those on to customers. So essentially, wireless customers will not see a separate "CMAS Fee" on their bill, but their providers reserve the right to up their monthly fees to recoup the costs associated with CMAS.A former Los Angeles police officer and self-styled preacher, has sparked outcry by suggesting that Nepalis should not rebuild their “pagan shrines” and instead convert to Christianity.
Tony Miano, an outspoken conservative who has previously been accused of homophobia, triggered angry responses when he posted a series of messages on social media, expressing sympathy for the people struck by devastation in Nepal, but suggesting God was angry.
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.
Mr Miano, who is based in California, describes himself as an open air preacher. His website says he established the Cross Encounters Ministries to provide a platform for his preaching and evangelism.
Shape Created with Sketch. Powerful earthquake hits Nepal Show all 44 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. Powerful earthquake hits Nepal 1/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Victims of the earthquake are cremated at Pashupatinah Temple in Kathmandu Getty Images 2/44 Earthquake hits Nepal An elderly woman prays at a temple in Kathmandu damaged by the earthquake AP 3/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Nepalese police push back residents who began protesting after waiting for hours in line to board buses back to towns and villages Getty 4/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A Nepalese policeman guards a collapsed building in Kathmandu. The number of people killed in the earthquake has passed 5,000 according to official figures EPA 5/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A woman stands in silence in front of the historic Bal Krishna Thapa Chhetry temple in Kathmandu, which was been damaged by the earthquake EPA 6/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Rescuers from Japan in the centre of Kathmandu; they are facing a race against time to find survivors Getty 7/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Pallets of Australian aid (blankets, tarpaulins, hygiene kits and water purification tablets) are loaded onto a No. 36 Squadron C-17A Globemaster aircraft in preparation for delivery to Nepal Getty Images 8/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Rishi Khanal is rescued after being trapped in a collapsed building in Nepal’s capital following Saturday’s earthquake Reuters 9/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Villagers shelter from rain in the Gorkha district, north-west of Kathmandu; 10 days of rain are forecast, with tens of thousands of people sleeping outdoors AFP/Getty 10/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A prayer bell is seen on top of the rubble of a damaged temple after an earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal Reuters 11/44 Earthquake hits Nepal People search through the rubble at the earthquake damaged Durbar Square in Kathmandu. Hundreds of thousands of Nepalis spent another night in the open after a massive quake which killed more than 4,000 AFP/Getty 12/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A priest prepares a fire for the cremation of an earthquake victim at Pashupati cremation center in Kathmandu, Nepal. The official death toll from the magnitude 7.8 earthquake has risen to 5,057 people EPA 13/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A Nepalese villager injured in an earthquake holds her son as they sit inside an Indian Army helicopter after being evacuated from Lapu in Gorkha AFP/Getty 14/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A satellite image showing a part of the city's historic center, left, before the 25 April 2015 earthquake and the after effects, right EPA 15/44 Earthquake hits Nepal An injured woman and her daughter receive medical treatment after arriving at Dhading hospital, in the aftermath of the earthquake, in Dhading Besi 16/44 Earthquake hits Nepal An elderly woman mourns in front of her destroyed home in the Kumalpur village, on the outskirts of capital Kathmandu 17/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Earthquake victims collect belongings and salvage food items from a destroyed building after a major earthquake, Kumalpur village, on the outskirts of capital Kathmandu 18/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A Nepalese girl injured in the earthquake holds the hand of her mother inside an Indian air force helicopter as they are evacuated from Trishuli Bazar to Kathmandu airport in Nepal 19/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Nepalese victims of the earthquake lie inside an Indian air force helicopter as they are evacuated from Trishuli Bazar to Kathmandu airport in Nepal 20/44 Earthquake hits Nepal An injured boy sleeps on the ground outside the overcrowded Dhading hospital in Dhading Besi 21/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Members of a rescue team from China huddle while planning their operation at the site of earthquake in Kathmandu 22/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Local people gather at the top of large mound where once stood a temple to view the scene of devastation in Kathmandu 23/44 Earthquake hits Nepal People pray before cremating the body of a victim of the earthquake, along a river in Kathmandu, Nepal 24/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Nepalese soldiers carry a wounded man on a makeshift stretcher to a waiting Indian air force helicopter as they evacuate victims of the earthquake from Trishuli Bazar to Kathmandu airport in Nepal 25/44 Earthquake hits Nepal An Indian Air Force person carries a Nepalese child, wounded in the earthquake, to a waiting ambulance after the child and mother were evacuated from a remote area at the airport in Kathmandu 26/44 Earthquake hits Nepal An Indian Air Force person walks carrying a Nepalese child, wounded in the earthquake, to a waiting ambulance as the mother follows after they were evacuated from a remote area at the airport in Kathmandu 27/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Indian resident Santosh (2L) is met by relatives after being evacuated following an earthquake in Nepal at the railway station in Amritsar 28/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A helicopter prepares to rescue people from camp 1 and 2 at Everest Base Camp, Nepal 29/44 Earthquake hits Nepal People carry a woman from the rubble of a destroyed building after an earthquake hit Nepal, in Kathmandu, Nepal EPA 30/44 Earthquake hits Nepal People try to free a living man from the rubble of a destroyed building after an earthquake hit Nepal EPA 31/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A man struggles to free himself from under the rubble of a destroyed building after an earthquake hit Nepal, in Kathmandu, Nepal EPA 32/44 Earthquake hits Nepal People free a man from the rubble of a destroyed building after an earthquake hit Nepal, in Kathmandu, Nepal EPA 33/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Dust can be seen over the city during an earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, 25 April 2015. EPA 34/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A building stands damaged after an earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, April 25, 2015 AP 35/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Nepalese people walk past a collapsed building in Kathmandu on April 25, 2015. AFP/Getty Images 36/44 Earthquake hits Nepal An injured man is assisted after an earthquake caused serious damage in Kathmandu, Nepal, 25 April 2015. EPA 37/44 Earthquake hits Nepal An injured child lies on the ground outside the Medicare Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, April 25 AP 38/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Nepalese health workers carry injured people into an open area following an 7.9 earthquake, at Lalitpur on the outskirts of Kathmandu on April 25, 2015. AFP/Getty Images 39/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Indian bystanders look at a collapsed house following an earthquake, in Siliguri on April 25, 2015 AFP/Getty Images 40/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Volunteers help with rescue work at the site of a building that collapsed after an earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, April 25 AP 41/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Nepalese rescue members and onlookers gather at the collapsed Darahara Tower in Kathmandu on April 25, 2015. AFP/Getty Images 42/44 Earthquake hits Nepal People search for survivors stuck under the rubble of a destroyed building, after an earthquake caused serious damage in Kathmandu, Nepal, 25 April 2015. EPA 43/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Nepalese rescue members move the body of a victim from the collapsed Darahara Tower in Kathmandu GETTY 44/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Health workers take care of injured people outside the Manmohan Memorial Community Hospital after an earthquake caused serious damage in Kathmandu, Nepal EPA 1/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Victims of the earthquake are cremated at Pashupatinah Temple in Kathmandu Getty Images 2/44 Earthquake hits Nepal An elderly woman prays at a temple in Kathmandu damaged by the earthquake AP 3/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Nepalese police push back residents who began protesting after waiting for hours in line to board buses back to towns and villages Getty 4/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A Nepalese policeman guards a collapsed building in Kathmandu. The number of people killed in the earthquake has passed 5,000 according to official figures EPA 5/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A woman stands in silence in front of the historic Bal Krishna Thapa Chhetry temple in Kathmandu, which was been damaged by the earthquake EPA 6/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Rescuers from Japan in the centre of Kathmandu; they are facing a race against time to find survivors Getty 7/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Pallets of Australian aid (blankets, tarpaulins, hygiene kits and water purification tablets) are loaded onto a No. 36 Squadron C-17A Globemaster aircraft in preparation for delivery to Nepal Getty Images 8/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Rishi Khanal is rescued after being trapped in a collapsed building in Nepal’s capital following Saturday’s earthquake Reuters 9/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Villagers shelter from rain in the Gorkha district, north-west of Kathmandu; 10 days of rain are forecast, with tens of thousands of people sleeping outdoors AFP/Getty 10/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A prayer bell is seen on top of the rubble of a damaged temple after an earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal Reuters 11/44 Earthquake hits Nepal People search through the rubble at the earthquake damaged Durbar Square in Kathmandu. Hundreds of thousands of Nepalis spent another night in the open after a massive quake which killed more than 4,000 AFP/Getty 12/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A priest prepares a fire for the cremation of an earthquake victim at Pashupati cremation center in Kathmandu, Nepal. The official death toll from the magnitude 7.8 earthquake has risen to 5,057 people EPA 13/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A Nepalese villager injured in an earthquake holds her son as they sit inside an Indian Army helicopter after being evacuated from Lapu in Gorkha AFP/Getty 14/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A satellite image showing a part of the city's historic center, left, before the 25 April 2015 earthquake and the after effects, right EPA 15/44 Earthquake hits Nepal An injured woman and her daughter receive medical treatment after arriving at Dhading hospital, in the aftermath of the earthquake, in Dhading Besi 16/44 Earthquake hits Nepal An elderly woman mourns in front of her destroyed home in the Kumalpur village, on the outskirts of capital Kathmandu 17/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Earthquake victims collect belongings and salvage food items from a destroyed building after a major earthquake, Kumalpur village, on the outskirts of capital Kathmandu 18/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A Nepalese girl injured in the earthquake holds the hand of her mother inside an Indian air force helicopter as they are evacuated from Trishuli Bazar to Kathmandu airport in Nepal 19/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Nepalese victims of the earthquake lie inside an Indian air force helicopter as they are evacuated from Trishuli Bazar to Kathmandu airport in Nepal 20/44 Earthquake hits Nepal An injured boy sleeps on the ground outside the overcrowded Dhading hospital in Dhading Besi 21/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Members of a rescue team from China huddle while planning their operation at the site of earthquake in Kathmandu 22/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Local people gather at the top of large mound where once stood a temple to view the scene of devastation in Kathmandu 23/44 Earthquake hits Nepal People pray before cremating the body of a victim of the earthquake, along a river in Kathmandu, Nepal 24/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Nepalese soldiers carry a wounded man on a makeshift stretcher to a waiting Indian air force helicopter as they evacuate victims of the earthquake from Trishuli Bazar to Kathmandu airport in Nepal 25/44 Earthquake hits Nepal An Indian Air Force person carries a Nepalese child, wounded in the earthquake, to a waiting ambulance after the child and mother were evacuated from a remote area at the airport in Kathmandu 26/44 Earthquake hits Nepal An Indian Air Force person walks carrying a Nepalese child, wounded in the earthquake, to a waiting ambulance as the mother follows after they were evacuated from a remote area at the airport in Kathmandu 27/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Indian resident Santosh (2L) is met by relatives after being evacuated following an earthquake in Nepal at the railway station in Amritsar 28/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A helicopter prepares to rescue people from camp 1 and 2 at Everest Base Camp, Nepal 29/44 Earthquake hits Nepal People carry a woman from the rubble of a destroyed building after an earthquake hit Nepal, in Kathmandu, Nepal EPA 30/44 Earthquake hits Nepal People try to free a living man from the rubble of a destroyed building after an earthquake hit Nepal EPA 31/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A man struggles to free himself from under the rubble of a destroyed building after an earthquake hit Nepal, in Kathmandu, Nepal EPA 32/44 Earthquake hits Nepal People free a man from the rubble of a destroyed building after an earthquake hit Nepal, in Kathmandu, Nepal EPA 33/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Dust can be seen over the city during an earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, 25 April 2015. EPA 34/44 Earthquake hits Nepal A building stands damaged after an earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, April 25, 2015 AP 35/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Nepalese people walk past a collapsed building in Kathmandu on April 25, 2015. AFP/Getty Images 36/44 Earthquake hits Nepal An injured man is assisted after an earthquake caused serious damage in Kathmandu, Nepal, 25 April 2015. EPA 37/44 Earthquake hits Nepal An injured child lies on the ground outside the Medicare Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, April 25 AP 38/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Nepalese health workers carry injured people into an open area following an 7.9 earthquake, at Lalitpur on the outskirts of Kathmandu on April 25, 2015. AFP/Getty Images 39/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Indian bystanders look at a collapsed house following an earthquake, in Siliguri on April 25, 2015 AFP/Getty Images 40/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Volunteers help with rescue work at the site of a building that collapsed after an earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, April 25 AP 41/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Nepalese rescue members and onlookers gather at the collapsed Darahara Tower in Kathmandu on April 25, 2015. AFP/Getty Images 42/44 Earthquake hits Nepal People search for survivors stuck under the rubble of a destroyed building, after an earthquake caused serious damage in Kathmandu, Nepal, 25 April 2015. EPA 43/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Nepalese rescue members move the body of a victim from the collapsed Darahara Tower in Kathmandu GETTY 44/44 Earthquake hits Nepal Health workers take care of injured people outside the Manmohan Memorial Community Hospital after an earthquake caused serious damage in Kathmandu, Nepal EPA
Nepal, which has a population of around 28m people, is around 85 per cent Hindu. There is a significant population of Buddhists, followed by several other minority communities, including Muslim and Christian.
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 nowGood to see Chelsea Handler being so active in her new self-proclaimed role of ‘political activist’ with this winner:
So, Republican rep. Dana Rohrabacher from California is was the original person who received info from Russia, because she works w/ them. — Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) October 29, 2017
Right.
While there are several things wrong with Handler’s tweet, there is one GLARING (hilarious) error …
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is a man.
Oh Chelsea you don’t realize it but you got pic.twitter.com/ODZjTHOLkv — Baby Blues (@JudgeJanna) October 29, 2017
Hopefully, she realizes it by now.
Tfw you claim to have walked away from a multi-million$ Netflix show to focus on political activism but don’t know Rep. Rohrabacher is a guy https://t.co/VcewWXHRsW — Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) October 29, 2017
Maybe she’s not quite as woke as she thought she was?
Whatchu think about Lindsey Graham? You like her hair? https://t.co/sh3nJIkL4P — Lizzy Lou Who? (@_wintergirl93) October 29, 2017
We love Lindsey’s hair.
HAAAAA.
Now now, if ‘she’ wore a little eyeshadow, maybe some lip gloss …
How embarrassed are you right now? — CL?? (@LibertyBelleCJL) October 29, 2017
Not embarrassed enough.
Assuming a person’s gender! Tsk tsk — (((I Can't Even))) (@szysgt) October 29, 2017
She should know better, right?
Get the feeling Chelsea's political research goes no further than Jake for State Farm adds? — アラルケテスターズ (@ArquetteSisters) October 29, 2017
Chelsea probably saw a headline from one of her Hollywood buddies and ran with it; these folks aren’t exactly known for reading past the headline.
Oh you poor thing, @DanaRohrabacher doesn't even identify as female. He's an actual guy, puddin. #BlessYourHeart — Doc Washburn (@DocWashburn) October 29, 2017
Good point.
Would have taken just ONE Google search. Just. One.
She's so woke she doesn't even know Dana is a guy.. but yeah follow her!! — Grateful Mom (@mom_grateful) October 29, 2017
She’s super political y’all!
How do you live and work in Southern California and not know that Dana Rohrabacher is a dude? — Richard DeCamp (@richdecamp) October 29, 2017
Dude.
This is Chelsea's devious way of making the @TwitchyTeam work on a Saturday night isn't it? — Kyle Beckley (@Kyle_Beckley) October 29, 2017
It’s all a conspiracy to make us work early on a Sunday! We’re onto you, Chelsea!
Heh.
Related:
UH OH! Alyssa Milano plots next anti-Trump #Resistance move ‘if they fire Mueller’Image: LWYang/Flickr
Apple came under fire on Friday over a security feature that some iPhone users say rendered their smartphones inoperable bricks after they were repaired by third-party service centers.
These users have noted on websites like gadget repair clearinghouse iFixit.com that an error message, "error 53," sometimes appears on their iPhone after non-Apple technicians repair a broken Home button or the cable that connects the Home button to the iPhone's motherboard. Kyle Wiens, the CEO of IFixit, told The Guardianthat the issue may be a "big problem" for iPhone users given that the message board thread discussing the issue has already amassed more than 183,000 hits.
Apple says the error message is part of a security feature designed to protect iPhone users' data. According to Apple, error 53 is triggered whenever a security test between the Touch ID sensor and the iPhone's "Secure Enclave" (which processes fingerprint data, which in turn is used to unlock the smartphone and authorize purchases on the App Store) fails. Authorized Apple service centers are able to re-validate the secure connection whenever Home button repairs are made.
While that may seem cold |
the term yougee, as Square Enix president Yoichi Wada once pointed out, has had a "discriminatory meaning" in Japan and was clearly used to separate any other games developed outside Japan. This is something Square Enix has worked to change, and the company is publishing Western titles like Call of Duty. Wada wasn't being hyperbolic; there was even a catchphrase online that summed up Japanese players' attitudes towards Western games: "Yougee wa kusogee" (洋ゲーはクソゲー) or "Western games are shitty games."
But in the last few years, things have really started to change. First-person shooters like Halo have developed an increasingly hardcore fanbase in Japan, which is limited somewhat by it being on the Xbox 360 and most Japanese gamers not owning one.
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While Western gamers might debate whether or not Call of Duty is in decline, there are Japanese gamers who seem to really enjoy the series and haven't tired of it—yet. All those arguments you used to hear as to why Japanese gamers don't like first person shooters—such as that FPS games make Japanese people sick or that Japanese players prefer to see the character—go out the window when a title moves 200,000 copies in a week. I expect the sales numbers to be significantly lower next week, but I also expect Western games to do better and better in Japan.
Last year, I interviewed Fumito Ueda, the creator of The Last Guardian. During our talk, he said he was concerned that the same thing that happened to Japanese movies would happen to Japanese video games: for movies, the budgets got bigger and bigger, and today, most of the feature films shown in theaters aren't Japanese.
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Western games, too, are getting bigger and bigger, and because of that, more and more Japanese players are attracted to the impressive graphics and production values—the whole spectacle of multi-million dollar projects like Call of Duty. For many Japanese players, Western games aren't shitty games, anymore.
Culture Smash is a regular dose of things topical, interesting and sometimes even awesome—game related and beyond.
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Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.Rather than blanket rejection or blind leftist worship, communists should aim for a more nuanced position on democracy that recognizes its importance in working class organizations as well as its limitations.
Almost every leftist worships at the altar or democracy but is very unclear about what it means or why exactly we need it. Some, taking up an “ultra-left” position influenced by the likes of Bordiga, Camatte and Gilles Dauve take a stance contrary to this and argue for a complete rejection of democracy, claiming it to be a purely bourgeois form. Against both the blind leftist worship of democracy and the flat out rejection of it by many ultra-left communists I’ll attempt here to argue for a more nuanced take on the democratic question.
The question of democracy is a question that communists need to address with care and precision. We need to define our terms carefully and be careful to avoid purely semantic debates to map out where legitimate differences arise and where they are purely questions of how things are worded. Is democracy merely a bourgeois mirage that we should fully reject? Is the dictatorship of the proletariat, the phase of working class rule to abolish capitalist relations, democratic in character? Answering these questions requires a closer look at what democracy actually is and what it means in different contexts. They are also questions that carry immediate relevance, not a matter of abstractly imagining a far off communist future that has no major importance today (what some would call ‘LEGO socialism’). Today, when the left is dominated either by bureaucratic and corrupt sects or activist cliques dominated by the informal rule of charismatic individuals, such matters are practical questions that relate to how we organize now.
Communist organizations as well as other institutions of the working class need to be able to make collective decisions on a mass scale. For organizations to truly express the will of its base and therefore the proletariat as a class there must be a basic adherence to the notion that decisions are made by the entire group, that essentially everyone has a say and participates in the decision making process, even if this is through delegation and representation. Furthermore it entails accountability and transparency in decision making processes, not merely procedural norms like voting or majority rule. This is the definition of democracy that communists should stand for, rather than bourgeois notions of democracy which are really just rule-of-law constitutionalism. It’s also the definition of democracy that the Communist League of Tampa and its affiliates call for in our basic Points of Unity:
“We uphold the right to open debate, factions and accountable collective decision-making within revolutionary organizations, especially our own. This means opposing bureaucratic centralism and working against the development of unaccountable caste-like layers of leadership.” Quote:
Individuals with unaccountable decision making power within an organization are essentially small-proprietors, with the organization being their property. It is unavoidable that decision-making authority will have to be delegated to certain individuals, as not every single decision made can be voted on in larger bodies. What matters is that these individuals who are delegated decision-making authority are accountable to those affected by these decisions. This decision-making power, essentially intellectual property in the form of specialization and control over information, must be collectivized. There is not one formal mechanism that can guarantee achieving this (such as majority rule), but as a minimum requirement the basic standards of accountable democratic decision-making must be the general basis for how our organizations conduct themselves.
Basic democratic standards of operation are not important because of abstract universal principles, but because they are necessary for the healthy functioning of organizations that are capable of organizing the proletariat to act as a class. Democracy for communists isn’t an ahistorical ideal, but an instrument. That said, it’s an instrument we can’t afford to not use. Organizations that do not function with internal democracy will develop a layer of unaccountable bureaucrats who are essentially small proprietors which have objective class interests alien to the proletariat. They are not representatives of an alien class due to their specific political lines but because they essentially treat organizations as a form of property and will have a tendency to protect this property. This in turn will lead to a silencing of all dissent within the organization, capitulation to reformist politics in order to keep organizational growth at a maximum and meaningless splits due to bureaucrats aiming to maintain control over what they see as their property when they can’t get their way. From there it’s a straight road to racket-ville, where organizations are either completely ineffective or so hindered by corruption that we would prefer them not to be effective.
It is also of importance that people are free to criticize decisions and voice alternatives without being silenced or expelled. The “Leninist” notion that disagreements within the organization should only be expressed internally while externally one can only express the official party line should be rejected. Rather than this, debates within the organization should be performed in the public press or in public meetings unless they are regarding information that puts individuals at risk of repression. The notion that “freedom of debate” merely opens the door to opportunism is more often than not a means for the central leadership to silence criticism, enforce rigid ideological centralism and assert control over what they see as their property. Of course reactionary positions can be defended under the guise of “freedom of debate” but it is important for any collectivity to come to a general agreement on where the margins of acceptable debate lie.
The unhindered rule of bureaucracy affirms the mental/manual division of labor which is at the core of class society and must be abolished in the future communist society. While our organizations will never be able to fully prefigure communism (as they exist under the structural pressures of capitalist society), the communist movement must relatively prefigure the kind of society we fight for. If our movement is to show a way forward out of capitalism towards a better world and capture the support of millions of workers it must in some sense prove that life after the revolution won’t be a repeat of current miseries. It is partially because of the failures of Stalinism and labor-bureaucracies in the 20th century that class consciousness today is inhibited. Workers aren’t stupid, and if our movement presents itself as a repeat of the bureaucratic rackets and personal tyrannies that define Stalinism, the bourgeois state and capitalist enterprises they won’t be interested (and rightfully so). As a result communists as a force in society cannot afford to organize through bureaucratic structures that directly reproduce the divisions of class society. The only alternative to this is to produce democratic structures.
Not only must our organizations pre-revolution be democratic in the sense described above, but the form of the state under the dictatorship of the proletariat must also be democratic. To quote Lenin,
“….Dictatorship does not necessarily mean the abolition of democracy for the class that exercises the dictatorship over other classes; but it does mean the abolition of democracy (or very material restriction, which is also a form of abolition) of democracy for the class over which, or against which, the dictatorship is exercised.” Quote:
Dictatorship in the sense that Marx used it was not to be counterposed to proletarian democracy but relied on it.
The dictatorship of the proletariat, contrary to the claims of anti-communists, is not the rule of a minority clique above the proletariat. This point is made many times but it nonetheless stands. If the working class is going to politically rule it must be legitimately in control of the state. This ‘commune-state’ must be organized and function in such a way as to prevent the petty-bourgeois labor bureaucracy from expropriating political power from the working class. This will require democratic norms such as representation through recallable delegates, strict term limits and freedom of speech (though in civil war situations it is inevitable exceptions will have to be made for this rule). These were the characteristics that Marx praised the Paris Commune for holding.
While using democratic forms, the rule of the proletariat is a dictatorship and anti-democratic in the sense that it must break with bourgeois constitutionalism and repress capitalist property rights that are considered basic freedoms in the eyes of the bourgeois ideology. An expansion of political freedom to the proletariat can only be coincided with restricting the political freedom of the propertied classes. This will certainly mean taking measures that will be seen as dictatorial in the eyes of the exploiters. It is for this reason that Engels claimed that democracy would be the rallying call of the counter-revolution. Yet democracy for the bourgeoisie is mostly that: a rallying cry, a means of legitimizing their class rule through the state that is never extended more than is necessary.
Rather than the logical form of capitalist rule as such, there is much reason to believe that for the capitalist class democracy is just as much a liability as it is means of legitimation to integrate antagonistic classes. Democracy plays an ideological role in the bourgeois revolutions to unite “the people” (the peasantry, other small producers, semi-proletarians and the bourgeoisie) as a whole against the aristocracy and clergy under the banner of the national republic. Through the ideology of democracy the bourgeoisie aims to present its rule as the rule of the entire people, not a single class. Yet too much substantive democracy where the oppressed classes are actually given real participation in political decision-making proves to be a liability to bourgeois rule and must be suppressed. We see this in the French Revolution, with the suppression of the Sans-Culottes and then the suppression of the Jacobins followed by the rise of the Directory and then Bonaparte. We also see this in the suppression of the radical abolition-democracy during Reconstruction in the United States when the Industrialists who were the backbone of the Republican party feared the growing power of the laboring classes. This tendency is also visible in the rise of fascist regimes during the inter-war period, where sections of the bourgeoisie threw in their lot with anti-democratic political movements to crush both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary workers movement. So while democracy certainly plays an important role in the ideological arsenal of the capitalist class it is also something they are more than willing to do without and suppress when needed. For the capitalists class political democracy is a means of masking its rule as a class under the guise of political freedom. Yet at the same time they recognize that too much of this political freedom in the form of substantive democracy is dangerous and must be kept in check.
Despite the fact that the proletariat very much needs political democracy to organize and rule as a class there is certainly a danger of fetishizing democracy, making the mistake of thinking that democratic forms as such are revolutionary and desirable without class content. This is the strength of the ultra-left critique of democracy, which is that a fetishization of democracy emphasizes procedural form at the expense of actual political content. These critiques have their root in the works of Italian Communist Amadeo Bordiga, who went as far to claim he rejected the democratic principle and argued that a vague notion of ‘organic centralism’ where democracy would be transcended should be the core principle of communist organization. The roots of these critiques can also be found in the works of Marx and Engels themselves. For example, in the 1850 Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League, Marx and Engels warn the workers they “should not be led astray by empty democratic talk about the freedom of the municipalities, self-government, ect in a country like Germany, where so many remnants of the Middle Ages are still to be abolished.” In an 1884 letter to August Bebel, Engels claimed “In any case our sole adversary on the day of crisis and on the day after the crisis will be the whole of the reaction which will group around pure democracy, and this, I think, should not be lost sight of.” So while Marx and Engels certainly recognized the importance of democracy and advocated it in its most radical forms they were no fetishists of democracy that viewed it as always inherently progressive to the goals of the proletariat. It always exists within a certain class context and must be understood with that in mind.
The problem of fetishizing democracy can be exemplified with a simple thought experiment. Imagine a political change which merely involved simply implementing a form of localized direct democracy in place of the current state, as imagined by Murray Bookchin’s ‘libertarian municipalism’. In many contexts this would result in a less liberatory society than the one we currently live in. For example, in the United States a system of decentralized direct democracy without a change in class relations could simply result in suburban communities choosing to pass laws allowing for segregation or banning abortion.
Modern proponents of “direct democracy” seem to overlook these problems and argue for a form of democracy without the mediation of representation and political parties. This ideal of decentralized mass assemblies making all political decisions is appealing to those disenchanted by the betrayals of political parties and the emptiness of bourgeois democracy. Rather than governance through representative institutions, local face-to-face assemblies are suggested as a more legitimate form of social decision-making. Yet mass society cannot make decisions purely at the local level, and even at a local level the complexity of society would make it unfeasible to put every decision up to a popular vote. This isn’t to say that localities shouldn’t have control over decision-making, and in fact there should be self-government of localities to whatever extent is possible. But beyond this the need for decision-making at larger regional and international levels necessitates form of political representation and mediation, as well as centralization. The question shouldn’t be whether or not there is representation, but rather how representation can be kept accountable and under the control of the rank-and-file/base.
The experiment of Occupy in 2011-2012 verifies the problems of experiments in direct democracy as well as democracy devoid of any kind of class content. At the core of Occupy was not a basic political programme or class base so much as a democratic form, “horizontalist” consensus decision making. The result was that the project could find no basic agreement on politics and ended up at the lowest-common-denominator of unity. Many camps became dominated by libertarian conspiracy theorists or Democratic party hacks who took full of advantage of the fact that democratic process took precedence over any kind of political unity other than the most vague populism (99% vs 1%).
Given the experiences of Occupy and the fetishization of direct democracy by certain currents of modern anarchism, the ultra-left critique of democracy has reason to be taken seriously. Yet there is also a danger of taking this critique too far and completely dismissing the need for democracy within working class organizations. This is exemplified by the text Against Democracy by Wildcat (UK) which does indeed take its critique this far.
The text begins agreeably enough with a critique of democracy as the rule of rights and equality, which is premised on the existence of the state and citizens who are atomized into legal individuals. Communism, by doing away with the state and class stratification, would therefore make talks of rights and equality meaningless. It also makes the point that when in combat with class enemies, we don’t afford them democratic rights and instead ruthlessly crush them. “You can’t respect the rights of a cop if you‘re beating him to death! If a trade union leader tries to address a meeting and we respond by shouting him down or dragging him off the stage and kicking his head in, it’s absurd for us to say that we believe in freedom of speech,” says the Wildcat text. So far this is mostly agreeable, though expressing this point in the most edgy possible way does come off as a bit silly. Communists advocate for a dictatorship of the proletariat, which means that certain bourgeois rights that are afforded to the propertied classes under capitalism will be suspended and trampled upon. We don’t respect bourgeois constitutional legalism (which is really what they mean when they talk about democracy) and often we are in the minority when we take this stance. The revolution is not going to be decided on in the halls of congress or parliament through a majority vote where 51% of the vote make seizing power legitimate while 49% doesn’t.
Yet the Wildcat text goes a step further in saying that democracy “within our own ranks” is also to be rejected. This is defined as three basic principles: Majoritarianism (that nothing can be done unless a majority agrees to it), separation between decision making and action (nothing can be done until everybody has had a chance to discuss it), and embodiment of the view that no one can be trusted (delegates are to be revocable because they may not be trustable). Yet what this is arguing against is almost a straw-man, as no organization I know of actually puts every single action performed up to a complete majority vote. There is of course a danger of getting bogged down in formalities, but when decisions have to be made on a mass scale there needs to be some baseline formal process of decision-making to regulate these processes in a way that maintains accountability to those effected. The alternative is either a tyranny of structureless, where personalistic and unaccountable charismatic cliques dominate, or bureaucratic centralism, where an unaccountable leadership calls all the shots and no apparatus exists to challenge these decisions.
The fact that Wildcat extend their critique to mocking the idea of recallable delegates and faction rights further reveals the poverty of their complete dismissal of internal democracy. The argument for recallable delegates and term limits doesn’t necessarily stem from the idea that “no one can be trusted” but that delegates should express the needs of constituencies and these constituencies should be able to recall them if these needs aren’t being met. The alternative is that the organization is basically the private property of the bureaucrats and there is no means of keeping this in check. And even if the idea behind recall-ability is that people can’t be trusted, the argument against recall-ability rests on an idea more absurd than the idea that no one can trusted, which is people can always be trusted.
Regarding the right to form factions within an organization, Wildcat basically dismiss this as the province of Trotskyists who want “the freedom to plot and conspire against other members of what is supposedly a working class organization.” This claim that the right to form factions is basically the territory of “trot wreckers” sounds like something coming straight from the mouth of a Maoist sects central committee. It was partly the banning of factions in the Bolshevik Party that prevented it from regaining any kind of genuine connection to the proletariat, and in fact while Wildcat claim to oppose “majoritarianism”, the right to form factions is a safeguard against the problems of majority rule. It is only with the right to form factions that minority positions in an org (which may be the correct position since majority rule isn’t a magical tool for discovering the truth) can be defended and argued for in a way that prevent unnecessary splits and expulsion of any dissent. This isn’t to say any and all factions should be tolerated – for example the Communist League of Tampa wouldn’t tolerate a faction giving critical support to Putin’s Russia or any kind of US intervention in the Middle East – but we certainly would tolerate a faction advocating for a harder stance against electoralism.
Ultimately the Wildcat critique of democracy is useless because it offers no alternative on how to run mass-scale political organizations other than “trust and solidarity”. Instead we are presented a fetishization of militant minorities that act against democratic norms, as if these actions on their own are able to offer a real threat to capitalism. The actions of small minorities coupled with spontaneous upsurges can only lead to a conspiratorial tactic of “invisible dictatorship” ala Bakunin. Rather than elite anti-democratic vanguards that rely on spontaneity, the proletariat must create its own mass scale organizations within capitalism that can pose the question of political power.
Mass scale organizations within capitalism will inevitably develop some sort of bureaucracy of paid full-timers. A small propaganda group like CLT can obviously operate on purely volunteer labor, yet at a certain point organizations will get to a scale and level of activity where the level of work cannot be done on an all volunteer basis. Because we live in capitalism, workers have to work for wages to survive and are limited in how much time they can volunteer to an organization. As a result there will be a strata in any large scale organization that have to work as salaried as full-time officials. As stated earlier this strata is essentially petty-bourgeois because they will treat the organization as their property if unchecked. To counter this tendency there must be standardized norms of democracy, accountability and transparency that collectivize decision making in the organization as much as possible. This is the only real alternative to the rule of experts and decision-making dominated by an elite.
Tackling the ‘democratic question’ requires nuance and precision rather than pseudo-radical sloganeering. Rather than claiming that all democracy is merely a bourgeois mirage that is to be wholesale rejected, communists should aim for a more nuanced position that recognizes the importance of democracy within working class organizations while not fetishizing democratic forms or conforming to bourgeois constitutionalism.
Originally found at http://communistleaguetampa.org/2015/08/28/to-hell-with-democracy/Soon you will be flying with a full view of the sky ahead of you, assuming you don’t have a fear of flying.
Airbus engineers are set to unveil a futuristic design for the Airbus of the future. With aspirations to bring their designs to reality by the year 2050, here are some of the perceived highlights:
telegraph.co.uk: In fact cabin classes will be consigned to history. Instead there will be personalised zones, tailored to individual passengers.
No longer will they feel trapped in a darkened tube, instead they will enjoy panoramic views of the skies above and the world below.
Panoramic views? Can one be sure travelers are up for transparent panoramic views. For some the thrill will be exhilarating, and yet for others rightfully daunting.
Flying fatigue will be a thing of the past, instead a “vitalising zone” will enable people to recharge their batteries so they arrive refreshed rather than exhausted at their destination.
Vitalizing zone? How does one physically re vitalize passengers who for the most part are now jaded and cynical when it comes to flying? Will it involve secret pills? Foot massages by personal concubines? Or a quick dip in the select bath in first class?
The sense of well being will be enhanced by the use of aromatherapy, with stale cabin air being replaced by aromatherapy scents complete with antioxidants and vitamins being wafted across the plane.
Antioxidants and vitamins wafting throughout the plane? How will Airbus physically carry this out? And what if I’m not in the mood for my requisite dash of vitamin B12?
Mood lighting will be used to make passengers feel better and instead of being squeezed into a one-size fits all seat, they will be enveloped in one which moulds to their body.
The seat will not only apply acupuncture but use the heat generated by the passenger to provide some of the power needed to fly the aircraft.
Mood lighting? Acupuncture? Is Airbus sure its’ not taking its passengers on some hot steamy romp getaway? And prey tell, what mood lighting will Airbus use during turbulence?
Airbus also believes that the plane of the future will no longer be isolated from the ground below, instead an interactive zone will use holograms to make it possible to play a game of virtual golf or even try on clothes in a virtual changing room.
The plane will, thanks to the use of new materials, be lighter, consume less fuel and have a far lower carbon footprint than aircraft in the skies today.
Consume less fuel, play golf, holygrams? It all sounds vaguely familiar to the 1970’s show Star Trek without all the fancy aliens. Or can one pay a premium and end up with a 3 eyed sloth providing deep whispers of encouragement during the flight who will waft me to a far far place called exotic discovery? Or is this just Airbus being wishy washy and sucking us in with a pipe dream? If the last 40 years can be a judge (where nothing much has changed – except me being more cramped than ever) I’m willing to bet it’s all a pipe dream, but then again who can resist a transparent view of heaven and hell?It’s tough to tell what to make of the news release that came out from the New Orleans Hornets this afternoon. Eric Gordon is experiencing soreness in the same knee had just had surgically repaired.
“Gordon will have limited participation in training camp due to soreness in his right knee,” the statement reads. “Eric experienced soreness in his right knee while participating in voluntary workouts with the team at the end of the summer. Gordon underwent arthroscopic surgery last season on his right knee and returned to full strength at the end of the season and during the Olympic try-outs.
“The team is taking a cautious approach with Eric to give him the best chance to be ready for the season,” General Manager Dell Demps said.
The news release was a mere two paragraphs.
So what this means for the Hornets is a mystery. When you have “sore” and “surgically-repaired” in the same sentence, it is usually not a good thing.
But in an interview with the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Gordon didn’t sound overly concerned:
“Just a little aggravation right now and I’m not very concerned,” Gordon said during Monday’s media day at the Alario Center. “It’s just something that you hate to deal with at this point and time. But at the same time, I’m looking forward to getting ready and progressing during camp.”
The Hornets matched the max offer Gordon received from the Phoenix Suns, making him the co-cornerstone of their rebuilding, along with No. 1 pick Anthony Davis.
Gordon played in only 9 games last season after being acquired as the centerpiece of the Chris Paul trade.
(RELATED: Bynum out three weeks for Sixers after knee procedure)Now, now, let's not panic.
Yes, we have a second Ebola patient infected after treating the Liberian man who apparently concealed his exposure to this often-fatal disease, but this is no reason to panic.
"It's bad news that another person is sick," Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said Wednesday to MSNBC anchor Jose Diaz-Balart.
Indeed.
It's actually terrible news to the other 75 health care workers who treated the forever infamous Thomas Eric Duncan before his death. Though there is some good news — the first nurse infected, Nina Pham, is in "good" condition — the bad news likely will continue as health officials anticipate that there will be more cases. The infection of a second nurse, identified by her family as Amber Joy Vinson, 29, is also not such great news for the residents in her apartment complex, where hazmat workers are now scouring the public areas, or travelers on the Frontier Airlines flight she flew on Monday.
CAPTION O'hare airport had an Ebola scare this morning after a young boy got sick on an airplane. O'hare airport had an Ebola scare this morning after a young boy got sick on an airplane. CAPTION O'hare airport had an Ebola scare this morning after a young boy got sick on an airplane. O'hare airport had an Ebola scare this morning after a young boy got sick on an airplane. CAPTION While Ebola infections are slowing in Liberia and Guinea -- not so in Sierra Leone where the number of cases are rising. This means the UN will not meet a deadline to contain the spread of the epidemic. While Ebola infections are slowing in Liberia and Guinea -- not so in Sierra Leone where the number of cases are rising. This means the UN will not meet a deadline to contain the spread of the epidemic. CAPTION Medical officials said Monday, Dr. Martin Salia, an Ebola patient being treated in Nebraska, has died. Salia was diagnosed with Ebola in Sierra Leone and was airlifted to Nebraska on Saturday. Medical officials said Monday, Dr. Martin Salia, an Ebola patient being treated in Nebraska, has died. Salia was diagnosed with Ebola in Sierra Leone and was airlifted to Nebraska on Saturday. CAPTION Dr. Martin Salia, who contracted Ebola while working as a surgeon in Sierra Leone, is heading to the U.S. He was evacuated on a chartered flight early Saturday morning. Dr. Martin Salia, who contracted Ebola while working as a surgeon in Sierra Leone, is heading to the U.S. He was evacuated on a chartered flight early Saturday morning. CAPTION The family of first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, reached a settlement with Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. The family of first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, reached a settlement with Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
Other passengers are being asked to call in.
We are supposed to find consolation, however, in assurances that the second infected health worker followed protocol and went to the hospital as soon as she registered a fever. Within 90 minutes, we are told, she was in isolation.
Really? It took an hour and a half to isolate someone most likely infected with Ebola?
Next we hear that the "breach" — a "medical term," Jenkins patiently explained to viewers lest they become unduly concerned — may have been connected to the lack of precision in the wearing of protective gear. A national nurses union claims that hospital caregivers' wrists were exposed between their gloves and sleeves.
Now those tending the two infected Americans are shown on television conspicuously covering the sleeves of their suits with the tops of their rubber gloves and then taping them tight. Two down, possibly 75 to go, and now we're getting really careful.
But here's the billboard: REALLY?!
We don't want to prevent people from horribly infected countries, where cases are predicted in the 10,000-a-week range, from coming to the United States. We're a country of immigrants, after all, and it would be, what, mean to turn them away?
(Forgive me; I missed my PC booster shot.)
The official argument, counterintuitive but seemingly true, is that we can't kick Ebola if we don't keep travel open. Meaning, if we don't send troops and health workers to nip the disease at its source, we have no chance of stopping it.
(Question du jour: How many cases before a place becomes a source?)
A physicist at Northeastern University in Boston, Alessandro Vespignani, has developed a computer model to predict the spread of Ebola via air travel. His model indicates that halting travel won't stop the spread of Ebola. But applying a common-sense model from one's own noggin, might we prevent more cases from arriving to our shore?
If we dare, it makes exceptionally good sense to treat travelers from infected countries with exceptional scrutiny on this end of the trip.
And, no, laser temperature guns aren't enough, though they're really cool. Ditto the questionnaire, which asks people to be super honest and tell us whether they've been exposed to Ebola. The Liberian government says Duncan lied on his questionnaire. And he didn't have a fever until after his arrival in the U.S.
But what about people who, though they've visited or lived in an infected country, fly to the U.S. from another country, as most do? Every traveler has a passport or travel papers. Flagging those who've recently been in an infected country might require a little international cooperation, but this is hardly an impossible proposition.
We know that symptoms present within 21 days, so why not quarantine every traveler who has visited or lived in an infected country (Liberia, Guinea or Sierra Leone) in the past 30 days for three weeks upon arrival?
Undoubtedly, someone will challenge this as a violation of civil rights — or a taxpayer burden (finally, a program to which all citizens would willingly tithe) — but extreme circumstances require extreme measures. Quarantine needn't be treated or viewed as punishment but as an abundance of caution. Bring in the Club Med folks to make it fun. Have restaurateurs donate meals. Set up high-definition screens for Skyping. Create a PayPal website for donations from Americans wishing to contribute.
Hell, make them heroes. Put them on TV. Bring in the speakers bureaus. But make it less possible for these people, some of whom really are heroes, to help spread a deadly disease.
My proposal may not be foolproof, but anything less may prove us fools.
Washington Post Writers Group
Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist.
kathleenparker@washpost.com
Join in the discussion on the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board’s Facebook page or on Twitter by following @Trib_Ed_Board.Ghost Gun Complete Lower
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Organizers say the Vaccine Summit will take place on Tuesday and feature researchers and experts from across North America who question the effectiveness and safety of vaccines.
There will also be round-table discussions featuring parents who say their children have fallen ill after receiving vaccinations.
The anti-vaccine movement, fueled by a handful of celebrity endorsements, has been gaining momentum in recent years. (CBC)
Vaccines have been used since the late 17th century and have been credited with eradicating diseases like smallpox and polio.
But the anti-vaccine movement, fueled by a handful of celebrity endorsements, has been gaining momentum in recent years.
SFU says the university doesn’t endorse the group’s views, but hopes the conference leads to a healthy debate about the issues.
"We have a university policy. It says we support freedom of expression. Doesn’t mean we endorse the views," said SFU president Andrew Petter.
"One of the reasons we endorse freedom of expression is because we believe the views that are expressed that are false or unthinking will be exposed as such through an exchange of views."
But there are those who believe the university should not host the conference.
"I think the anti-vac movement is very powerful, even though it occupies a fringe level of science," said Ethan Clow, Director of the Centre for Inquiry, a non-profit educational organization.
"Our concern is that by giving space to this anti-vaccine group, SFU is lending tacit approval to their message, which has been rigorously debunked."Graham Campbell makes a case for how the left should vote tomorrow.
Here I will argue for a policy of tactical, selective and conditional critical support for anti-austerity candidates and for parties that revolutionaries don’t normally advocate voting for. I want to start off by advocating a multi-layered approach to the UK general election before going onto the rationale for voting Labour, Green, SNP or far left where appropriate.
Revolutionaries used to approach general elections prior to the 2010 dawning of the age of coalition government with either ‘vote Labour with no illusions’ or ‘Vote left where you can, Vote Labour where you must’ knowing there were really only two choices – a Tory majority government or a Labour majority government. In this context a policy of conditional support for a Labour government was appropriate – an approach which stood the test of time. From the 1950s to the 1990s revolutionaries largely avoided directly contesting elections.
Then came the era of neo-liberalism, the betrayals of Blairism and European social democracy and the emergence of anti-austerity, anti-neo-liberal and even anti-capitalist political movements across Europe which created broad workers parties or anti-austerity coalitions in which the far left played a major role (i.e. Respect and the SSP).
The experience of Coalition government these last 5 years has again changed all that. The loss of Tory support |
, great footwork, excellent passing and he sets good screens. If Houston decides to let him into the wild, and his physical checks out, teams need to be aggressive in their pursuit.
Good fit with: Houston, Denver, Memphis, Detroit, Dallas, Boston
Analysis: Another Euro who hasn't been in the NBA long, but is actually older, Mirza Teletovic will turn 31 before next season starts. He's a lights-out shooter at 39 percent, played 79 games last year and was a rare bright spot on the Suns. He's a minus-defender and may not have that much left in the tank, but in a league that values shooting, he'd be a quality addition for teams in need of stretching the floor. If you strike out on Ryan Anderson, Teletovic is a cheaper alternative.
Good fit with: Phoenix, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Cleveland, Denver, New York, Philadelphia, Orlando
Analysis: So... Matt Barnes. He's 34 years old, but you wouldn't know it from his impact last season. He's still a tough and physical defender with great instincts and fundamentals. He has improved as a shooter, though he regressed back to 32 percent last season. Barnes is liked and respected by teammates despite his off-court drama. Can handle well enough to drive if the defender over-corrects on a closeout and can function as a small ball four in a pinch. As long as you're willing to live with the horrendous amount of questionable off-court behavior that accompanies him, Barnes might be worth a one- or two-year deal. However, the prospect of a serious drop-off is present with his age.
Good fit with: Memphis, Orlando, Minnesota, Chicago, Miami
Analysis: Welcome back, Luol Deng. After it seemed like his best years were behind him, Deng snapped back the past two years, shooting over 34 percent from 3-point range. When Chris Bosh went down, the Heat switched Deng to a stretch four, and both he and the team thrived. Deng's always been a great defender, his ability to improve his 3-point shooting only increases his value. The Heat will face a tough decision with letting Deng walk. They have Justise Winslow, who gives them a future long-term option on the wing, but might want to keep Deng all the same. If he's available, he's a player that nearly every team would benefit from having around. Deng has likely worked himself north of $15 million per year with how he finished the season, and could be looking for one last long-term deal.
Good fit with: Miami, Los Angeles Lakers, Memphis, Minnesota, Brooklyn, Houston
Analysis: Eric Gordon was once the most promising 2-guard under 25 in the league. But injuries robbed him of essentially his entire career. Now 27, Gordon hasn't played more than 64 games since his rookie season. You just can't have any faith he's going to make it through a full year. That said, he's still a great shooter -- 38 percent for his career from beyond the arc -- and can operate as a combo guard. He's worth a gamble on a short-term, big-money deal, because he's capable of turning in huge scoring performances if he ever gets his body right. New Orleans was just never a fit for him. He would be way higher on this list if it weren't for injuries.
Good fit with: Memphis, Philadelphia, Indiana, New York, Phoenix, Atlanta
Analysis: E'Twaun Moore was nearly out of the league before finding himself as useful for the Bulls last season, and wound up averaging 21 minutes per game. Most notably, he shot 45 percent from 3-point range. That's right, 45 percent, if only on 1.8 shots per game. His per-36 line of 13-4-3 isn't awe-inspiring, but he's a capable defender who can hit shots, create a little with his dribble and fill in minutes off the wing. He's not restricted and can be had for cheap. Moore is sneaky good value, if you think last season was a stronger indication of what he can do than the rest of his career.
Good fit with: Memphis, Denver, Los Angeles Lakers, Milwaukee, Orlando, Miami
Analysis: Brandon Jennings' talent is higher than a lot of guys on this list but is mitigated by two factors. One, his Achilles injury which is always difficult for a player, especially a guard, to bounce back from, and two, the fact that he's likely to wind up as high-priced due to his age (27 next year) and name value. Jennings has come a long way over the last few years, learning how to run a team and be more of a distributor. His defense isn't notably bad, and he has nights of pure burst, especially if he can get back to where he was two years ago, or close to it. However, he's never shot better than 41 percent from the field, never averaged more than eight assists per game and his 3-point shooting has always been decent-to-good but never phenomenal. That said, Jennings could be a steal. Buy low on him after the injury, watch as he matures and recovers from injury and get at the worst a very capable scoring backup.
Good fit with: Philadelphia, New York, Brooklyn, Houston, Los Angeles Clippers, Portland
Analysis: ISO Joe just keeps chugging along. He averaged his fewest points per game in 13 years (man, Joe Johnson's been around a long time) but still managed to shoot 44 percent from the field and 38 percent from 3-point range at age 34. He's as durable as they get, a good locker room guy, a total pro and can play three positions at this point. He's still tough in the post, still a sneaky good playmaker and a guy who has absolutely zero fear of the late-game shot. Johnson is likely only available for super-contenders. He nearly signed with Cleveland, which could use him, but if the Warriors are looking to re-stock their bench, Johnson would be a prime candidate for a ring-chase rotation guy. If Johnson is looking for one more big deal, it gets hairy. A sizable two-year deal for a mid-level playoff team might be OK.
Good fit with: Miami, Cleveland, Oklahoma City, Los Angeles Clippers, Milwaukee, Golden State
Analysis: Sigh. So much potential, squandered. Ty Lawson turns 29 next season. This should be his prime. But he's thrown away so much. He couldn't stay out of trouble for DUIs in Denver and helped contribute to its immaturity issues. He arrived in Houston as the piece that was supposed to put them over the top and instead wound up out of the rotation within a month. He eventually landed in Indiana, where he was just an end-of-the-bench guy. There's still a player in there who can shoot, pass, get to the rim, weave in and out of transition, make plays and dazzle crowds, but Lawson hasn't committed himself in work ethic or mental approach. He has to earn those minutes back. That said, Lawson is downright insane value. If you think you can reach him, or if he really shows that he is past his issues, he's very much worth signing on a flyer.
Good fit with: Oklahoma City, Los Angeles Lakers, Brooklyn, Atlanta, Portland
Analysis: Where did the Heat find this kid? Tyler Johnson is tough as nails and will scrap you to pieces defensively while shooting 38 percent from 3-point range and showing off a really wide range of skills. He's able to attack the rim and knock down shots from the outside, improving dramatically over the course of these two seasons. Unfortunately for other teams, he's subject to the Arenas Provision, which means he can only sign a two-year deal starting at $5.6 million, which the Heat can match, or he can sign a qualifying offer and hit the market as a real restricted free agent next summer. Don't expect him to be available, but should the Heat find themselves in a bind trying to sign a big name, and Johnson doesn't have a better option, he would be a terrific get, given his age and skillset.
Good fit with: Miami, Memphis, Indiana, New York1 of 8 View Caption
Republican vice presidential candidate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence exits Price Hill Chili after a campaign stop, Saturday, Aug. 6, 201 Republican vice presidential candidate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence eats a plate of Cincinnati-style chili during a campaign stop at Pr In this Aug. 8, 2016, photo, Republican vice presidential candidate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence speaks during a campaign stop in Counc Republican Vice presidential candidate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, gives a thumbs-up during a town hall meeting in Raleigh, N.C., Th Republican Vice presidential candidate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence arrives to introduce Republican presidential candidate Donald Trum Bebeto Matthews | AP file photo Indiana Gov. Mike Pence speaks during an interview with FOX News Channel's Sean Hannity after Do FILE – In this July 20, 2016 file photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, points toward Republican vice president Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump's children Donald Trump, Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump AND Tiffany Trump celebrateLazy Object Streaming Pipeline for JavaScript - inspired by the Java 8 Streams API
Stream(people).filter({age : 23 }).flatMap( " children " ).map( " firstName " ).distinct().filter( / a. * / i ). join ( ", " );
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Getting started
Stream.js is a lightweight (2.6 KB minified, gzipped), intensely tested (700+ assertions, 97% coverage) functional programming library for operating upon collections of in-memory data. It requires EcmaScript 5+, has built-in support for ES6 features and works in all current browsers, Node.js and Java 8 Nashorn.
Download the latest release from GitHub or install Stream.js via NPM or Bower:
npm install streamjs # or bower install streamjs
Read the APIDOC
Examples
Before explaining how Stream.js works in detail, here's a few real world code samples.
Filter and sort a collection of persons, then group everything by age.
Stream(people).filter({married : true, gender :'male'}).sorted( " lastName " );.groupBy( " age " );
Filter and transform a collection of tweets to its text content, then limit the tweets to a maximum of 100 and partition the results into 10 tweets per page:
Stream(tweets).filter( function ( tweet ) { return tweet.author!== me; }).map( " text " ).filter( /. * streamjs. * / i ).limit( 100 ).partitionBy( 10 );
Create an array of 100 odd random numbers between 1 and 1000:
Stream.generate( function () { return Math. floor ( Math. random () * 1000 ) + 1 ; }).filter( function ( num ) { return num % 2 === 1 ; }).limit( 100 );.toArray();
Create an infinite iterator, generating an odd random number between 1 and 1000 on each call to next() :
var iterator = Stream.generate( function () { return Math. floor ( Math. random () * 1000 ) + 1 ; }).filter( function ( num ) { return num % 2 === 1 ; }).iterator(); iterator. next (); iterator. next ();
Create an array of 100 parent objects, each holding an array of 10 children:
Stream.range( 0, 100 ).map( function ( num ) { return { parentId : num, type :'parent ', children : [] }; }).peek( function ( parent ) { parent.children = Stream.range( 0, 10 ).map( function ( num ) { return { childId : num, type :'child ', parent : parent }; }).toArray(); }).toArray();
How Streams work
Stream.js defines a single function Stream to create new streams from different input collections like arrays, maps or number ranges:
Stream([ 1, 2, 3 ]); Stream({a : 1, b : 2, c : 3 }); Stream.of( 1, 2, 3 ); Stream.range( 1, 4 );
Streams are monadic types with a bunch of useful operations. Those functions can be chained one after another to make complex computations upon the input elements. Operations are either intermediate or terminal. Intermediate operations are lazy and return the stream itself to enable method chaining. Terminal operations return a single result (or nothing at all). Some terminal operations return a special monadic Optional type which is described later.
Streams are not limited to finite data sources like collections. You can also create infinite streams of elements by utilizing generator or iterator functions.
Stream.generate( function () { return 1337 * Math. random (); );
Stream.iterate( 1, function ( seed ) { return seed * 2 ; });
Why Stream.js?
What's so different between Stream.js and other functional libraries like Underscore.js?
Stream.js is built around a lazily evaluated operation pipeline. Instead of consecutively performing each operation on the whole input collection, objects are passed vertically and one by one upon the chain. Interim results will not be stored in internal collections (except for some stateful operations like sorted ). Instead objects are directly piped into the resulting object as specified by the terminal operation. This results in minimized memory consumption and internal state.
Stream operations are lazily evaluated to avoid examining all of the input data when it's not necessary. Streams always perform the minimal amount of operations to gain results. E.g. in a filter - map - findFirst stream you don't have to filter and map the whole data. Instead map and findFirst are executed just one time before returning the single result. This results in increased performance when operation upon large amounts of input elements.
Stream([ 1, 2, 3, 4 ]).filter( function ( num ) { // called twice return num % 2 === 0 ; }).map( function ( even ) { // called once return " even " + even; }).findFirst(); // called once
The Stream.js API is described in detail here. For more information about Java 8 Streams I recommend reading the official Javadoc and this blog post.
A type definition for using Stream.js with Typescript is available here.
Contributing
Found a bug or missing feature? Please open an issue! Your feedback and help is highly appreciated. Please refer to the contributing rules before sending a pull request. I would also love to hear your feedback via Twitter.
Copyright and license
Created and copyright (c) 2014-2015 by Benjamin Winterberg.
Stream.js may be freely distributed under the MIT license.In his speech on Net Neutrality reform today, FCC chairman Ajit Pai called out Twitter, YouTube and other Silicon Valley giants for their long track record of censoring conservative viewpoints.
Pai specifically called out a number of big tech companies, including Twitter, for opposing Net Neutrality reform on the grounds that it threatens a “free and open internet,” while engaging in widespread censorship on their own platforms.
“I love Twitter, and I use it all the time” said Pai. “But let’s not kid ourselves; when it comes to an open Internet, Twitter is part of the problem. The company has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to discriminate.”
In further comments, the FCC chairman specifically called out the censorship of Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s pro-life ad, which was blocked by Twitter for “inflammatory speech.”
Read moreCaribou Coffee is cleaning up its act by offering beverages free of artificial colors, flavors and sweeteners.
The Brooklyn Center-based company has established a clean label standard for all beverages served at its U.S. locations, making it the first national coffeehouse to answer consumers distrustful of unrecognizable ingredients with such a wide-ranging guarantee.
“Almost all consumers are looking for, at least to some level, foods that are fresh, real and less-processed. That’s the holy grail for most consumers right now,” said Laurie Demeritt, chief executive of the Hartman Group, a consumer research firm focused on food and beverages.
According to a 2015 consumer survey by the firm, more than 70 percent of people say they read labels when shopping. The term “clean label” has no formal definition but generally describes the rejection of ingredients perceived to be bad.
Caribou has outlined on its website CaribouCleanDrink.com how it is defining the term. The company lists more than 70 ingredients forbidden in its drinks. High fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils and MSG are a few of them.
“It’s not just one or two pieces that we wanted to do,” said Jenifer Hagness, senior director of product innovation. “We are the hometown brand in Minnesota, but we are not the biggest in the [coffee] market. But our goal is to be the best.”
Caribou has been working on the clean-label endeavor for the last three years — reformulating, sourcing and testing the products. But the process began more than a decade ago when it started making incremental improvements in its supply chain.
Caribou was the first national coffeehouse to certify 100 percent of its beans with the Rainforest Alliance — a seal that assures certain environmental and social standards are met in the production of a product.
In 2010, Caribou replaced chocolate powders with real chocolate chips. The company picked up the pace in 2016, rolling out its real Madagascan vanilla, real caramel and real pumpkin.
The company is currently 91 percent of the way there. By the end of the year, all of Caribou’s drinks will meet the clean label standard. For now, Caribou’s food will not be included in the clean label guarantee.
Demeritt said food companies in the out-of-home food sphere — like restaurants and coffee shops — have actually led the industry on moving toward cleaner ingredients. Panera Bread and Chipotle were two of the early pioneers.
Caribou, which employs more than 5,400 people in the Twin Cities, said it emulated many of the standards established by Whole Foods Market.
“We initially modeled some of our ingredients off Whole Foods and have added to the list based on our segment [in beverages],” Hagness said.
Overhauling an entire menu is risky, experts say, because taste is still the biggest factor consumers consider when making purchasing decisions.
“How do we substitute with ingredients and get the same taste? Food science is not easy,” Hagness said. “We looked at every single ingredient going into our beverages to make sure it tastes like what they are supposed to taste like.”
For instance, to move away from its sugar-free flavor shots, which rely on artificial sugars, the company will use monk fruit extract, which can be used as a low-calorie sweetener.
These natural ingredients tend to be more expensive, Hagness said. Caribou will absorb much of that cost, but some of it may be passed on to consumers.
“There is definitely a higher cost associated [with the ingredients], but we are doing as much as we can internally right now to stay cost neutral apart from inflation,” she said.Good morning Silver Surfer nuts. Welcome to another weekly update of what has been happening in my collection this week.
I have decided that I am going to try focus my purchasing for the next few months to finish of my run of Volume 3. As you know at the time of writing this the collection for volume 3 stands as follows.
(#1 – #102, #131 – 140)
As you can see i still have a fair chunk of issues to collect. So I started scoring ebay for issues and not finding nice little collections I could buy in bulk so I decided to start contacting comic book stores and online stores in the UK.
This is where the guys over at www.thecgccomicshop.com came to my rescue. After a brief email explaining what i was looking for I received a response letting me know they had the whole run over volume 3 in which I could take from and at a fair price for each issue.
I thought I would go ahead with a purchase and take a small run to see what the quality of comics coming from them was like, so I put an order in for issues #141 – #146.
I received them only yesterday and I am happy with the quality and will be placing another order shortly with them for some of the missing 103 – 130. So here is some thumbnails of the issues and I will try take some actual photos soon.BROSSARD, Que. — It would be an understatement to say this season started on the wrong foot for Daniel Carr.
But if it hadn’t gone that way, you have to wonder if we’d be witnessing the redemptive tale he’s currently authoring.
The 26-year-old, who was waived and went unclaimed after coming to Montreal Canadiens training camp — basically as an afterthought after scoring eight goals and 18 points in his first 55 games in the NHL — is on a burner. With two goals and five assists and at least a point recorded in each of his last five games since being recalled to Montreal from the AHL’s Laval Rocket, only Boston Bruins forward David Pastrnak (eight-game streak), Pittsburgh Penguins forward Evgeni Malkin (six games) and Florida Panthers forward Vincent Trocheck (six games) are hotter.
Boston’s Brad Marchand, Pittsburgh’s Phil Kessel and the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Brayden Point and Tyler Johnson are all also on five-game streaks.
The thing is, all of those guys — and all the other aforementioned players — are top-sixers who play big minutes on the power play and play with elite linemates, whereas Carr is working his miracles from Montreal’s fourth line.
He hasn’t played more than 12:32 in any of his five games, and only two of his shifts this season have been on the man advantage.
"It’s a tough league to score in," said Carr’s centreman, Byron Froese, on Wednesday. "But, with little opportunity, he’s just making a mockery out of that right now."
And it’s probably fair to say Carr’s most recent bout of adversity set him up for the success he’s currently enjoying.
He’s no stranger to facing obstacles. He’s an undrafted, undersized guy, who fought tooth and nail to be recognized by the Canadiens on the heels of earning a degree and a national championship at Union College. And he’s faced his fair share of hardship since then, suffering a knee injury early in 2016, struggling to score with the Canadiens last season before going down to the St. John’s IceCaps, missing three weeks due to an infection to his elbow that required emergency surgery, and closing out the year with a concussion.
But what Carr faced at the beginning of this year — being waived by the Canadiens on Sept. 31, going unclaimed on Oct. 1 and suddenly losing his father to an undisclosed illness on Oct. 2 — presented the biggest challenges he’s faced yet.
"I’d prefer not to talk about it," Carr said recently, regarding his father’s passing.
That was the case earlier this year, too, when Carr returned to the Rocket after his father’s funeral and in his first game back scored a hat trick.
"It was really tough on him and we tried to be sensitive to his wishes," said Froese, who played all of his shifts with Laval on a line with Carr and has quickly found chemistry with him in Montreal. "He just put his head down and went to work.
"He’s just really driven, really focused, and he knows what he wants to accomplish and he goes out there and does it."
There’s no denying it.
Carr scored eight more goals and added eight assists in his 19 other games with the Rocket before bringing a spark to Montreal’s fourth line that wasn’t previously there.
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Froese, left winger Nick Deslauriers and centre Jacob De La Rose had found a recipe to spend some shifts in the offensive zone in the games leading up to Carr’s arrival with the team, but they hadn’t found a way to combine on a goal.
In fact, the Canadiens’ fourth line — which has seen a rotation of different players — had just one goal on the season, scored by Alex Galchenyuk in an 8-3 shellacking of the Ottawa Senators on Oct. 30, before Carr came up.
But Carr, Deslauriers and Froese have since combined for 15 points.
"The thing that’s really paid off for us lately is something as simple as our puck dumping choices," said Froese. "We’re putting the puck in places we can get it back, and whether it’s Carr flying down the wing or Deslauriers flying across, we’re finding time to make things happen."
"We’re three hard-working players," added Deslauriers. "We each know what each other’s going to bring and we played together in Laval. We’ve brought an identity to that part of the lineup, and we just want to keep working."
It’s paying off, and Carr, who’s been at the root of the line’s success, even found himself on a power play unit at Wednesday’s practice.
That’s a considerable leap from the farm.
"I’ve had a lot of good people around me — my family, and different people who have helped me put things in perspective," said Carr. "[Former Canadiens assistant coach and fellow Albertan] Perry Pearn was someone who sent me good advice at the beginning of the year and told me to just keep working because you never know what can happen.
"It’s basic advice, but it was something I needed to hear at the time. He gave me examples of players who had been through similar things, sent me some ideas on things I could work on in practice and things that other guys do, like Jagr.
"The big thing for me was getting back to just doing little things well and practising some things that were fun, like practising scoring goals and shooting pucks."
The results have brought a smile back to Carr’s face after not having much to be happy about a little over two months ago.A gun shop owner was accidentally shot and killed during a concealed carry class.
Newsy's partners at WCPO report a student in the class was practicing weapon malfunction drills when the gun went off Saturday afternoon. The bullet went through the wall, hitting the gun shop owner, 64-year-old James Baker.
SEE ALSO: Countries receiving stunning amount of US aid revealed
The eight-hour concealed carry weapons class was teaching students basic pistol safety and reviewing Ohio's concealed carry laws.
The Clermont County Sheriff's Office said about 10 students were participating in the class at the KayJay Gun Shop in Amelia, Ohio. The student who fired the gun has not been identified.
About a dozen people have gathered outside KayJay Gun Shop after reports of an accidental shooting. @Enquirerpic.twitter.com/YOdTEygArS — Cameron Knight (@ckpj99) June 18, 2016
Beyond selling a variety of weapons, the shop is licensed to manufacturer firearms and ammunition and licensed to sell military-grade weapons.
Neighbors say area law enforcement officers frequently visit the shop to get their weapons cleaned and serviced. They describe Baker as a well-loved member of the community.
"We lost someone really special. He loved this community, and he wanted to protect. That's why he did what he did," neighbor Anita Fritz told WCPO.
RELATED: See images of the filibuster for gun control in the Senate:
10 PHOTOS 2016 senate filibuster for gun control See Gallery 2016 senate filibuster for gun control U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) (C) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) (R) speak to reporters after ending a 14-hour filibuster in the hopes of pressuring the U.S. Senate to action on gun control measures, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. June 16, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) (C) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) (R) speak to reporters after ending a 14-hour filibuster in the hopes of pressuring the U.S. Senate to action on gun control measures, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. June 16, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) (C) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) (R, obscured) speak to reporters after ending a 14-hour filibuster in the hopes of pressuring the U.S. Senate to action on gun control measures, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. June 16, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) (C) collects himself as members of his staff catch up with him in the halls after he ended a 14-hour filibuster in the hopes of pressuring the U.S. Senate to action on gun control measures, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. June 16, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) (C) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) (L) speak to staff members after ending a 14-hour filibuster in the hopes of pressuring the U.S. Senate to action on gun control measures, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. June 16, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) (C) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) speak to reporters after ending a 14-hour filibuster in the hopes of pressuring the U.S. Senate to action on gun control measures, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. June 16, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst Spencer Davis (L), an intern for U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), greets Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) as he departs the Senate floor to thank him for his work with fellow senators on a filibuster to put pressure on legislators to move on gun control measures, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. June 16, 2016. Davis said he was moved to meet Booker because he had a relative killed in an infamous 1966 shooting spree from a tower at the University of Texas. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) (center L) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) (center R) depart the Senate floor directly after ending a 14-hour filibuster in the hopes of pressuring the U.S. Senate to action on gun control measures, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. June 16, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) (C) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) (R) speak to aides directly after ending a 14-hour filibuster in the hopes of pressuring the U.S. Senate to action on gun control measures, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. June 16, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 15: Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) leaves in an elevator after assisting Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) in waging an almost 15-hour filibuster on the Senate floor in order to force a vote on gun control on June 15, 2016 in Washington, DC. Murphy wants the Senate to vote on a measure banning anyone on the no-fly list from purchasing a weapon. (Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty Images) Up Next See Gallery Discover More Like This HIDE CAPTION SHOW CAPTION of SEE ALL BACK TO SLIDE
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From big dreams to owning a small businessan insightful examination of the growing polyamory movement and the people in it — their ideals, motivations, backgrounds, and actual practices.... Anapol draws on her nearly 30 years at the heart of the movement, including her experience counseling thousands of poly and would-be-poly clients and her many discussions with the movement's movers and shakers. She also examines how poly people and families deal with such issues as jealousy, time management, child rearing, and how closeted or out to be in a sometimes hostile world.
Anapol provides a straightforward examination of polyamory's costs and benefits, as well as the personality traits and good-relationship practices that have proven most likely to lead to a successful poly life. And she looks ahead to where the movement may be going, and to the benefits that this wider paradigm of loving may yet have for the future of humanity.
Recommended... both for scholars of the polyamory movement and for would-be polys seeking a good look at what they hope to join.
neopaganism seem to go together so often, you're seeing another founder effect: from Oberon Zell-Ravenheart and friends. They advocated for polyamory starting about 40 years ago (and co-invented the word 20 years ago) while also doing much to create and shape the Neo-Pagan religious movement with their Stranger in a Strange Land-inspired If you've also wondered why polyamory andseem to go together so often, you're seeing another founder effect: from Oberon Zell-Ravenheart and friends. They advocated for polyamory starting about 40 years ago (and co-invented the word 20 years ago) while also doing much to create and shape the Neo-Pagan religious movement with their-inspired Church of All Worlds
polyfidelity and compersion. Kerista inspired many key people in the West Coast social network that originated today's poly movement, including Ryam Nearing — while building a booming business selling and servicing those newfangled Apple computer thingies. At its height, And, do you ever wonder why the poly world is so full of computer geeks and IT professionals? One of the reasons, I'm sure, is a third founder effect: from the Kerista community in San Francisco in the 1980s, the utopian polyamorous commune that invented the wordsandKerista inspired many key people in the West Coast social network that originated today's poly movement, including Ryam Nearing — while building a booming business selling and servicing those newfangled Apple computer thingies. At its height, reports Wired magazine, Kerista's computer business Abacus
generated $35 million in sales, employed 125 people, and serviced dozens of blue-chip corporations like Pacific Gas & Electric, United Airlines and Pacific Bell. The company ran a pair of plush training centers in San Francisco's financial district and in Santa Clara. It operated three big repair facilities and a giant warehouse. It had consulting divisions for networking and publishing, and even ran a computer temp agency.
"It was a fascinating company that people couldn't put their fingers on, for good reason," said a former commune member who asked to be referred to by his commune name, Love. "It was run by flamboyant, hippie types, who tended to be young and good looking. But they were very good at evangelizing the Mac."
...right alongside evangelizing for Keristan group marriage, even while visiting corporate workplaces. (The company's motto: "A vision with a business.") For a while Kerista was the largest Macintosh dealer in northern California and was featured three years running in Inc. magazine. As a result, utopian polys and the new breed of computer geeks intersected heavily at this formative time and place for each. A social historian would surely say this is partly why, when you talk to someone at a meetup who's brand-new to poly and may have barely been born in Kerista's time, he or she is likely to tell you, "I work in IT." Today's oaks stand where acorns once fell.
Ask longtime polyfolks about Deborah Taj Anapol, and you may get very different reactions.Anapol was one of the founding mothers of the modern polyamory movement in the 1980s and 1990s (along with Ryam Nearing; see my history of Loving More ). Her 1992 bookexpanded in 1997 aswas often called the movement's bible. For a while it was practically the movement'sbook. If you've wondered why so many poly movers and shakers today are women, or why the community has a strong feminist character, or why it contains a strong subcurrent of New Age concepts, sacred sexuality, and tantra, you're seeing a sociological founder effect stemming in part from Anapol.Her enthusiastic book, articles, talks, media appearances, and workshops inspired countless people to embrace a poly life. Others were browned off. If you wonder why emotional reactions erupt in the poly world when someone mentions that they think poly is "more evolved," or against people in the movement making "woo woo" New Age health claims, you're seeing a reaction to things Anapol helped set in motion.During the last decade she largely withdrew from the poly scene, turning to larger topics of spiritual philosophy and the relevance of wider models of love to humanity's survival and future. She moved to Hawaii, raised coffee, continued to lead occasional personal-development retreats, and published the small book The Seven Natural Laws of Love (2005).Now she is back — older, wiser, and more detached, even skeptical. Polyamory in the 21st Century: Love and Intimacy with Multiple Partners takes a careful, sociologist's view of the movement that she helped create, recognizing the ways that it has and has not lived up to her initial hopes. The book may surprise her critics with its level-headed academic approach; she cannot be accused of woo-woo here.In a blurb I wrote for the publisher, I called the bookClick to read the book's introduction, table of contents, and part of Chapter 1 Here's the book's Facebook page Here's Anapol's new "Love Without Limits" blog at Psychology Today.Here are four short videos (2 to 5 minutes) of her speaking at the book launch about the biological basis of monogamy and polyamory polyamory and community, and poly and the next generation --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Labels: anthropology, Book reviews by me, books, historyNot too long ago, I (Asian American) boarded a small plane with an African American colleague in the early hours of the morning. As there were few passengers, the flight attendant told us to sit anywhere, so we choose seats near the front of the plane and across the aisle from one another.
At the last minute, three White men entered the plane and took seats in front of us. Just before takeoff, the flight attendant, who is White, asked if we would mind moving to the back of the aircraft to better balance the plane's weight. We grudgingly |
hitting the ceiling and students screaming and running down the hallway.
'Watched a lot of school shooting documentaries'
A two-lane highway into the town of about 500 people near the Idaho border was clogged as worried parents sped to the school. Some people abandoned their cars on the road shoulder to make it to their children.
Elisa Vigil, a 14-year-old freshman, told The Associated Press that she saw one male student shot in the head who janitors covered with a cloth and another female student wounded in the back.
Michael Harper, a 15-year-old sophomore, said the suspect had brought notes in the beginning of the school year, saying he was going to do "something stupid" and might get killed or jailed. Some students alerted counselors, the teen told AP, but it wasn't clear what school officials did in response.
Ambulances line up in the emergency area of Sacred Heart Hospital following the shooting at Freeman High School. The injured victims were expected to survive. Authorities say the suspect is in custody. (Kathy Plonka/The Spokesman-Review via AP)
A call to the school was not immediately returned.
Harper said the shooter had many friends and was not bullied, calling him "nice and funny and weird" and a huge fan of the TV show "Breaking Bad." He also said the suspect was obsessed with other school shootings.
"He watched a lot of school shooting documentaries," Harper said.
Authorities didn't release the suspect's identity or a possible motive. The victims also were not named.
'Mom, there are gunshots'
Luis Prito, an assistant football coach at Freeman High, called the shooting devastating.
"This is a real close-knit community," he said.
Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement that "all Washingtonians are thinking of the victims and their families, and are grateful for the service of school staff and first responders working to keep our students safe."
Cheryl Moser said her son, a freshman, called her from a classroom after hearing shots fired.
"He called me and said, `Mom, there are gunshots.' He sounded so scared. I've never heard him like that," Moser told The Spokesman-Review newspaper. "You never think about something happening like this at a small school."
Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center and Children's Hospital received three pediatric patients, spokeswoman Nicole Stewart said. They were in stable condition and surrounded by family, she said.
Stephanie Lutje told AP she was relieved to hear her son was safe after his school near Freeman High was put on lockdown. She commended the school district for its communication.
She still worried for others she knew, including a co-worker who had yet to hear from her son, a sophomore at Freeman.
"My stomach's in knots right now," she said.The human race still has a very long way to go when it comes to our treatment of animals. Fortunately, more people are starting to realize that most beings on this planet, if not all of them, share common traits within their hearts: love, care, emotion, altruism, affection, and consciousness. We are talking about living, breathing, feeling beings that are extremely intelligent, if in a different way from us.
Animals Teach Us So Much!
We have so much to learn from animals. In the meantime, we have completely destroyed their world to support our greed. We’ve become completely disconnected from nature, and we will not be able to advance as a species if we continue on this path.
I can understand why many of them fear us, and are hesitant to come into contact with us. At the same time, many out there recognize that there is still good on this planet, which is evident to me in videos like the one below, or incidents like this one, where a whale showed amazing appreciation after being rescued from tangled nets.
This might be obvious to some, but many people still don’t realize the depth of emotion and understanding animals are capable of demonstrating.
The video features a homeless dog who travels four miles every night to feed her hungry friends. Those of you who have a dog will not be surprised by this at all.
Related CE Articles:
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The power of self confidence is unmeasurable.
When I step on the soccer field, and know I am playing a team who I am clearly better than, I do some of the most amazing things I have ever done. My touch is perfect, I score ridiculous goals & everything just seems to fall perfectly for me. Yes, I am better than my opponent, but this doesn’t mean than my shots should be any more accurate or my touch be any more smooth. It’s not about skill. It’s about self confidence.
Maybe you’re not an athlete. Ever had a night out and you seem to be catching the eye of every girl in the bar. You’re 5/5 and you bring home a perfect 10. Did you magically get better looking?
No. You were on your game, your self confidence was sky high and you were having fun.
I believe that self confidence is more important than skill. Saying that, I also think that it is a skill.
This article will, without a doubt, teach you how to develop this skill and have unstoppable self confidence.
1) The first part of this article is going to be about how to build self confidence in everyday life.
2)The second part is going to be about how to become more confident in sport or any single skill.
When you combine the two you are going to be amazed at the positive effects.
Imagine you, but better. That’s who you are going to be when you’re done reading.
First, what is self confidence & where does it come from?
Before we get into the jibber jabber, where does your self-confidence come from? and what does it even mean?!
And as far as the definition, Quoting Dr. Jacobs from the Ted Talk below, I think self-confidence can be defined as the ability or belief in yourself that you can accomplish any task, no matter the odds, no matter the difficulty, no matter the adversity.
Is this something that you’re born with?
Not really.
Self confidence is something that manifests in your mind. It comes from how you view yourself in relation to the world around you. I don’t care how ugly you think you are. If you woke up on another planet where all the women were beautiful, and all the men were ridiculously hideous, making you the most beautiful guy alive, your self confidence would sky rocket. Almost instantly.
Funny how it works. But the most interesting thought is whether you can manifest this kind of self-confidence without being in an ideal situation.
While I believe you can, don’t get too excited yet. It’s not magic and yet again it’s something that you will have to work on every day. (There goes 90% of guys reading this achieving it)
Don’t be in that 90%. There are no quick fixes.
Part 1: How to build unstoppable self-confidence in everyday life
Part one of this article focuses on how to increase your self-confidence in everyday life. How to become an overall more confident person.
These steps are simple but very effective. If you apply them daily, you should be looking at a more confident you in the mirror in as short as a month.
Incredible results can come from simple changes, and they most often do.
1) Focus on posture and stand like a winner
Many people are aware that how you feel has a direct impact on your body language. But what most people don’t know is that your body language can also have a direct impact on how you feel!
It’s a proven scientific fact that you can change your physical and emotional state just by lifting your chest and tilting your head up.
Do an experiment right now. Roll your shoulders forward, collapse your spine, cave your chest and put your head down.
How do you feel? Shitty right?
Now put your shoulders back, roll your chest up, lift your head up, and keep your back straight strong and sturdy.
I bet you already feel more powerful and certain.
This is just a small example, but the fact is that most people go throughout their entire day with terrible posture. How do you expect to give off an air of confidence & feel more confident if you are slouched over like a scared little boy?
Stand tall.
Like I said above, it is a proven scientific fact that just changing your body language for a minute has direct effect on how you feel. If you stand tall and confident, you will feel tall and confident. Fact. Check out the TED talk by Amy Cuddy on this below. It’s really fascinating.
The more you do this, the more you can condition yourself and your beliefs.
2) Dress clean
Step number 2, no matter what your style, dress clean.
Why?
Ever been in a rut? You know, the kind where you never leave sweat pants or comb your hair for a week. Who can feel confident like that?!
Just like changing your body language & making an effort to look more confident will, in fact, make you feel more confident. You will feel better, people will notice it and it will build your confidence.
3) Walk with a purpose
So you have great posture, you are looking sharp, but you are strolling down the road like a lost puppy.
That’s not the walk of a confident man.
Walk with a purpose. You are an important man who knows where hes going and what hes doing. Another example of how you look and act has an effect on how you feel.
See what I’m getting at now?
Picture yourself standing tall, dressed clean and walking down the street with a purpose. People are going to notice you and assume that you’re a confident person. You will also begin to believe it yourself.
4) Talk with a purpose
If you struggle to convey your point or convince people with your words, no one is ever going to have confidence in you. Nor are you going to have confidence in yourself.
Talk with a purpose. Don’t muttle your opinions. Or be scared to speak your mind. You’re you! You’re important and everything that you have to say is important!
You may not believe it or be there yet, but fake it till you make it. This one takes more effort and will have to develop over time, until you always talk with a purpose, and people will listen.
“Come with me if you want to live.” – Terminator
5) Praise and add value to others
Confident people add value to others. Scared people try to make other feel like crap to make themselves feel better. Compliment people in the way it adds value to them, genuinely.
Being able to tell someone you really like the way they are dressed, shows you are not afraid to express your opinions and are a genuinely nice person.
Sometimes you need to lose your ego. By making it not all about you and making other people feel good and that they are the center of the universe you will be liked and valued more.
This will, in turn, change how the world sees you and turn you into a more confident person.
6) Start and finish every day with gratitude. Be grateful as often as possible.
This one may seem a little weird to some people, but may be the most powerful step of them all.
Being grateful changes people. Besides adding more self-confidence, being grateful will make you appreciate your life and will help you attract more positive things towards you.
Wake up each day and be happy to be alive. Take time every day to look around and realize how lucky you are to have the little things in your life. Instead of being mad that you’re stuck in traffic, be grateful that you have a car and a stable job. This shift in energy will change your life, and in turn, will make you happier & much more confident.
[quote]”If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” – Wayne dyer[/quote]
7) Think and be positive
Adding to being grateful. Keep a positive attitude.
Confident people are not negative people. Simple as that.
The guy who gets tons of girls and lives how he wants believes that everything works out for him, hes valuable and that he deserves great things. He doesn’t dwell on negativity.
When someone says “Oh, every relationship I am in is a disaster, I’m never going to find anyone,” they are only reinforcing that truth. Those people never find anyone.
Instead, they should change their ideas to “this isn’t always going to happen to me, this is all a learning experience that is preparing me for when I meet the right person.”
So stop thinking that you have no self-confidence, now! Every time you think about it, you enforce it. Man becomes what he thinks about, its a universal truth.
Start thinking every day, “I am confident. I have incredible self-confidence.” Then visualize yourself walking talking, and acting as you want to be. Super confident, winking at girls, walking with a swagger. $100 bills falling out of your pocket. If you truly do it daily and believe that you will be that person, one day you will.
8) Respect and value your health and body
Your body is your temple. You need to be aware of what you are putting in your system.
You wouldn’t put contaminated thick sludgy gasoline into your brand new Ferrari. So why on earth would you put krispy kreme donuts into your beautiful body?
Eat healthy, workout & treat your temple well. Not only will you look better by losing weight, but you will feel better. This alone can go a long way towards increasing self-confidence.
9) Celebrate the small wins
In order to gain confidence and appreciate yourself, you need to appreciate the small wins that you experience.
You probably have huge goals. But if you are not celebrating the small wins, you are going to start losing confidence towards that goal.
Be happy with the little wins, but never satisfied.
Be happy with your accomplishment, but strive for more.
Every time this website hits another 1,000 visitors a day higher its a great win for me. You don’t have to reach your main goal to celebrate. If you want to lose 50lbs but only lose 10 after 3 months, that awesome! No reason to lose confidence. Celebrate the small win, you’re 10lbs lighter. Then keep working towards your main goal. It will keep you confident throughout.
These 9 steps can do incredible things in your life. They not only will help you to build self-confidence, but they will change the fabric of your being. Life will start to be better, maybe a little bit easier. Make the commitment. Make it happen.
Part 2: How to build self-confidence in sport or any particular skill
So if you read part one, then you are going to start living your life as a more confident person. Great!
But no matter how good your posture is, or how awesome your dress, it’s not going to make you any more confident while playing your sport.
Yes, it will help a little (I play much better in a good fitting jersey). But who wants to be a little more confident. We aim high, and that’s exactly where the steps below will take you.
Before we get into it, I want you to watch a TedX talk from championship soccer coach Dr. Joseph. See you after.
1) Repetition, repetition, repetition.
Step 1 to building self-confidence, like from Dr. Joseph’s talk is repetition, repetition, repetition. A.K.A practice. Sadly, the only REAL way to have self-confidence in sport is to be good.
If you want to be confident at taking penalty kicks. Take 100 penalty kick’s a day. I guarantee when the time comes for you to take one, you will be damn sure that you are going to make it. If you had to take that same PK without ever trying before, you would be shitting your pants.
Beyond sports, if you want to be more confident approaching women, you have to approach hundreds of women.
If you want to be more confident while having sex, you have to have lots of sex.
It’s a bitch, isn’t it? And there is no getting around it.
But its good news. You can be confident at anything you do. You just have to do it. There is a formula and its simple. It’s up to you.
2) Self Talk & Visualization
Like we discussed in part one, being positive and visualizing will go a long way in building up your self-confidence.
Did you know that visualizing yourself participating in a sport actually fires the same muscles as playing that sport? Your brain cannot tell the difference. See yourself competing, winning and believe you can do it. When game time comes you will be not only ready but confident.
The power of belief is an amazing thing. Click the link to the left to read more about harnessing its full power.
3) Don’t be afraid to fail
If you are scared of failing, your focus is not in the right spot. Failure is not bad. It is a necessary part of growing and getting stronger.
You know the Michael Jordan quote:
Failure will teach you the necessary lessons it takes to be better. So don’t be scared of getting rejected by a hot girl, don’t be scared of missing the game winning shot. Being scared means being unconfident.
Embrace rejection, embrace failure.
TThis failurein the end will make you the confident guy you will be in the end. Just go out and do your thing.
Recap: Self Confidence Protocol
So this was a long article.
Here is a condensed protocol in one paragraph you can do to be a much more confident dude in 1 month.
First, start being grateful for everything you have. Be grateful you found this article, be grateful you have a bed. Just be grateful. Everyday start thinking and believing that you are becoming more confident daily. Start affirming that you have unstoppable self confidence. Then everyday visualize yourself as the most confident guy you have ever seen. Visualize it from the third person and the first person. Feel that confidence. Come back and keep that feeling with you. Then, align your actions with those thoughts and feelings. Shower, shave, dress sharp and head out the door standing tall with incredible posture. Start to talk with a purpose, make healthier choices and hit the gym a few times each week. Respect your body and everyone around you. Give compliments and help people whenever they need it. Start to practice whatever it is you want to be confident at. Over and over and over.
Do this everyday for a month. Don’t be lazy.
This stuff will work. You are not the first person to do it and you won’t be the last. Some guys will succeed and give it the effort. Some will shrug it off. Put in the time, give it a month. If after you don’t feel a sense of higher self confidence, feel free to come back here and destroy me in the comment section.
Also, to take things to the next level – Check out Eduardo’s articles on the Modern Gentlemans Guide to Developing Self Confidence. It is the next step after this.
Sources & Resources:
1) How to Build Self Confidence – School of Greatness Podcast W/ Lewis Howes
2) 10 Ways to Instantly Build Self Confidence
3) Self Confidence TED Talk
4) Body Language TED Talk
5) Tony Robbins – How to Have Self ConfidenceEAST RUTHERFORD — This was a risk the Giants understood.
When they signed Jon Beason, 29, to a three-year, $16.8 million contract a few months back, they were paying for the man who rejuvenated their struggling defense and pumped life back into a stale linebacker meeting room.
They accepted the man who played in just a handful of games over the past few seasons, suffering a left achilles’ rupture and undergoing microfracture surgery on his right knee.
Though Beason downplayed the way his health was depicted in his six-plus previous seasons in Carolina, there were reports suggesting he had been playing through pain throughout the past two seasons. Members of the Giants staff have seen first-hand the amount of precautions that go into maintaining Beason’s health.
Yesterday, some of their fears were realized when Beason noticed a pain in his right foot and began walking gingerly toward the trainers huddled on the sideline during an 11-on-11 drill. Stevie Brown, who is completing recovery on a torn ACL, saw Beason and immediately notified the medical staff that help was needed.
Beason was carted off to the training room and then shuttled to the Hospital for Special Surgery, where he underwent a battery of tests. As of last night, the team did not have the results.
"We’ll get this one out of the way quick, I really don’t know much about Beason," head coach Tom Coughlin said after practice. "It’s a foot. He was running across the field and felt something at the bottom of his foot. We’ll see."
Coughlin later clarified that he wasn’t sure if the injury was located on the bottom of Beason’s foot.
What he was sure of, though, was the kind of player he’d be missing if Beason’s injury turned out to be serious. He has taken nearly every rep at middle linebacker during offseason camp and is backed up by a platoon of Mark Herzlich and rookie Devon Kennard.
The Giants floundered without a middle linebacker last season and were desperate for a playmaker in the center of their defense until Beason came along.
With no major upgrades, they would be back to the same linebacking corps that struggled to replace then-starter Dan Connor.
"(He’s) very important," Coughlin said. "Because of the nature of the man, his attitude, what he brings to the table, his leadership skills. He’s very important."
At the time Beason went down yesterday, Kennard was working at the middle linebacker spot with the second unit and Herzlich was with the third-team, though both have rotated with the backups during training camp.
The Giants coaching staff has been high on Kennard.
"He’s picked things up very well. He’s very smart, very good on the board," Coughlin said. "He’s done a nice job on the field, a good job on special teams. We’re excited about him. A nice big kid, strong kid."
Kennard would have big shoes to fill. And even though this was a calculated risk that the Giants knew they were taking, there is no way they wanted to find out what comes next so soon.IBM has announced a new web portal called developerWorks Open, bringing together various projects they are open sourcing. The projects cover many domains including Analytics, Cloud, IoT, Mobile, Security, Social, Watson and others. So far, IBM has open sourced about 30 projects, and they plan to increase the number up to 50 by the end of the year, and others may come in the future.
While some projects are targeted to IBM-specific technologies such as Cognitive Catalyst – a collaborative tool for building extensions for Watson – others can be used in conjunction with other open source tools apart from the IBM ecosystem. Following are pointers to some of the projects accompanied by short descriptions:
The portal includes the IBM Bluemix Mobile Services SDKs and a set of IBM Ready Apps for Banking, Healthcare, Insurance and Retail.
The source code of the projects is stored on GitHub.
The developerWorks Open portal comes with blogs and invites the community to contribute.Well, Curry did his usual magic in the fourth quarter, but for the sake of variety, let's look at Marreese Speights, the NBA's tallest shooting guard. He had probably his best game as a Warrior to ignite the fourth quarter comeback.
Legendary Night for Mo pic.twitter.com/uS3vzCPSsq — warriorsworld (@warriorsworld) March 13, 2016
So, how did Mo Buckets get mo' buckets? In brief, he was left open by the defense and he made them pay.
Let's break them down Mo's buckets in the fourth quarter one by one.
[GSW 88-95] Speights Driving Layup Shot: Made (16 PTS) Assist: Livingston (5 AST)
This is a simple pick and roll, with Shaun Livingston handling the ball. I don't understand what the Suns were trying to do on this coverage. It looks like the Mo's defender Alex Len intentionally sank back into the lane to cut off Livingston's drive, while waiting for Shaun's defender to catch up.
Both Suns go with Livingston, so this lets Speights roll to the hoop alone. Livingston made the nice little pass and Mo finishes.
[GSW 90-95] Speights Pullup Jump shot: Made (18 PTS) Assist: Barnes (3 AST)
PHX gets completely mixed up on their defensive assignments as the Warriors push in early offense. Look at everyone pointing to have someone pick up Harrison Barnes on the left wing. By the time they figure it out, Shaun Livingston does a dribble pitch followed by a flying butt whump screen taking out a PHX defender. This leaves Barnes an angle for a drive to the hoop, Alex Len (again!) leaves Mo to help on the drive. When he does...
Barnes makes the nice little pass to give Mo an open baseline jumper. He loves that shot. Score. Len probably did not need to give help. He gives the appearance of someone who is tired and was never given a scouting report on Mo Buckets.
[GSW 95-95] Speights Jump Shot: Made (20 PTS) Assist: Barnes (4 AST)
Well, here the Warriors push the ball in early offense and Alex Len (again!!) leaves Speights alone near the free throw line, for no particular reason. Doesn't he realize that midrange jumpers are Mo's main contribution to the offense? This is, well, basically a free throw for Mo.
This is the worst play so far by Len. He had a good offensive game, but this was a terrible defensive quarter for him.
Interlude: Stephen Curry to Shaun Livingston for a HUGE Alley-Oop Dunk
This is a terrible camera angle, but watch and see if you follow how Shaun Livingston got open for this big alley-oop dunk.
That's right, his man is back screened by Mo of the House of Buckets. When Curry is on the left side of the floor, it's hard to pay attention to the right side of the floor. A good play, as you would expect Len's coach to chew him out and say, STICK CLOSE TO MO, so you don't expect Len to be ready to switch when Mo screen's Shaun's man. In this case, I don't really understand why Len starts running towards Curry away from the alley oop, as if he were being controlled by an NBA2K controller by someone who wasn't sure which player was selected.
If the play looks familiar, it's because the Warriors run it for all their personnel who can dunk. Here's an example of Andre Iguodala handing it off and getting a Speights back screen for the alley-oop. (By coincidence, we have the same artistic floor level camera angle.)
More detail in past write-ups at: Explain One Play: Andre Iguodala and Draymond Green throw down huge dunks and Explain One Odd Play: Draymond Green Pass to Stephen Curry Layup.
[GSW 99-98] Speights Jump Shot: Made (22 PTS) Assist: Livingston (6 AST)
Here, for some reason, Alex Len feels some electromagnetic repulsion keeping him from staying close to Speights. Here Livingston sees that Len is (again!!!) sinking deep into the lane, so he just tosses the ball to Mo for a quick elbow jumper.
Len makes it worse by fouling. If you count the exclamation points in the last "again", that is FOUR times in just three minutes that Len left Speights open to score. Mercifully, that's his 5th foul, so he is pulled. If he had stayed on Mo, Mo might have gone for 30 or 40.
[GSW 110-108] Speights Driving Dunk Shot: Made (25 PTS) Assist: K Thompson (3 AST)
Here again, the Warriors push the ball in early offense. Draymond Green hits Klay Thompson at the arc. Of course the Suns defender has to close out, and Klay makes a nice move to get past him. Now the defense completely panics and four Suns collapse on Klay....
... so Klay just makes a nice dump off to Speights, who dunks! Good to see Speights regaining confidence in his dunk, after the unfortunately muff in the Finals. Also good to see Klay taking more responsibility making plays.
Notice Draymond's importance is two-fold. First, he sees Klay will have an angle on the defense and hits him with the nice pass at the right time. Second, Draymond has an erratic three point shot, but his defender Tyson Chandler has to respect it. He plays up above the free throw circle to cover Draymond. Tyson is the only real Suns shot blocker, so Klay knows he can attack freely.
Final Thoughts
One of the Warriors discoveries at the end of last year was that Shaun Livingston and Mo Speights work well together in pick and rolls. Mo was out of sorts for most of this year, but Steve Kerr is the Mo Buckets Whisperer and Kerr's return seems to have revived his confidence.
Now, all of Mo's buckets analyzed here were the result of bad defense. And yet, it is so important to have someone who can punish bad defense, and that is Mo at his best. If he could punish good defense, he'd be a starter. Still, if Mo's hitting those midrange jumpers, and teams start game planning for him, that will open space for Livingston to operate in the paint.
If you want to read more video breakdowns, check out the rest of the series of Explain One Play articles. For the full updated index, go to The Explain One Play series index.Image copyright AFP Image caption The abduction and torture allegedly took place in Strasbourg, eastern France.
Said Emin Ibragimov, who fled to France from Chechnya 14 years ago, always assumed he would be safe in his adopted home city of Strasbourg.
Before being granted asylum by the French government, he had been a marked man.
As a prominent member of the Chechen separatist movement - which had declared independence from Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union - he had survived several assassination attempts back home, he says, as well as a knife attack in Istanbul.
But last August, in the supposedly safe city of Strasbourg, he says his enemies struck again.
The 68-year-old had been fishing in his favourite spot, a serene stretch of the River Ill near his suburban home.
Suddenly he heard a noise behind him.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Said Emin Ibragimov said he was attacked while out fishing
Several men appeared, one of them hitting him hard over the head.
"When I regained consciousness, we were in a boat on the river. They were polite saying let's come to an agreement," he recalled.
"But I told them I don't agree anything with thugs.
"They hit me again and when we were in the forest, they started torturing me, burning me with an iron and crushing my fingers until they crunched. The pain was terrible.
"They stabbed me in my legs with some sort of spike and burnt me with cigarettes."
Bearing the scars
It went on, he says, for more than two days, until finally they left him lying half dead in a ditch in the forest, his clothes covered in blood. It was night-time.
He woke up in the morning with rain pouring down on him.
Five months later he still bears the scars from his injuries.
Image caption Some of the injuries suffered by Mr Ibragimov
At his small apartment he showed me the medical report provided by the Strasbourg hospital where he was treated.
I am sure the attackers were FSB agents Said Emin Ibragimov, Chechen dissident
It describes multiple burns and cuts on his body.
The hospital confirmed to the BBC that he had been admitted on 10 August last year.
So who was responsible for this attack?
"By the way they were talking, by their accents, these people were from Moscow," said Mr Ibragimov.
"I'm more than sure they were FSB agents. There's no other explanation."
The FSB is Russia's most powerful intelligence agency, once led by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Image copyright EPA Image caption Mr Ibragimov was attacked after requesting an investigation into Russian President Vladimir Putin
Mr Ibragimov went on to show me another key document which he believes is the reason he was attacked.
It is a formal letter which he sent to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague last July, just weeks before he was attacked.
In it he requests that a criminal case be brought against President Putin and other Russian officials for alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Chechen people during the two wars with the Russian armed forces in the 1990s.
Dossier of evidence
Along with his letter he included a dossier of what, he says, is evidence collected over the past five years.
"The attack was because of this, clearly", he told me.
"I sent the documents to The Hague on 1 July 2014. After I received a letter from The Hague saying the documents would be looked at, the threats against me started.
"They were so open and blatant, they weren't afraid. They said I was slandering the president."
He also has a document which appears to be written by a senior French prosecutor which refers to an attempt in 2009 to assassinate up to four Chechen refugees living in Strasbourg, including Mr Ibragimov.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Chechnya is currently experiencing a resurgence of violence after years of conflict
Image copyright AFP Image caption From the mid to late 1990s Chechen secessionists fought to gain independence from Russia
The prosecutor quotes the French intelligence agency as saying the team of hit men was sponsored by the current pro-Russian leadership in Chechnya.
Following the attack last August, Mr Ibragimov told me he had received yet more threats.
Most recently he says he was approached on the tram in Strasbourg by two men - one Chechen and the other Russian - telling him "to stop this, it will be more peaceful."
While he has no intention of withdrawing the case he has submitted to the ICC, he does now have several bodyguards to protect him.
In response to Mr Ibragimov's allegations that he was attacked by Russian intelligence agents, the BBC was given a statement by President Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov in which he wrote: "This Chechen is known to us and unfortunately he is not completely psychiatrically healthy."
Across Europe there are other vocal opponents of the Kremlin who assume they are not safe wherever they live.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The Kremlin has dismissed Mr Ibragimov's allegations
In London, the fund manager Bill Browder has persistently campaigned against the Russian authorities after he says his investment company in Moscow was taken over by corrupt officials so they could commit a massive tax fraud.
His lawyer, Sergei Magnisky, who uncovered the alleged fraud, died in a Moscow prison cell.
The Russian government...was going to try and kidnap me Bill Browder, Fund manager
Both he and Mr Browder were themselves subsequently convicted in absentia of tax fraud by a Russian court, in a trial denounced by human rights organisations.
Interpol has rejected Russia's requests to help extradite Mr Browder, describing the case as "predominantly political in nature".
That, Mr Browder says, led to a specific threat against him.
"We were given intelligence from the United States Department of Justice last summer that there was an illegal rendition attempt being organised against me," he said.
"The Russian government, according to the US Department of Justice, was going to try to kidnap me and take me back to Russia."
Like Mr Ibragimov, he too has security measures in place to protect him from what he believes is a very serious risk.World Hello Day Observed by 180 countries Date November 21 Next time ( 2019-11-21 ) Frequency Annual Related to International Day of Peace
World Hello Day is a secular holiday observed annually on November 21, to express that conflicts should be resolved through communication rather than the use of force. Participants verbally greet ten people or more on that day as an expression of the importance of personal communication in preserving peace. The annual global event began to be celebrated in 1973 as a response to the Yom Kippur War.
Background [ edit ]
Every year, November 21 is World Hello Day.[1] The objective is to greet to at least ten people on the day. The message is for world leaders to use communication rather than force to settle conflicts.[2]
World Hello Day was founded in 1973 by Brian McCormack, a Ph.D. graduate of Arizona State University, and Michael McCormack, a graduate of Harvard University, in response to the Yom Kippur War. The McCormack brothers mailed 1360 letters, in seven languages, to government leaders worldwide to encourage participation in the first World Hello Day.[3] Since that time, World Hello Day has been observed by people in 180 countries.[1]
Any person can participate in World Hello Day simply by greeting ten people or more. This demonstrates the importance of personal communication for preserving peace. World Hello Day was begun in response to the conflict between Egypt and Israel in the fall of 1973. People around the world use the occasion of World Hello Day as an opportunity to express their concern for world peace. Beginning with a simple greeting on World Hello Day, their activities send a message to leaders, encouraging them to use communication rather than force to settle conflicts. In its first year, World Hello Day gained the support of 15 countries.[4] As a global event World Hello Day joins local participation in a global expression of peace.
Winners of the Nobel Peace Prize are among the people who have noted World Hello Day's value as an instrument for preserving peace and as an occasion that makes it possible for anyone in the world to contribute to the process of creating peace. Other supporters include almost 100 authors, entertainers, and world leaders.[4]Arguably the Democrats made the same mistake in 2008, though I am less sure about that--Obama had run for President, after all, on a platform of passing health care, and he and the Democrats did just that. Nonetheless, something about their performance jarred the voters, or stunned just enough of them into apathy, and now the House, and numerous state governments, have shifted to Republican hands.
The process of overreach may be underway again. But there is something unusually unbecoming about the current Republican rapacity to lock in their victory. Their target this time is not feeding-tube laws, or even federal judges, but the Constitution itself. And the motivation behind the frenzy is transparent; this crowd wants to rewrite our fundamental law to make sure that no progressive policy--no matter how popular--can ever be enacted again.
At first, the Tea Party and the far-right were muttering about the Seventeenth Amendment and the popular election of Senators. If only the perfidious |
should be based on rehabilitation, not the extreme forms of punishment and cruelty we have now.
Kulma talks about meeting Max Parthas, who is advocating for the end of prison slavery. “After speaking with him and doing research,” Kulma stated, “I knew that I need to speak out about the moral degradation that is the continuation of legalized slavery in this country and to work to end it.”
Another important issue in Kulma’s candidacy is fighting money in politics.
I am focused on money in politics, because the legalized corruption is obvious in our political system. And as I sit on stages with Democrats and Republicans vying to be the next person who drinks at the trough of bank and defense contractor money, I realize how necessary getting money out of politics is. They are fine people, but the system will force them into only representing their donors rather than people like me who cannot afford to sign big checks. Our politicians don’t represent us, no matter how lovely their words are.
“We need real people who don’t take this money in Congress.” Kulma concludes, “I could be one of these people.”
Kulma talks about his candidacy and how he is offering a clear progressive platform built on the progressive pillars of the Green Party. Bottom up democracy, social justice, environmental protections, and peaceful foreign policy. “Like Bernie Sanders, I am offering an issues-based campaign that focuses on policies people care about and are excited by,” he says.
The infrastructure in place to assist Kulma is small, but a lot has been accomplished in a short period of time. He has already held two of four planned forums on healthcare and housing. On Saturday, June 17th, he will be having a forum on education and Sunday, June 18th, a forum on prisons. Kulma has also participated in an event for the NAACP.
Kulma states that he felt the need to run for office because he wanted someone to speak about progressive issues in this special election. “I didn’t want to run,” Kulma says, “But after seeing all the Republicans and the corporate Democrat, a Goldman Sachs tax attorney, announce [their candidacies], I realized that no one else was going to run the Bernie Sanders/Justice Democrats style campaign I thought was needed. So I jumped in.”
You can find the rest of the issues important to Kulma on his campaign website at votekulma.org. To hear more from Kulma himself, check out his interview on The Takedown with Nick Nowlin below.A Magazine Cover is the most complete form of graphics. It has idea, design, punch-line, typography, art and expressions.
Magazine covers provide you more inspiration compared to any other kind of articles.
Today, I have collected some of the very best and trend setting magazine covers and titles for you to inspire, aspire and admire.
Please comment and tell us what do you think about this post.
The New Yorker: September 24, 2001: Twin Towers
After the horrific incident of 9/11, The New Yorker paid tribute to the victims through this artistic cover. Ad Reinhardt’s Black on Black art provided inspiration to Franoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman who drew this sketch.
Esquire: December 2000: Clint
It was said that this photo was inspired by Lincoln Memorial, but everybody interpreted it with reference to Monica Lewinsky.
Mad: January 1984: Holiday Season
Maddy Christmas! Nukes are being launched and Santa is in the way, get ready for a nuclear holocaust. “Happy Holidays”
National Geographic: June 1985: Afghan Girl
The ever famous photo by Steve McCurry. He shot a 12 year old Afghan girl near a refugee camp around Pakistan border, in 1985. And then after so many years in an expedition by Nat Geo, the girl is once again found, and this became a classical tale, for more details, kindly click here.
TIME: June 21, 1968:
A figure by Roy Lichtenstein, representing a hand with a pistol. This cover was released after the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. It demanded a legislation about restricting the arms sales.
National Lampoon: January 1973: Funny One
This cover was to some extent considered violent, but generally, the reaction was just laughter. Ronald G. Harris designed this and remember, Photoshop wasn’t invented till then.
People: September 15, 1997: Diana’s Death
After Princess Diana’s accidental death in August 1997, Diana’s image appeared a record breaking 52 times on magazine covers.
Mad: April, 1969: Uncle Sam
This is a drawing by Norman Mingo. A Typical MAD design, and it was just as controversial as any other MAD title.
Newsweek: July 30, 1973: Nixon
The famous scandal of “The Nixon Tapes”. The cover indicates about the revelation of that scandal and this scandal created so much hype that President Richard Nixon had to resign from the seat. This is the only case of its kind in US history.
Fortune: October 1, 2001: 9/11
The famous photo of people covered with ashes, released after the world changing 9/11 incident.
Time: April 8, 1966: Is God Dead?
One of the most controversial magazine covers ever made. The cover story was “Death of God Movement” that was gaining popularity in the 1960’s. Without a doubt, this title was disliked by many.
Mad: June, 1972
No magazine has ever beaten MAD in craziness, this title is another prove for that remark. MAD deliberately made it look like it was mis-printed, but no, this was just a gag MAD played with its readers. Some liked the idea, some not, but the title became very popular.
The New Yorker, March 29, 1976: Steinberg Map
How the world is seen from 9th avenue. A drawing by Saul Steinberg, and the artist sued Columbia Pictures for their movie posters for “Moscow on the Hudson”, which in his thought was derived from this cover. Steinberg won this case.
The New Yorker: December 10, 2001: Map of New York
A New York map but in old Middle East style. Quite a controversial cover, and in a way, it corresponds to the previous image.
The New Yorker, July 21, 2008
A dreadfully controversial design by cartoonist Barry Blitt. Even the McCain camp criticized the idea. According to TNY, it was just satire and meant to make people laugh, but that did not happen.
Texas Monthly: January 2007: The Dick Cheney Cover
After the famous lampoon cover (the sixth from the top in this list) the same idea was remade here, with a few modifications, of course. This cover also became a huge success and won the Best Cover Line of the Year award from Magazine Publishers of America in 2007.
National Geographic: October 1978:
This photo in the cover shows the gorilla Koko, who took a photograph of her own reflection image in a mirror. Psychologist Francine Patterson has taught this gorilla sign language in a span of 6 years and this is considered to be a breakthrough success.Getty Images
Apple Inc. is set to report third-quarter earnings after the market close on Tuesday.
The third quarter is typically the slowest for iPhone sales, but analysts are forecasting a quarterly record of $29.9 billion, versus $19.8 billion in the year-earlier period, according to FactSet. Analysts expect strong iPhone sales to be buoyed by bigger-than-expected demand in China. Unit estimates range from 48 million and 50 million, which imply year-over-year improvements of between 36% and 42% from the 35.2 million phones Apple AAPL, +0.06% sold a year ago.
Here’s what to expect:
Earnings: Analysts expect Apple to report adjusted earnings per share of $1.90, up from $1.40 in the year-earlier period. Estimize, a fast-growing software platform that uses crowdsourcing to garner earnings estimates from hedge fund executives, brokerages and analysts, has Apple earning slightly less: $1.86 a share. Apple has surpassed Wall Street’s non-GAAP EPS estimate for 11 straight quarters. It has toppled Estimize’s consensus in each of the past three.
Revenue: Sell-side analysts expect Apple to report revenue of $49.3 billion, according to FactSet, up from $37.4 billion in the same period last year. Contributors on Estimize are forecasting revenue of $49.3 billion. In April, Apple forecast revenue of between $46 billion and $48 billion. Apple missed revenue expectations in 2014’s third quarter, but it has trumped the consensus every quarter since.
Stock reaction: Shares of Apple are virtually flat from the company’s last earnings report on April 27, but remain up close to 40% from 12 months ago. Analysts are overwhelmingly bullish on the company, with the vast majority of analysts currently rating Apple the equivalent to buy, according to FactSet. Among a poll of more than 40 analysts, the average 12-month stock target on Apple is $147.62, which would mark a 14% increase from Apple’s closing price of $129.62 on Friday. Shares of Apple traded down about 0.8% to $130.99 Tuesday morning.
What to watch for: While iPhone sales have been on a rip due to the popularity of the iPhone 6 and larger-screen iPhone 6 Plus in China, there are concerns that overall smartphone-industry growth could decelerate in the latter half of this calendar year. Among those worries is that demand in China, which overtook the U.S. earlier this year as the world’s largest iPhone market, could dry up if the market reaches levels of saturation and economic concerns put a damper on spending.
In May, industry tracker IDC tapered its own prediction on global smartphone growth, forecasting growth of 11.3% in 2015, compared with 28% in 2014. Earlier this month, Deutsche Bank analyst Sherri Scribner predicted that iPhone 6 sales would slow throughout the remainder of this year, and that Apple would underperform the overall smartphone market in 2016.
“The well-known negative is that difficult comps starting in the Dec-15 quarter will soften investor optimism around iPhone share growth,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster wrote in a note to clients this week.
But analysts nevertheless remain bullish. On Monday, Munster reiterated an overweight rating and $162 target on the stock, saying he thinks iPhone unit growth will signal continued acceleration of the product category; and Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated a buy rating and $195 target on Apple, saying it thinks the upgrade cycle in China to a larger-size iPhone will be a “multiyear event.”
Meanwhile, the June quarter represents the first for Apple Watch sales. Apple has been tight-lipped on the category to date. In July, Deutsche Bank’s Scribner trimmed her Apple Watch estimates, saying demand appears to have stabilized after an initial pop. Munster said he thinks demand could improve next year as developers introduce native apps.
Get the top tech stories of the day delivered to your inbox. Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Tech Daily newsletter. Sign up here.Posting an appeal online can be a very effective way of raising money. But what else can charities learn from the growth of social media?
When UK-based charity Childs i Foundation needed to raise funds urgently this year to fly Joey, a Ugandan baby, to South Africa for a life-saving operation, founder Lucy Buck turned to the internet for help. Within 38 hours, the charity had raised more than £10,000 via social networking and online giving websites – enabling the child to make the trip with his family for the vital surgery.
The growth in social media usage in the UK has been explosive in recent years, and is expected to continue. This poses significant challenges for fundraisers, as they grapple with how best to incorporate these communication platforms into the fundraising mix and how to engage new user groups.
But there is a huge opportunity for charity fundraisers. Facebook has about 400m users worldwide, up from 100m just two years ago. According to consultancy Clicky Media, the UK has nearly 28m Facebook users – almost half the population. Meanwhile, nearly 4m use Twitter, which has reached 50m tweets a day worldwide. After Facebook, YouTube is the most-visited social networking site, accounting for 17% of all visits in the UK.
International disaster relief charities have used social media to raise funds for their emergency work in countries such as Haiti. But even small organisations can translate the same techniques for their own local causes.
Howard Lake, director of internet fundraising consultancy Fundraising UK, says that when it comes to raising money through social media, many charities have been beaten to it by individual supporters. What charities need to do, he says, is identify those supporters who are actively promoting or fundraising for the charity on Facebook, YouTube and other networking sites.
"Charities need to harness the skills of these activists and support them by putting resources into these new media," says Lake. This could mean providing supporters with tools, content and other features such as video or sample tweets that can be used to raise the charity's profile or support particular campaigns.
Dogs Trust has used social media for one-off fundraising, such as doing a 24-hour "big ask" on Facebook or using Twibbon, which promotes causes on Facebook and Twitter, for its Valentine appeal. Laurier Nicas, digital marketing officer at the charity says: "These media are useful in helping us support individuals raising money for us, so we tweet for them if they're running a marathon for us, for example."
But Nicas agrees charities should be wary of relying on social media to raise money: "We use social media more as a customer service tool and if fundraising emerges out of that, it's a bonus."
There is no denying though that these new channels do have the ability to reach large numbers of people very quickly and – if a cause is compelling enough – to raise money. Childs i Foundation's Buck says: "We got a call from Joey's parents and in 40 minutes a campaign was up and running." She posted a video and launched an appeal on online donations website JustGiving, as well as using a Facebook fan page. This kind of appeal is not just about raising money, says Buck, but also about making deeper connections with people across the world and showing them what the charity is doing.
To keep on top of new developments, Howard Lake recommends face-to-face contact with other fundraisers using social media, via events such as those hosted by NFPtweetup, a website of Twitter users in the non-profit sector. "You can also contact other charities and chat with them about their experience of using these media," says Lake.
This year the Institute of Fundraising has introduced "webinars" for fundraisers in blogging content and effective Facebook fan pages (the next is on 14 December). AJ Leon, CEO of event partner LaC Project, says fundraisers who learn, understand and employ emerging technologies now "will be those leading the digital revolution in the third sector for years to come".
Links
Donordigital.com
Fundraising.org.uk
Dogstrust.org.uk
Childsifoundation.org
Nfptweetup.orgMcCain for President
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, October 24, 2008
Contrarian that I am, I'm voting for John McCain. I'm not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it's over before it's over. I'm talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they're left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years.
I stand athwart the rush of conservative ship-jumpers of every stripe -- neo (Ken Adelman), moderate (Colin Powell), genetic/ironic (Christopher Buckley) and socialist/atheist (Christopher Hitchens) -- yelling "Stop!" I shall have no part of this motley crew. I will go down with the McCain ship. I'd rather lose an election than lose my bearings.
First, I'll have no truck with the phony case ginned up to rationalize voting for the most liberal and inexperienced presidential nominee in living memory. The "erratic" temperament issue, for example. As if McCain's risky and unsuccessful but in no way irrational attempt to tactically maneuver his way through the economic tsunami that came crashing down a month ago renders unfit for office a man who demonstrated the most admirable equanimity and courage in the face of unimaginable pressures as a prisoner of war, and who later steadily navigated innumerable challenges and setbacks, not the least of which was the collapse of his campaign just a year ago.
McCain the "erratic" is a cheap Obama talking point. The 40-year record testifies to McCain the stalwart.
Nor will I countenance the "dirty campaign" pretense. The double standard here is stunning. Obama ran a scurrilous Spanish-language ad falsely associating McCain with anti-Hispanic slurs. Another ad falsely claimed that McCain supports "cutting Social Security benefits in half." And for months Democrats insisted that McCain sought 100 years of war in Iraq.
McCain's critics are offended that he raised the issue of William Ayers. What's astonishing is that Obama was himself not offended by William Ayers.
Moreover, the most remarkable of all tactical choices of this election season is the attack that never was. Out of extreme (and unnecessary) conscientiousness, McCain refused to raise the legitimate issue of Obama's most egregious association -- with the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Dirty campaigning, indeed.
The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget, or just blindly deny, how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism. An apocalyptic soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.
Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? A man who's been cramming on these issues for the past year, who's never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world? A foreign policy novice instinctively inclined to the flabbiest, most vaporous multilateralism (e.g., the Berlin Wall came down because of "a world that stands as one"), and who refers to the most deliberate act of war since Pearl Harbor as "the tragedy of 9/11," a term more appropriate for a bus accident?
Or do you want a man who is the most prepared, most knowledgeable, most serious foreign policy thinker in the United States Senate? A man who not only has the best instincts but has the honor and the courage to, yes, put country first, as when he carried the lonely fight for the surge that turned Iraq from catastrophic defeat into achievable strategic victory?
There's just no comparison. Obama's own running mate warned this week that Obama's youth and inexperience will invite a crisis -- indeed a crisis "generated" precisely to test him. Can you be serious about national security and vote on Nov. 4 to invite that test?
And how will he pass it? Well, how has he fared on the only two significant foreign policy tests he has faced since he's been in the Senate? The first was the surge. Obama failed spectacularly. He not only opposed it. He tried to denigrate it, stop it and, finally, deny its success.
The second test was Georgia, to which Obama responded instinctively with evenhanded moral equivalence, urging restraint on both sides. McCain did not have to consult his advisers to instantly identify the aggressor.
Today's economic crisis, like every other in our history, will in time pass. But the barbarians will still be at the gates. Whom do you want on the parapet? I'm for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
© 2008 The Washington Post CompanyPosted September 23, 2014 at 7:58 am
- Change blindness
- Against tournament rules
Of course it's your move, Justin. You're a main character! YOU have to take the initiative O_O
I'm not privy to what everyone has said regarding the comics in the history of ever, but I don't recall seeing anyone point out the actually very real issue that Justin brings up in panel six. I'm attributing this to people simply wanting Justin and Luke to make some manner of relationship progress, as I suspect people would question a judge asking out someone they're in the process of judging under most circumstances.
But yeah, Justin now has an excuse (a valid one, no less) to wait for the end of the tournament before discussing the matter with Luke. I'm sure no further complications will arise before then.
Patreon Funded
Sketchbook
Commentaries
May 25 - May 26 - May 27, 2002The world has turned on movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and with good reason.
The New York Times published a story on last Thursday, October 5 detailing his decades-long history of assaulting and harassing women in the film industry. The story has sent shockwaves in the entertainment industry that has resulted in waves of women (and a few men) stepping forward to share their own experiences with harassment and assault while working in film and television.
As of this article, twenty-eight actresses and film-industry figures have come forward to accuse Weinstein of sexual harassment or sexual assault. Georgina Chapman, his wife and the mother of his two children, originally stood by Harvey. But on Tuesday it was announced that she was leaving him.
And yesterday, Weinstein released a statement announcing he was seeking treatment for sex addiction.
However, sex addiction has been rejected by the American Psychiatric Association and is not currently recognized as an official psychological disorder. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-V) is the ultimate resource of officially recognized mental disorders. It was last updated in 2013, and sex addiction was not included in the manual.
The mental health community itself is divided on the merits or existence of sex addiction. In addition to the American Psychiatric Association, The American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) has also gone on record that the amount of empirical evidence and scientific study does not merit sex addiction to be classified as a mental disorder.
Sex Addiction is Public Relations 101 For Men and Sex Scandals
Sex addiction and rehab treatment are often used as an explanation for problematic and hurtful behavior relating to sexual activity. It has become the standard protocol for damage control and the first step in demonstrating contrition while deflecting accountability and responsibility for their actions.
Celebrities like Tiger Woods, David Duchovny, and Russell Brand are just a few celebrities who have admitted to sex addiction. All three men were married, were caught cheating on their wives, and spun the narrative that they suffered from being “sex addicts.”
But is sex addiction a legitimate condition? And if so, does it appropriately fit Harvey Weinstein?
A Rapist By Any Other Name … is Still a Rapist!
Although the legitimacy of sex addiction is in dispute, the conversation about Harvey Weinstein is not; he is a sexual predator. He has harassed and assaulted women and has now also been accused of rape. Criminals and sexual crimes cannot and should not be shielded by a psychological disorder that doesn’t officially exist.
It is important for the public to make the clear distinction between sex addicts (or folks with hypersexual disorders) with sexual predators and rapists. Sex addiction, like most forms of addiction, is about escapism and involve a loss of control.
Sexual assault and rape is a sexual crime. It is about power and dismissing another person’s consent. It is about men using their privileged status and power to coerce women into sexual activities or to violently force oneself onto another against their will.
I am of the professional opinion that sex addiction is real and will eventually be recognized as a mental disorder. However, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape must be excluded from any affiliation with addiction. Because in the cases of harassment, assault, and rape, the perpetrator willfully takes away the power, control, and rights of others.
That is not a psychological disorder. That is criminal activity.
Don’t Let Weinstein Continue to Exert Control Over Others
The actions and behaviors that Harvey Weinstein has been accused of or admitted to show no examples of consent. His conduct and behavior demonstrate a dangerous pattern of coercing, leveraging power and influence to get what he wants or to quiet the victims through threats and intimidation.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that Harvey Weinstein does, in fact, meet an arbitrary definition of sex addiction. Once he has broken the law, his diagnosis doesn’t shield him from the consequences of his actions. Nor does Weinstein get to control the narrative about himself.
If an alcoholic drives while intoxicated and his/her actions result in a fatality, their alcoholism does not shield the person from the consequences of his criminal actions. If Harvey Weinstein and his handlers can hide behind a self-diagnosis of sex addiction and rehab, two things happen:
Weinstein gets to continue to exert his power, influence, and control over the narrative – the very toxic components that allowed him to perpetuate one the greatest sex scandal of modern entertainment. He attaches a toxic stigma to sex addiction and those folks who are legitimately suffering from it.
Sex addiction, like all addictions, ruin people’s lives and bring great suffering to those with it. Harvey Weinstein ruined other people’s lives and brought great suffering to them.
Call him evil. Call him a monster. Call him a rapist. Just please, don’t call him a sex addict.Gunfire struck a civilian convoy attempting to leave eastern Aleppo on Thursday, killing one person, wounding four others and again casting doubt a cease-fire deal that includes the evacuation of rebels and civilians from their last stronghold in the city. Photo: AP.
The evacuation of thousands of civilians and rebels from the last opposition-held pocket in Aleppo began Thursday, forcing residents who pleaded to escape the violence to accept they might never return home as the devastated city comes back under full regime control.
For many, it wasn’t easy to say goodbye. “Everyone is now standing in front of their homes, crying over their homes, taking photos, saying farewell to their homes and their land,” said Mohammad al-Sheikh, an Aleppo resident and member of a local rebel faction....Lots of people think they know what the rules are and what their rights are at work. But lots of people are wrong. Here are some of the myths and realities of the modern workplace.
1. You can only be fired for cause after your 90 day probationary period has passed.
False. In 49 out of 50 states (Montana is the only exception), unless you have a specific contract (such as with a union) you are what is known as an “at will” employee. This means you can quit whenever you want, but it also means that they can fire you for “any reason or no reason.” So, you annoy your boss? She can fire you. Your shoes don't match? They can fire you. You come in late to work, interrupt people in meetings, or pick your nose? They can fire you. The only exceptions are things prohibited by law—such as your race or gender or disability. Otherwise, passing your probationary period is meaningless as far as terminations are concerned.
2. HR has to keep everything you tell them confidential.
False. Most HR departments do keep things confidential, but they report into the company just the same way you do and are under no obligation to keep things quiet. Most do, but there is no law requiring it. And in fact, there are some things which, by law, they must talk about. For instance, if you make a complaint that your boss is sexually harassing you, even if you ask them specifically not to say anything, they must investigate.
3. It's illegal, in an interview, to ask...
False. Many people think that it's illegal to ask about your marital status, or if you have children, or if you go to church. It's not. It may be illegal to make a decision based on the answers to those questions, but it's not illegal to ask in the first place. Some of these things are blatantly obvious from the second you walk in the door (your race, age and marital status—wedding rings are dead give aways), and some are obvious from your resume (if your college degree is from 1985, you're not 22).
4. The most experienced person gets the promotion.
False. Unless there's a union contract which specifies that promotions are based on seniority, the big boss can promote whoever he wants, even if that is the new guy hired last week. Keep in mind that managing a group is different than doing the work, so it's possible that the best performer isn't the right person for the promotion. And, even if the best performer should get the promotion, there's no law requiring bosses to make good choices.
5. If you don't finish your work by quitting time, your boss doesn't have to pay you if you stay late.
False. If you are paid by the hour or are eligible for overtime (non-exempt) you have to be paid for every hour you work, whether or not your boss told you to do it. If you have to stay late to finish a project, you still have to be paid for it—and if it takes you over 40 hours for the week, you have to be paid overtime. Your boss can fire you for working slowly, but you must be paid for all hours worked.
6. Companies can only confirm titles and dates of service in reference checks.
False. Your former (or current!) company can say whatever they want about you, as long as it's true. So, if you were a whiny pain in the neck, they can say that. If you were late all the time, they can say that. Many companies have policies against saying this, but reference checkers will tell you that most managers are willing to break that policy. This is one of the many reasons to always try to leave on good terms.
This article is sponsored by Western Governors University, a nonprofit, accredited, online university. WGU offers online bachelor degree programs in business and online MBA programs. To find out more, please visit www.wgu.edu/wisecareers_businessEx-mayor Mike Bloomberg tried hard not to criticize his successor during a 34-minute interview with Katie Couric — but he just couldn’t help it.
Without calling out Mayor Bill de Blasio by name, Bloomberg said it was a mistake to boycott the St. Patrick’s Day Parade for not allowing gays to march openly, saying that isn’t an effective way to change people’s minds.
De Blasio and other prominent elected officials have said that they’re not marching in Monday’s parade up Fifth Avenue.
“I think by boycotting, it doesn’t get it done. If anything, it hardens the views,” he told Couric at her new Yahoo News post. “It makes it harder for anybody to change if you force them into a corner. That’s just not the way I would do it.”
When Couric pressed Bloomberg on whether that meant he disagrees with de Blasio’s decision not to march, he wouldn’t criticize the current mayor directly.
“Bill de Blasio’s gotta make his decision, and I respect his decision — he’s the mayor,” said Bloomberg.
But he added, “Generally speaking, I think when you force people in corners, it isn’t as useful.”
Despite insisting he’s supportive of de Blasio, Bloomberg also challenged his plans to tax the wealthy and to oppose charter schools.
“Trying to tax people and having them move or companies do their business elsewhere. It sounds good, it’s great populist rhetoric — but it’s a disaster,” said Bloomberg.
He said charter schools generally provide students — mostly low-income and minority kids — with a great education. But he didn’t hesitate to call the the UFT’s low-performing East New York charter school a “disgrace.”
He also suggested the battle over space-sharing arrangements between traditional public and charter schools was misguided.
“The thing with charter schools is they’re public schools … and they act as a role model for other public schools,” said the former mayor. “Every school takes away space that somebody else could use — by definition what we’re supposed to do in school buildings is put schools,” he said of the current battles over classroom space. “I mean, it’s a nonsensical thing if you think about it.”
On homelessness, which rose to unprecedented levels under his tenure, Bloomberg insisted he wouldn’t have done anything differently.
He also repeated a much-criticized claim that part of the increase in homelessness was attributable to the more attractive shelter system his administration put in place.
“You can literally come, fly first-class to Kennedy Airport and say to the taxi driver, ‘Take me to the shelter system.’ And we have to provide shelter,” he said.
“Do you really think people do that?” asked Couric.
“There’s a handful. There’s no question there’s a handful — it’s not a lot of people,” he answered.
Now serving as the United Nations’ special envoy for cities and climate change, Bloomberg vowed to continue his national lobbying on gun control, obesity and limiting the size of sugary drinks.
As one of the world’s wealthiest people, he said it would be a “shame” if he didn’t continue his ways on philanthropic and social issues.
Asked at the end of the interview what he wanted his tombstone to read, Bloomberg answered: “I guess maybe something cute like ‘Made a difference.'”NBC announced on Wednesday that Channing Tatum and Zooey Deschanel will host "Saturday Night Live" on February 4 and February 11, respectively. The shows will mark the first time either actor has hosted the sketch comedy program.
Tatum's show will feature acclaimed folk band Bon Iver as the musical guest, while YouTube sensation Karmin will support Deschanel.
Both actors have been quite busy with various film and TV projects lately. Tatum's next film, the Steven Soderbergh-directed "Haywire," hits theaters in the U.S. on January 20. He then will be seen in the romantic drama "The Vow" on February 10, and "21 Jump Street" on March 16.
Deschanel is currently starring in "New Girl," the Fox comedy that has brought her a Golden Globe nomination for her leading role. Due to her role on that show, as well as in the film "(500) Days of Summer," her website Hello Giggles and her retro-sounding band She & Him, Deschanel has become a sort of mascot for a women's style that emphasizes "quirkiness" and "adorableness." More recently, Deschanel made headlines when her finances became public as the result of her divorce from Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard.
Bon Iver has seen much critical praise for its first album "For Emma, Forever Ago," and its follow-up, "Bon Iver." Recently, their song "Holocene" was nominated for Song of the Year and Record of the Year at the 2012 Grammy Awards. Karmin, which is comprised of couple Amy Heidemann and Nick Noonan, is best known for covering chart toppers on YouTube.
This Saturday, on January 14, "Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe will host "SNL" with musical guest Lana Del Rey, the controversial pop singer whose first album comes out later this month. The show will then take two weeks off before Tatum's episode airs.Prohibition did anything but dampen creative cocktail mixing.
My grandfather reminisced about something called a Grapefruit Nesbit. No one really knows what it was. It was that “hush-hush.”
If everyone’s grandfathers have undocumented recipes, too, there could be millions of homegrown concoctions out there just waiting to be rediscovered.
Today, we invite you to leave a family prohibition drink recipe in the comments section below. Don’t know the ingredients? Just tell us the name. Don’t know the name? Share the ingredients.
Here are a few from prohibitionrepeal.com that someone was wise enough to scribble down. Maybe they’ll jog a memory.
Mary Pickford
Along with her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, the golden-haired Mary Pickford was at the pinnacle of the first generation of movie royalty. This 1920s Cuban concoction does her honor.
Stir well with cracked ice:
1 1/2 oz white rum
1 oz unsweetened pineapple juice
1/2 teaspoon grenadine
Strain into chilled cocktail glass and drop in a maraschino cherry.
Barbary Coast
Only desperation would cause somebody to mix Scotch and gin, but Prohibition was a desperate time — and, surprisingly, the results aren’t half bad.
Shake well with cracked ice:
3/4 oz blended Scotch
3/4 oz gin
3/4 oz creme de cacao
3/4 oz heavy cream
Strain into chilled cocktail glass.
Colony Cocktail
New York’s Colony was no ordinary speakeasy. It was where Vanderbilts and Windsors went to dine in a civilized manner, and if that included a drink or two, then bartender Marco Hattem would provide one, no questions asked.
Shake well with cracked ice:
1 1/2 oz gin
3/4 oz grapefruit juice
2 tsp maraschino
Strain into chilled cocktail glass.
photo21 February 2010 A sends: Federal Bureau of Invention? Microbiologist Meryl Nass Responds to FBI Closing Anthrax Case
Meryl Nass Source The FBI's report, documents and accompanying information (only pertaining to Ivins, not to the rest of the investigation) were released on Friday afternoon... which means the FBI anticipated doubt and ridicule. The National Academies of Science (NAS) is several months away from issuing its $879,550 report on the microbial forensics, suggesting a) asking NAS to investigate the FBI's science was just a charade to placate Congress, and/or b) NAS' investigation might be uncovering things the FBI would prefer to bury, so FBI decided to preempt the NAS panel's report. Here are today's reports from the Justice Department, AP, Washington Post and NY Times. The WaPo article ends, The FBI's handling of the investigation has been criticized by Ivins's colleagues and by independent analysts who have pointed out multiple gaps, including a lack of hair, fiber other physical evidence directly linking Ivins to the anthrax letters. But despite long delays and false leads, Justice officials Friday expressed satisfaction with the outcome. The evidence "established that Dr. Ivins, alone, mailed the anthrax letters," the Justice summary stated. Actually, the 96-page FBI report is predicated on the assumption that the anthrax letters attack was carried out by a "lone nut." The FBI report fails to entertain the possibility that the letters attack could have involved more than one actor. The FBI admits that about 400 people may have had access to Ivins' RMR-102 |
, just three days later, I'm prohibited from even setting foot outside. My iPhone just shrieked with an alert from MEMA that read, "EMERGENCY WARNING: Shelter in Place still effective." I'm looking out my window at the barren streets of this city and imagining what this beautiful 73 degrees and sunny Friday afternoon would look like if it were any normal day.
As college students, we're supposed to add an exuberant and fresh energy to this city. Instead, we're glued to our televisions not knowing what "breaking news" is accurate or not. Social media and cellphones have evolved this phenomenon into an unheralded affair. The refresh button has never been clicked on web browsers at a more torrid pace.
I have several friends, who are students here, who went to high school with Dzhokar Tsarnaev. I have several friends who went into Cambridge just a few days ago for dinner. My fraternity's formal is supposed to be held at the Sheraton Commander Hotel in the Boston suburb tomorrow evening.
However, amidst all this tragedy, the plethora of casualties and numerous deaths, I've sensed a feeling of love and camaraderie wash over this campus and this city. Students and people have bonded together. This age of technological advancement and cyberspace has never made me feel closer to family and friends from my hometown in Cherry Hill, NJ and all across the country and world despite being hundreds of miles apart.
Since the first bomb exploded at the Boston Marathon finish line at 2:50 p.m. on Monday, I've received an incredible 193 phone calls from compassionate, worried and altruistic people in my life. I've been texted by 43 different people, asking how I'm doing. And, of course, my Facebook chat has rarely stopped popping up.
While thousands of people in Boston are being kept inside from the beautiful Spring that is upon us, while the number of lives that have inexplicably been damaged by two angry young men is utterly heartbreaking, while the nation is staring at the news with their jaws to the floor, we have felt endless support and compassion in Boston. We know we are not alone.
We have all heard how the city of Boston is strong and its people are even stronger. And, in a city like this, it is not too difficult to feel like its abundance of good and kindness far outweighs the evil that lurks in this world.An Armenian law-enforcement agency has brought more charges of corruption against a senior judge who was arrested two months ago, it emerged on Tuesday
State prosecutors said in early June that Aghvan Petrosian, the chairman of a court in Armenia’s Gegharkunik province, was paid $23,000 to give a suspended prison sentence to a young man prosecuted for a 2014 violent assault. The lenient sentence was subsequently struck down by the Court of Appeals in Yerevan and sent back to the Gegharkunik court.
The 45-year-old Petrosian and another judge, Vanik Vartanian, were also charged in June with accepting $2,500 in exchange for an “illegal verdict” in a property dispute involving Gegharkunik residents. The ruling was handed down by Vartanian. Both judges were taken into custody.
The Special Investigative Service (SIS), which is conducting the corruption probe, now claims that Petrosian was also paid another kickback worth $30,000.
Petrosian’s lawyer, Armen Melkonian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) that his client is denying the bribery charges and refusing to cooperate with SIS investigators. He declined to comment further.
Vartanian, the other arrested judge, has also denied any wrongdoing. “We believe that the criminal case was opened without legal grounds,” said his lawyer, Ruben Hakobian.
Hakobian said that the main piece of evidence in the corruption case is audio of a secretly recorded conversation that took place in Petrosian’s office. He insisted that the recording does not prove the bribery alleged by the SIS.
At least two other Armenian judges have been prosecuted on similar charges recently. One of them, Ishkhan Barseghian, was allegedly caught red-handed in October while being paid $1,000 by a citizen. Barseghian, who served in a district court in Yerevan for 20 years, pleaded not guilty when he went on trial in April.
Another judge was charged with taking a $600 bribe in May. He worked in the court of general jurisdiction of the Ararat and Vayots Dzor provinces.
Corruption within Armenia’s judicial system, which has undergone frequent structural changes over the past two decades, is widely believed to be endemic. The country’s former human rights ombudsman, Karen Andreasian, highlighted the problem in a 2013 report that accused judges of routinely taking bribes.
The report based on confidential interviews with lawyers, judges and prosecutors singled out the Court of Cassation, the highest body of criminal justice. Both the court and an Armenian government body monitoring the judiciary denied the allegations.Koiranen’s Jack Aitken inherited his first win of the Eurocup Formula Renault season in race one at the Hungaroring.
Aitken took his maiden Eurocup win at this exact track last year, but finished no higher than seventh in the first five races of the season.
Here, he started and finished second, but was promoted to victory due to a penalty for leader Louis Deletraz.
The Swiss driver built up into a sizeable lead from the very beginning, but was soon given a ten-second penalty for jumping the start.
He was three seconds ahead of Aitken at the moment the penalty was confirmed and, during the remaining 15 minutes, could only stretch it to six seconds at the chequered flag.
With Aitken taking the win, Ben Barnicoat held off Kevin Jorg to claim second. Jorg dropped off by the end, just enough to allow teammate Deletraz to remain on the podium after his penalty by less than two tenths.
Martin Kodric claimed his best Eurocup finish thus far in fifth, ahead of Jake Hughes and Harrison Scott. FR1.6 NEC champion Anton De Pasquale made his debut appearance in the points in Eurocup, with Darius Oskoui and Simon Gachet completing the top ten.
As Deletraz scored, his main rivals in the points faltered. Spa winner Ukyo Sasahara was off on lap one, while Anthoine Hubert was hit by Ignazio D’Agosto and had to retire in the pits. Both Dennis Olsen and Matevos Isaakyan failed to score.
Full results to followHollis Johnson Short sellers betting on a decline in Snap shares haven't had the best luck since the company went public two months ago. But they refuse to throw in the towel.
They've pushed bearish wagers to the highest level since the company's March 1 initial public offering, selling a whopping $100 million short over the past week alone, according to data compiled by the financial analytics firm S3 Partners. Short interest now sits at $946 million.
The short sellers, who have lost $28.4 million on a mark-to-market basis since the IPO, are "hoping that Snap does not meet its earnings projections," said Ihor Dusaniwsky, the firm's head of research.
Consensus analyst forecasts are calling for an adjusted EBITDA contraction of $158 million in the first quarter and revenue of roughly $159 million, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney is slightly more pessimistic on a sales basis for the first quarter, with a forecast of $146 million. His focus will be on Snap's daily active users heading into the earnings release.
If the measure slows "significantly," the company's financial performance will "depend on its ability to monetize users through growing average revenue per user," he wrote in a client note on Monday.
The earnings report will come after the market closes on Wednesday. The one-day implied move for the company's earnings release is about 16%, according to Bloomberg data.
While bets against Snap are ramping up, the stock has also had no shortage of bullish activity. After all, the company's share have risen 34% since going public.
On Thursday, several block trades totaling about 8,500 shares changed hands, betting that Snap would climb to $27.50 by May 26. That would beat the company's record of $27.09, reached March 3, two days after the company's IPO.
The bullishness may have been in response to Snap's announcement that it's releasing a self-service ads manager. The move is expected to broaden the number of advertisers who do business with Snap, which is already forecast to see ad revenue of $1 billion this year.Just over a month into his presidency, Donald Trump strode into a hotel ballroom for the annual assemblage of the most fervent Republican activists and conservative leaders in the country and declared his takeover of the Republican Party — on behalf of the “forgotten men and the forgotten women.”
“The GOP will be, from now on, the party also of the American worker,” Trump said, to wild cheers. Among the changes: No more bad trade deals. Wall off immigrants. Avoid foreign wars.
Fast forward six months.
Trump has increased troop deployments to Afghanistan and threatened military action against North Korea and Venezuela. He has pressed, though unsuccessfully, for a repeal of the Affordable Care Act that would increase the number of uninsured by 32 million people and reduce Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars, contrary to his campaign vows. He proposed a budget that would slash government services including housing, transportation and education.
Trump has written neither his promised tax-cutting plan nor his trillion-dollar, job-creating infrastructure initiative. For all his talk of tax cuts for the middle class, Trump’s tax pitch last week in Missouri could have been delivered by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney or any number of traditional Republicans as he called for big breaks for corporations and investors that would be a boon for the nation’s top earners.
Those working on the tax and infrastructure plans are former Democratic donors and Wall Street princelings -- Gary Cohn, the chief economic advisor, and Steven T. Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary. The most populist advisor in Trump’s inner circle, Stephen K. Bannon, was forced out last month.
Bannon’s parting words, to a conservative journalist: “The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over.”
While Bannon’s meaning has been widely debated, what’s clear is that the broad notion Trump shared with him -- remaking the Grand Old Party as the new nationalist party of the American worker -- is, at the very least, in doubt. Even as Trump has attacked Republican leaders in Congress, to the delight of his anti-establishment supporters, his foreign and domestic policies largely have followed traditional party tracks — hawkish and pro-big business, partial to cutting both taxes and safety-net programs.
In a recent interview, Bannon clarified that his statement was not an obituary for Trumpian populism but rather a “call to arms” to “galvanize people with a shocking statement.”
“I want to say it more dramatically: This will happen unless we rally around and help Trump save what the original concept of his presidency was,” he said, sitting in a darkened dining room of his Capitol Hill row house, unshaven, his shirt largely unbuttoned, books about China spread in front of him.
Many Democrats, whose shock at Trump’s victory quickly turned to fear that, as president, he could break their longstanding claim to be the working-class party, now are openly less worried, even sanguine.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, one of the Democratic Party’s leading liberals, is among those who thought Trump had an opportunity to redefine Republicanism. She said she would work with him if she thought he would truly help workers.
But, Warren said, she was dissuaded by his early orders lifting regulations on the coal industry, lenders and other businesses in the name of promoting jobs, thereby leaving workers exposed to dangerous chemicals and making mortgages more expensive.
“These are always points down in the weeds, but it’s down in the weeds where the needs of middle class get cut off,” Warren said.
Trump railed against Wall Street during the campaign, then “turned around and named a whole team of Goldman Sachs bankers, and then handed over the keys to the economy to them,” she said.
Bannon sees partial victories in Trump’s actions on immigration and trade. Even if the president has not taken as hard a line on either issue as he did in his campaign, he has decisively broken with longtime Republican dogma, Bannon said. Trump has abandoned pending international trade pacts and reopened negotiations on existing deals and moved to slash both legal and illegal immigration.
Still, populists saw an opportunity for a more fundamental political shakeup that would have aligned those on the left and right and driven a wedge through the Democratic Party. The core policies of such a realignment would have included rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure and taxing the wealthy to pay for it, avoiding foreign conflicts and protecting safety net programs, including Medicaid.
Bannon, for example, had argued against an upper-income tax cut when he was in the White House.
By contrast, Trump’s tax speech last week in Springfield, Mo., cheered C-suite types but sparked outrage from some far-right allies. “It's like Night of the Living Dead watching our beloved @realDonaldTrump go to DC & start babbling the same old GOP nonsense on tax cuts,” Ann Coulter declared on Twitter.
The president’s direction on tax cuts was even less likely to appeal to Democrats or the working-class voters who’d often supported them.
Party realignments like the one that Bannon and other Trump backers envisioned require extraordinary political talent, said William M. Daley, who was White House chief of staff to President Obama and Commerce secretary to President Clinton. Clinton showed that skill in co-opting Republicans’ positions on deficit reduction, trade deals and the shrinking of the welfare state, against his party’s orthodoxy, Daley said.The Islamic State has its own version of ‘Little League.’ Disturbing video (quickly taken down by Youtube) has surfaced showing a toddler knifing off a teddy bear’s head as ISIS flags hang in the background.
NY Daily News The terror tot, identified as the son of a jihadi, is first seen enthusiastically running into the room with the six-inch blade raised in his hand. He goes straight for a white and red plush doll and begins sawing away at its throat as music plays in the background.
When he briefly pauses, a man off camera emits a cry which is echoed by the little boy who then resumes his attack after smiling and raising his knife. “Allah Akbar!” the unseen man cries as the barefoot boy waddles away with a smile, leaving the doll behind him.
The 51-second video, titled “The son of one of the Mujahideen Part II” in Arabic, was posted on YouTube Friday and tweeted out by a self-described “Islamic Supremacist, Radical and Fundamentalist.”
“Oh my..” @jihadi56 tweeted with emojis expressing tears and laughter. “Khilafah cub showing off his skills!”
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imitating-the-islamic-states-immolation-of-a-jordanian-pilot-yemeni-children-lock-a-10-year-old-boy-in-a-cage-and-set-him-on-fireA couple of months ago while taking a break from implementing cool new features like q_auto and g_auto, I was joking in our team chat about how well various image formats “compress” one-pixel images. In response, Orly — who runs the blog — asked me if I’d write a post about single-pixel images. I said: "Sure, why not. But it will be a very short blog post. After all, there’s not much you can say about a single pixel."
Looks like I was wrong. Very wrong.
Back in the early days of the web, one-pixel images were widely used as a poor man’s solution to do things we now do with CSS. Spacing, creating lines or rectangles, semi-transparent backgrounds: there’s quite a lot you can do by simply scaling one pixel to arbitrary dimensions. Another use of one-pixel images, still a common practice today, is as a web beacon, for tracking or analytics.
In responsive web design, one-pixel images are often used as temporary placeholders while the page is loading. Since most browsers do not support client-hints, some responsive image solutions wait for the page to fully load in order to determine the actual rendered image sizes, and then replace a one-pixel image with the right breakpoint image using JavaScript.
There is one other use of single-pixel images: they can be used as ‘default’ images. If for whatever reason the actual image that you want to show cannot be found, it might in some cases be better to hide that fact (by showing one transparent pixel) than to return a “404 - Not Found” error, which will usually be rendered by browsers as a “broken image” icon. In both cases, you don’t get to see the intended image, but it might look a bit more professional if you don’t ‘rub it in’ by showing a broken image icon.
OK, it looks like one-pixel images do have some uses. So, what’s the best way to encode a 1x1 image?
Obviously, this is a fringe case for image compression formats. If the “image” only consists of a single pixel, there sure is not a lot of data to compress. In fact, the uncompressed data is just one bit to four bytes – depending on how you interpret the data: black & white (1 bit), grayscale (1 byte), grayscale + alpha (2 bytes), RGB (3 bytes), or RGBA (4 bytes).
But you can’t encode just the data. In any image format, you need to specify how to interpret the data. At the very least, you need to know the width and height of the image, and the number of bits or bytes per pixel.
Typically, to encode the width and height, four bytes are used: two bytes per number (if it were only one byte, the maximum image dimension would be 255x255). Let’s say that we need another byte to encode the color type of the image (e.g. grayscale, RGB or RGBA). In this minimalistic image format, a single-pixel image would take at least 6 bytes (e.g. for a white pixel) and at most 9 bytes (for a semi-transparent, arbitrary color pixel).
However, actual image formats tend to have a “header” that contains quite a bit more information. First of all, the first few bytes of any image format contain a fixed identifier that is only there to say “Hey! I’m a file in this particular file format!”. This fixed sequence of bytes is also known as the magic number. For example, a GIF file always starts with either GIF87a or GIF89a (depending on which version of the GIF spec is used), a PNG file always starts with an 8-byte sequence that includes PNG, JPEG files have a header that contains the string JFIF or Exif, and so on.
Headers can contain all sorts of meta-information about an image. Some of it is format-specific information to indicate what kind of subformat is used, and is necessary to decode the pixels correctly. Some of it might not be necessary to decode the pixels, but is still useful to know how to render them – e.g. color profiles, orientation, gamma, or dots-per-pixel. Some of it might be arbitrary metadata, like comments, timestamps, copyright notices, or GPS coordinates. These things might be optional, or they might be obligatory; it depends on the format specification. Of course all of this metadata has some cost in terms of file size. So let’s focus on “minimal” files, where all of the non-obligatory metadata has been stripped. Otherwise we might be wasting precious bytes on silly things.
Besides headers, image formats may have other kinds of “overhead”. They may contain all kinds of markers and checksums, intended to make the format more robust in case of transmission errors or other forms of corruption. Also, sometimes some kind of padding is required, to ensure that the data gets aligned properly.
One-pixel images – the smallest possible images – reveal exactly how much “overhead” there is in an image format. Let’s take a look.
Here is a hexdump of a 67-byte PNG file, representing a 1x1 white pixel:
00000000 89 50 4e 47 0d 0a 1a 0a 00 00 00 0d 49 48 44 52 |.PNG........IHDR| 00000010 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 01 01 00 00 00 00 37 6e f9 |.............7n.| 00000020 24 00 00 00 0a 49 44 41 54 78 01 63 68 00 00 00 |$....IDATx.ch...| 00000030 82 00 81 4c 17 d7 df 00 00 00 00 49 45 4e 44 ae |...L.......IEND.| 00000040 42 60 82 |B`.|
This file consists of the 8-byte PNG magic number, followed by a header chunk (IHDR) which contains 13 bytes, an image data chunk (IDAT) with 10 bytes of “compressed” image data, and an end marker (IEND). Every chunk starts with a 4-byte chunk length and a 4-byte chunk identifier and ends with a 4-byte chunk checksum, and these three chunks are obligatory, so that’s another 36 bytes, for a total file size of 67 bytes.
A black pixel is also 67 bytes in PNG; a fully transparent pixel is 68 bytes, and an arbitrary RGBA color will be between 67 and 70 bytes.
JPEG has a longer header. The smallest one-pixel JPEG is 160 bytes (Update: 141 bytes). And it cannot be transparent, because JPEG does not support an alpha channel.
GIF is the most compact (in terms of headers) amongst the three universally supported image formats. A white pixel can be encoded as a valid GIF file in just 35 bytes:
00000000 47 49 46 38 37 61 01 00 01 00 80 01 00 00 00 00 |GIF87a..........| 00000010 ff ff ff 2c 00 00 00 00 01 00 01 00 00 02 02 4c |...,...........L| 00000020 01 00 3b |..;|
and a fully transparent pixel can be done in 43 bytes:
00000000 47 49 46 38 39 61 01 00 01 00 80 01 00 00 00 00 |GIF89a..........| 00000010 ff ff ff 21 f9 04 01 0a 00 01 00 2c 00 00 00 00 |...!.......,....| 00000020 01 00 01 00 00 02 02 4c 01 00 3b |.......L..;|
Note that for all of the above formats, you can come up with even smaller files that will still decode to a one-pixel image in all or most browsers, but they are not valid with respect to the format specifications, which means that an image decoder might at any time complain (rightfully) that the file is corrupt, and show the broken image icon which we were trying to avoid.
So what’s the best format for a one-pixel image on the web? That depends. If it’s an opaque pixel, then the answer is GIF. If it’s a fully transparent pixel, then the answer is also GIF. But if it’s a semi-transparent pixel, then the answer is PNG, since GIF only supports all-or-nothing transparency.
Not that all of this matters very much. All of these files fit easily in a single network package, so in practice, there is no real speed difference – and the storage needed for this is negligible anyway. But still, it’s an amusing thing to look at, at least for image format geeks like me.
If you use WebP for one-pixel images, be sure to use lossless WebP. A single-pixel lossless WebP image is between 34 and 38 bytes. A single-pixel lossy WebP image is between 44 and 104 bytes, depending mostly on whether there’s an alpha channel or not. For example, this is a fully transparent pixel as a 34-byte lossless WebP:
00000000 52 49 46 46 1a 00 00 00 57 45 42 50 56 50 38 4c |RIFF....WEBPVP8L| 00000010 0d 00 00 00 2f 00 00 00 10 07 10 11 11 88 88 fe |..../...........| 00000020 07 00 |..|
and here is the same pixel as a lossy (default) WebP of 82 bytes:
00000000 52 49 46 46 4a 00 00 00 57 45 42 50 56 50 38 58 |RIFFJ...WEBPVP8X| 00000010 0a 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 41 4c |..............AL| 00000020 50 48 0b 00 00 00 01 07 10 11 11 88 88 fe 07 00 |PH..............| 00000030 00 00 56 50 38 20 18 00 00 00 30 01 00 9d 01 2a |..VP8....0....*| 00000040 01 00 01 00 02 00 34 25 a4 00 03 70 00 fe fb fd |......4%...p....| 00000050 50 00 |P.|
The main difference between the two, is that a lossy WebP with transparency is actually stored internally as two images, thrown together into one container file: one lossy image for the RGB values, and one lossless image for the alpha values.
For Bellard’s BPG format, which also has a lossless and a lossy mode, it’s the other way around. The lossy BPG encoding of a single white pixel is 31 bytes, the smallest we’ve seen so far:
00000000 42 50 47 fb 00 00 01 01 00 03 92 47 40 44 01 c1 |BPG........G@D..| 00000010 71 81 12 00 00 01 26 01 af c0 b6 20 bc b6 fc |q.....&.......|
The lossless BPG for the same white pixel is 59 bytes. However, a fully transparent pixel is 57 or 113 bytes as a lossy or lossless BPG, respectively. Interestingly, for a single white pixel, BPG wins versus WebP (31 byte BPG vs 38 byte WebP), but for a single transparent pixel, WebP wins versus BPG (34 byte WebP vs 57 byte BPG).
And then there’s FLIF. As the main creator of the Free Lossless Image Format, obviously I cannot forget about that one. Here’s a 15 byte FLIF file for one white pixel:
00000000 46 4c 49 46 31 31 00 01 00 01 18 44 c6 19 c3 |FLIF11.....D...|
And here’s a 14 byte file for a black pixel:
00000000 46 4c 49 46 31 31 00 01 00 01 1e 18 b7 ff |FLIF11........|
The black pixel file is one byte smaller because the number zero happens to compress better than the number 255. The header is pretty simple: the first four bytes are always “FLIF”, the next byte is a human-readable indication of the color and interlacing type. In this case it is “1”, which means we have just one color channel (i.e. it’s a grayscale image). The next byte indicates the color depth: “1” means one byte per channel. And the next four bytes are the image dimensions, in this case 0x0001 by 0x0001. The last four or five bytes are the actual compressed data.
One fully transparent pixel is also 14 bytes in FLIF:
00000000 46 4c 49 46 34 31 00 01 00 01 4f fd 72 80 |FLIF41....O.r.|
In this case, we have 4 color channels (RGBA) instead of just one. You might expect the data section to be longer in this file (after all, there are four times as many color channels), but that’s not the case: since the alpha value happens to be zero (it’s a fully transparent pixel), the RGB values are considered irrelevant so they don’t end up being encoded at all.
For an arbitrary RGBA color, the FLIF file can be up to 20 bytes.
OK, so FLIF is the clear winner in the “one pixel” category of some weird image encoding competition. If only this were an important thing to compete at :)
Actually, no. FLIF isn’t the winner. Remember the minimalistic (and non-existent) image format I mentioned in the beginning? The one that would encode single-pixel images in 6 to 9 bytes? Well that format doesn’t exist, so I suppose it doesn’t count. But there is an image format that does exist, and which gets quite close to that.
It’s called the Portable Bitmap format (PBM), and it’s an uncompressed image format from the 1980s. Here’s how you could encode a single white pixel as a PBM file in just 8 bytes:
00000000 50 31 0a 31 20 31 0a 30 |P1.1 1.0|
Actually, forget about the hexdump, this is a human-readable file format. You can open it in a text editor if you want (at least this particular subformat):
P1 1 1 0
The first line (“P1”) indicates that this is a black & white image. Not grayscale; there are only two colors: black (which confusingly gets the number 1) and white (0). The second line indicates the image dimensions. And then it’s just a whitespace-delimited list of numbers, one number per pixel. So in this case just the number 0.
If you need something other than pure white or black, you can use the PGM format to get one pixel in any other shade of gray in just 12 bytes, or the PPM format to get any RGB color in just 14 bytes. This is always smaller than the corresponding FLIF file (or any other compressed format, for that matter).
The traditional PNM family (PBM, PGM and PPM) does not support transparency. There is an extension of PNM though, called Portable Arbitrary Map (PAM), which does support images with transparency. Unfortunately for our current purposes, its syntax is quite a bit more verbose. The smallest valid PAM file that encodes a fully transparent pixel, is the following:
P7 WIDTH 1 HEIGHT 1 DEPTH 4 MAXVAL 1 TUPLTYPE RGB_ALPHA ENDHDR \0\0\0\0
On the last line there are four zero (NULL) bytes. The above file is 67 bytes. You might be tempted to use grayscale+alpha instead of RGBA, because that would save two bytes in the data section. But that results in a 71 byte file, since you have to change the TUPLTYPE from RGB_ALPHA to GRAYSCALE_ALPHA. Oh and by the way, your image software might not like the use of MAXVAL 1, so you might need to change that to MAXVAL 255 (which takes two more bytes).
So all in all, for one-pixel images, when there’s no transparency involved, PNM is the smallest (8 to 14 bytes for PNM vs 14 to 18 bytes for FLIF), but when there is transparency, FLIF is smallest (14 to 20 bytes for FLIF vs 67 to 69 bytes for PAM).
Here is a summary table that gives the (optimal) file sizes for various one-pixel images:
white black gray yellow #FFFF00 transparent semitransparent #1337BABE PNG 67 67 67 69 68 70 GIF 35 35 43 35 43 / JPEG 160 160 159 288 / / Lossy WebP 44 44 44 64 82 92 Lossless WebP 38 34 38 36 34 38 Lossy BPG 31 31 29 36 57 62 Lossless BPG 59 59 37 124 113 160 FLIF 15 14 15 18 14 20 PNM/PAM 8 8 12 14 67 69
It might seem a bit surprising that an uncompressed image format actually beats most of the compressed formats at this particular task. But it’s not that surprising if you think about it. One-pixel images are in a sense the worst-case scenario for image compression: they’re all headers and overhead, and very little data. And the very little data there is cannot really be compressed because compression depends on predictability, and how are you supposed to predict one single pixel?
In part two of this blog post I will discuss the other extreme. How well do extremely predictable single-color images perform in various formats? Stay tuned….
Update: Check out part two as well: A one-color image is worth two thousand wordsPolicemen stand guard near the body of a man killed during what police said was a drug related vigilante killing in Pasig. Erik De Castro, Reuters
MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday admitted that authorities gave money to police for legitimate drug buy-bust operations and not as payment to kill drug suspects.
“You know you have to give the police money, because if they go out and hunt for [those] trafficking drugs, there must be a selling and buying, otherwise there is no trafficking. Kaya yung sinasabi na binibigyan sila ng pera, I don’t deny that,” Duterte said in an ambush interview in Malacañang.
“Magtanong ka ng lahat ng army na pulis an dumaan ng Davao City, I give money every command conference. Ngayon kung meron silang buy-bust, manghingi ng pera iyan pambili, kasi kung wala kang pera, walang transaction sa shabu.”
Duterte, however, admitted that some unscrupulous cops ended up pocketing the money.
Duterte said this following retired police officer Arthur Lascañas’ claims that the longtime Davao City mayor paid members of the so-called Davao Death Squad for every killings.
Lascañas said the DDS initially started killing criminals in the city but was later used to go after Duterte’s political enemies.
Asked about Lascañas claims that many people were killed by the DDS during his more than 20-year reign as Davao City mayor, Duterte only repeated his usual statement that he only sanctioned the killings of drug suspects who turned violent in legitimate police operations.
“I did not deny that hundreds of criminals died in Davao City. Sa 23 years ko, talagang maubos,” he said.
“But you know, I’m an employee of the government. I built a city and I will build a nation. Hindi ko trabaho yang -- pero sa pulis upon my orders, just the same: don’t destroy my country, don’t deprive us of our young people [or] you will die. They are the same orders that I’m giving here.”A VEGETABLE vending machine is proving a big hit in a city notorious for high rates of child obesity and heart attack deaths.
The machine, only the second of its kind in Scotland, was unveiled in Dundee’s Overgate Centre on Monday.
It allows shoppers to pay between £3-£5 for a selection of locally-sourced produce, including bags of potatoes and mixed vegetable boxes.
A day after it was unveiled, shoppers had emptied some of the compartments.
The machine is another feather in the cap for the city, coming days after it was named a Unesco City of Design.
The machine was created by the Grewar family, owners of East Ardler Farm outside Blairgowrie. They launched Grewar Farm Vending as a new way of selling fresh fruit and vegetables.
The only other vending machine is on their farm.
So far, it has been a hit with shoppers who live in Dundee, which was last year crowned the worst city in Scotland for child obesity.
Shocking statistics found that one in five primary one pupils were overweight, obese or severely obese. It is believed that an unhealthy diet was a large factor contributing to the figures.
It was also discovered that Dundee was among the top 10 worst areas in the UK for heart health, with more than 250 deaths coronary heart disease every year.
The machine offers bags of potatoes for £3 and a tray of vegetables and eggs - containing six free-range eggs, six baking potatoes, a turnip, 1.25kg of onions and 1.25kg of carrots - for £5.
Shoppers insert their money into a slot |
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"Before we can get what we would like to happen we have to know what is happening," Roberts said.
Roberts, however, said even increased transparency will fail to resolve the conflict between the desire for short-term profits from oil and gas companies and long term environmental concerns.
"They are depending on fossil fuels to drive their profit with very little regard for low carbon energy solutions," Roberts said. "Those remain low priorities because those aren't where they get the most money."The first bus in the Nitbus network to be powered by a 100% electric motor will come into service in the next few days. The vehicle will be used in rotation on the N12, N13, N14, N15, N16 and N17 routes, operated by Mohn from the Baixbus group and serving eleven other municipalities to the south of the metropolitan area.
The Irizar i2e model has a range of between 200 and 250 km and between 12 and 14 hours of continuous circulation, enough for the nocturnal service offered by Nitbus vehicles, and needs to be charged for seven hours once its shift is over. Compared to a vehicle with a combustion engine, that means a saving of 318.28 tonnes in CO2 emissions. The vehicle’s batteries are 99% recyclable once they reach the end of their service life.
The Nitbus service already operates two hybrid models and with the addition of the new model the Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona (AMB) has the intention of gradually replacing its fleet of diesel-powered buses.
The new vehicle will provide Nitbus services in the municipalities of Barcelona, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, El Prat de Llobregat, Esplugues de Llobregat, Cornellà de Llobregat, Sant Joan Despí, Sant Just Desvern, Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Viladecans, Gavà and Castelldefels.'Congress has not sent an environmental law to the president's desk in 18 years'
Chemical contamination of the environment growing at an exponential rate, say scientists
Minnesota Zumbro River laced with traces of prescription pills
(NaturalNews) While it's true that Americans have been afforded the luxury of living in a modern day world, our natural resources, the fundamentals upon which human life began, continue to be destroyed and depleted. One must ask which is more important: convenience or sustainability?The so-called innovations of today's society are threatening the planet in which we live, say scientists, revealing that increasing number of pharmaceuticals and other forms of pollution are being deposited into our lakes, rivers and soil. Even more disturbing is that the effects of this phenomenon are widely unknown.For once, a lack of regulation on the government's part is largely to blame. The "environmental spread of pharmaceuticals" is totally ignored by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), allowing these man-made pills to end up everywhere, including in our drinking water The Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, which hasn't been updated since its creation, excludes drugs and pesticides. Under the law, the EPA is required to maintain a registry of industrial compounds that may be potentially toxic, but advanced safety testing of those materials is not required, according to a report byOnly a fraction of the estimated 84,000 compounds registered have been tested for their safety on humans, prompting scientists and environmental groups to call for a serious revision of how risk assessments of suspect compounds are performed."Our chemical safety net is more hole than net," said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group. "Where does that leave us in terms of scientific understanding of what drugs to regulate?"Anne Womack Kolton, vice president for communications at the American Chemistry Council, which represents chemical manufacturers said, "Think about the world 40 years ago. It was a vastly different place. It's common sense to revise the law and make it consistent with what we know about chemicals today."The American Chemical Society maintains a database of chemical substance information containing more than 89 million organic and inorganic substances and 65 million sequences dating back to 1957. An estimated 15,000 new substances are added each day, many of which are poorly understood, scientists say.In an essay published in the journal, Dr. Jerald L. Schnoor, a University of Iowa professor of civil and environmental engineering, wrote about the way older compounds are altered in the environment Some substances become even more toxic after their breakdown by plants or animals.For example, polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs (which are banned in the U.S. but keep showing up in the environment), are broken down into even more "toxic metabolites," according toAnother example is chlorpyrifos, a highly toxic organophosphate insecticide that when ingested by animals become 3,000 times more potent, according toWhile investigating the chemistry of the Minnesota Zumbro River, environmental health scientists were surprised at the "sheer range and variety" of prescription drugs they found.Relatively high levels of acetaminophen – an over-the-counter painkiller that causes liver damage in humans – the antibiotic anti-convulsive carbamazepine, caffeine and pesticides were among the contaminants found."We don't know what these background levels mean in terms of environmental or public health," said Deborah Swackhamer, the investigation's lead scientist.The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) tracks chemicals in waterways, sediments, landfills and municipal sewage sludge, which are often converted to fertilizer. Steroid hormones and triclosan (an antibacterial agent banned in Minnesota) were found in sewage.The antidepressant Prozac has shown up in fish, causing them to be anxious, anti-social and even homicidal, reported the"We're looking at an increasingly diverse array of organic and inorganic chemicals that may have ecosystem health effects," said Edward Furlong, a USGS chemist. "Many of them are understudied and unrecognized."Progressives who fear that Karl Rove Republicans will steal the 2012 election through voting machine skullduggery should stop worrying.
There have been a rash of recent reports in national magazines like Harpers, websites like FreePress.org and BradBlog.com, articles in The New York Times and activists briefings that suggest a range of scenarios where votes could be cast and disappear—or fabricated to steal the White House. Most of these scenarios are not just far-fetched or worse, but they distract from more visible and widespread issues that could impact the 2012 results. If you're nervous, vote early and help others to vote on Election Day.
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The activists and authors who are raising fears about electronic voting rarely talk to activists focused on more traditional civil rights issues—such as overcoming barriers at the polls. That makes it harder for the public to understand what is and isn’t a real worry. As a reporter, I've been involved with both camps since 2004.
What I’m seeing in the final weeks of the 2012 campaign from the electronic side of this spectrum is not helpful. There are things to worry about, but they’re not what’s breathlessly flying around in the lefty media. Let’s go through what's out there and then you can decide.
My biggest filter to judging scenarios, apart from what’s not a theoretically possibility but is also technically probable, is how many votes are affected. Too often headlines scream about 100 votes and ignore something much bigger—because it’s less sexy and less conspiratorial, but actually far more real.
1. Is Mitt Romney’s son going to hijack Ohio’s vote count?
In recent weeks, Columbus-based FreePress.org—where I wrote many articles after 2004 examining what happened in that election—has been reporting that Mitt Romney’s son Tagg is an owner in a voting machinery company whose equipment will be used to scan and count paper ballots in Hamilton County, where Cincinnati is located, and another small rural county up north. The implication is that the company’s employees will pre-program high-speed scanners to register more votes for Romney than Obama.
Is this likely? The short answer is no. The longer answer is there are many more serious things to worry about in Ohio. Obviously, a candidate’s family having an ownership stake in a voting technology firm is a conflict of interest and discouraging to voters. It is not the first time that a voting machine company owner has sided with a Republican presidential candidate in Ohio. Having a partisan GOP secretary of state is another conflict of interest—a bigger one, actually. But that doesn’t mean these votes are goners.
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Even if an investment (which is fairly hands-off) led to some sort of manipulative scanning (which is far-fetched) that wasn’t caught in pre-election audit testing (even more far-fetched), the problem with this theory is that any significant deviation from the expected turnout models and exit polls (and pre-election polls) will lead to an examination and audit of the paper ballots. Any real deviation would not just be noticed; it would be quarantined and examined. If you’re planning to steal an election, leaving a paper trail is not how to do it.
This is a guilt-by-association theory. Too many eyes are on every step of the voting process this year. It’s not 2004. And the machines in question are no better or worse than optical scan systems from other manufacturers, Ohio's former Democratic secretary of state found in independent testing. In contrast, other electronic voting machines used across Ohio don't leave as extensive a record of actual balloting as the optical scan systems, as they rely on cash register-like tape rolls to record every vote.
If you want to worry about Ohio, look elsewhere. This report from the Cincinnati Inquirer suggests that there could be quite a vote-counting quagmire due to the provisional ballot tally after Election Day. GOP Secretary of State John Husted sent absentee ballot applications to every Ohio voter, so how several hundred thousand Ohioans might vote—by mail or at polls—is up in the air.
Finally, Ohio’s GOP Legislature did pass a 2006 law saying the results in federal elections could not be contested after the ‘official count’ is certified. But that law only applies to Ohio courts. That doesn’t stop campaigns from going into federal court to pursue a presidential result. Bottom line: it’s difficult but possible to challenge any dubious or suspect vote count in Ohio this year.
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2. Will Republicans hack into voter rolls and delete Democrats?
Two other new scenarios depend on altering electronic voter information. The first, reported in The New York Times, suggested that partisans in Washington state and Maryland could use those state’s online voter registration portals and hack into electronic statewide voter registration databases—and alter voter files. This would be a high-tech version of registering someone on the street, but only turning in applications for one party (which is what GOP operative Nathan Sproul did in several states). Brad Friedman’s blog has led that coverage.
A former top election official I spoke to from a state next to Washington said that the Times interviewed him and ignored what he said—that this scenario would not be possible in Washington, because the voter registration file created by accessing the motor vehicle website was separate from the statewide voter database. He didn’t know about Maryland’s system, but neither are presidential swing states.
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Other ex-top state election officials said there's always potential for hacking, as both Ohio's and Minnesota's state election websites have been hacked. But in both cases the underlying statewide voter registration database was not touched. This is something to fix after Election Day, but not a realistic threat now.
3. Will the GOP stuff ballot boxes with overseas military votes?
This is another version of electronic ballot box stuffing. In 2009, Congress passed the MOVE Act, which was designed to help troops overseas to vote. It allows ballots to be sent from overseas by e-mail in some circumstances. Normally, PDF images are printed, filled out, signed and mostly sent back by mail or express delivery. If there are delivery snafus, however, they may be returned by e-mail.
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The concern from activists such as Jim March, who did pioneering work with BlackBoxVoting.org to uncover big security flaws in the first paperless voting machines sold to states following a congressional appropriation in 2002, is that the GOP will fabricate Internet-delivered votes. He has spoken about this in recent forums and has gathered some coverage on blogs.
The fear is that the GOP will fabricate enough votes to push Romney over the top in military-heavy swing states, such as Virginia. There’s no denying that Internet voting is an easy pathway for tampering, but there actually is very little Internet voting under the MOVE Act. Most ballots are printed and mailed in or sent by Fed-Ex.
The sad truth about the MOVE Act is that is has been poorly implemented. This editorial notes that in Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina, “less than 2 percent of eligible military voters (5,411 out of 288,961) have requested [2012] absentee ballots.” With a small number of votes at issue, the scope of this ballot box-stuffing scenario is not going to be a big threat in 2012.
4. Will millions of votes disappear on paperless machines?
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That’s the thesis of Harper’s November cover story. It posits that voting machines that rely on computer touch screens and memory cards in key swing states like Pennsylvania and Virginia might massively fail—losing big blocks of votes. These worries are compounded because these computers are getting old, which, as everyone knows, means they are less reliable.
It's true that there’s no recount possible with most of the voting machines in these two states (you can look up what voting technology is used in your state here), which is not good. But there's a bunch of newer stuff that Harpers doesn't say, making things seem more dark than necessary. Also, the Harper’s piece completely ignores two other far-less-sexy issues that have led to millions of votes being lost across the country in recent elections: bungled voter registration bureaucracy and poll worker error. (This new CalTech-MIT report discusses all of these trends).
What’s missing from Harper’s? First, the use of paperless voting machines for nearly a decade has lead election officials, poll workers and voters to know what can go wrong in various phases of their use: from calibrating and testing before being deployed; to problems that a voter might face—such as choosing the wrong candidate, to recovering votes from digital memory cards. Most issues are known, as are the fixes to be taken.
Moreover, in some states—like California—paperless machines have been segregated to help people with disabilities, or replaced by optical-scanners using a paper ballot that can be recounted. The Harper’s report does not give readers any idea that election observers know these pitfalls and problems, and can take corrective steps. It suggests there might be massive voting failures, but cannot point to one in recent years where millions of votes vanished.
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Finally, consider this counterpoint at CountingVotes.org. This summer, three respected voting rights organizations, Common Cause, the Verified Voting Foundation and Rutgers University School of Law/Newark issued a report grading states on their readiness for the 2012 election. It's notable that Ohio was among the six states earning its top rating. Florida was in the second-best tier.
5. Will old-school voter intimidation and suppression come into play?
This refers to all the steps that have been taken by the GOP in recent years to complicate the voting process, discourage participation and scare off new voters. As this recent report on Florida by DEMOS’ Tova Wang describes, these threats are real and have had an impact in 2012—in the Sunshine States and elsewhere.
But it’s also important to note that the GOP’s systematic interference—from new voter ID laws, to curbs on voter registration groups, to attempts to roll back early voting—have largely been beaten back in court this year. While there has been some thuggish behavior by GOP partisans—billboards to scare non-white voters, mailings and calls giving wrong information—the spectrum and scope of these vigilante and deceptive activities is sporadic and does not appear to be well-coordinated.
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Moreover, people are watching—from voters themselves, to election protection groups staffed by lawyers, to political parties and presidential campaigns. The media has covered the GOP’s myriad voter suppression efforts and warned of obstacles that voters will face. In Florida, that includes one of the longest ballots in years—taking more time and likely causing waiting lines at polls. It includes changed polling locations and early voting hours.
That is not to say these worries are unfounded—but they are problems with the politics and legal fine print, not with the machinery. Florida’s GOP changed that state’s recount law—saying a recount can come only after the official count is turned in. Ion Sancho, the longtime county election supervisor in Leon County where the state capital is located, gave Florida an “F” for its testing, recount and audit process in this recent Miami CBS-TV report. But it’s also true that Florida election supervisors have stood up for voters against their GOP governor this year. They don’t want a repeat of 2000.
Don’t panic. Know your rights. Give yourself time to vote.
There’s another big difference between 2012 and recent presidential elections. This year, as in 2008, there are more extensive election protection and GOTV efforts than in 2004. This is nationwide, not just in battleground states.
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This doesn’t mean that voting will be perfect and every vote cast will count. That doesn't mean that the GOP's voting vigilantes will not make uninvited trouble. But the fearful reports suggesting that the election will be stolen are over-hyped.
The best way to guard against the cuts that can undermine or shift the results is high voter turnout. This year has been a good one for defenders of the right to vote. Does that mean Obama gets re-elected if he wins 50 percent plus one vote in Ohio or Florida? No, he needs a cushion because other problems will mar any process with 100 million or more participants.
So if you really are worried about the GOP stealing the 2012 election, make plans to vote early and then help any get-out-the-vote effort on November 6.Former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sudheendra Kulkarni said here on Tuesday that Kashmir is a 'core' issue between India and Pakistan. 'Kashmir is indeed a core issue between India and Pakistan. Especially, we in India should not beat around the bush, and it must be resolved to satisfy long suffering people of Kashmir,' said Kulkarni.
Lavishing praise over Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar for relentlessly advocating in favour of India-Pakistan friendship, Kulkarni said, 'I have been drawing inspiration from Aiyar, because he has been a fighter for the cause of India-Pakistan's friendship for more than three decades. He has popularised India by saying that talks between India and Pakistan should be 'uninterrupted' and 'interruptible'.'
Kulkarni is here to attend the book launch of Pakistan former Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri''Neither A Hawk Nor A Dove'. Pakistan Former President General Pervez Musharraf was also attending the function. Kulkarni was earlier doused with black ink by some members of the Shiv Sena just before the launch of the same book in Mumbai for not bowing down to their diktat seeking cancellation of the event.
Kashmir is indeed a core issue between India & Pakistan: Sudheendra Kulkarni at Kasuri's book launch in Karachi. pic.twitter.com/mO4HXx3eJ1 — ANI (@ANI_news) November 3, 2015
I continue to draw inspiration from Mani Shankar Aiyar: Sudheendra Kulkarni in Pakistan pic.twitter.com/ZXjDSYft7L — ANI (@ANI_news) November 3, 2015
especially we in India should not beat around the bush, it must be resolved to satisfy long suffering people of Kashmir: Sudheendra Kulkarni — ANI (@ANI_news) November 3, 2015
Sudheendra Kulkarni says "He (MS Aiyar) says that talks btwn India & Pak should be uninterrupted & uninterruptable". pic.twitter.com/kVJ4HdEMxA — ANI (@ANI_news) November 3, 2015
I continue to derive inspiration from MS Aiyar bcoz he has been fighting for India-Pakistan friendship for more than 3 decades: S. Kulkarni — ANI (@ANI_news) November 3, 2015
(Read: PM Narendra Modi should follow Sant Kabir's advice writes Sudheendra Kulkarani)
Earlier this month, Sena workers had blackened the face of Sudheendra Kulkarni, chairman of the Observer Research Foundation, in an ink attack ahead of the launch of 'Neither a Hawk Nor a Dove: An Insider's Account of Pakistan's Foreign Relations' authored by former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri. (Read: 9 things to know about ex-BJP ideologue Sudheendra Kulkarni)Thirty-five billionaires got onboard the Romney Super PAC bandwagon and are set to buy the presidency. As they fork out big checks — like the $40 million David Koch is said to have written — they expect something in return.
Why wouldn’t ya? Politics affects the businesses of every one of these billionaire donors.
For instance, every time the U.S. and the Iranian president have a mashup, David Koch and
his brothers make something like a hundred million on the oil-futures market. With Romney
expected to blow Iran out of the water, it’s said that David will become the first trillionaire.
Other billionaires on the Romney Super PAC bandwagon are trying to buy their way around
Koch, who seems to have cornered the game. For instance, big time donors and Wal-Mart heirs, Jim and Alice Walton are said to want to put an end to union labor in the U.S. Romney seems to be amenable to this anti-union drive. He mocked Obama on this issue when he said, “We don’t need more policemen, firefighters or teachers.” But wages are not the real issue, here.
This is a bidding war. The billionaire who antes up the biggest Super PAC donation expects
the future Romney White House to fulfill three of his or her wishes. That is why Las Vegas
gambling titan Sheldon Adelson is said to be outraged that David Koch upped the ante for
Romney’s ear without telling him. Adelson should have known, however, that this is no
gentleman’s game. When you buy the White House, it’s anything goes.
Take billionaire Harold Simmons. He wants to make North Texas a pay-to-play nuclear waste
dump. C’mon, you don’t expect Simmons to play fair in order to win the future president’s ear. No. This is the guy who invented Swift Boating, the attacks that took out John Kerry in 2004. So we’re talking a really nauseating game, here. There are absolutely no rules in the new politics of Super PAC spending, not with Simmons in the game.
Regardless, there is a word of caution spreading around. The wild card in this game to buy
Romney’s ear is billionaire Paul Singer. He’s betting that gay Republicans will become a
fighting force, not just in the Army, but on the floors of Congress. Suppose he wins this bidding war and out-donates all the other billionaires? People are afraid to ask him what he’ll ask Romney to do in return. Romney’s five boys in tights at the inaugural? Nobody knows. But not to worry if you’re severely conservative.
David Koch has allies in this battle of the big-bucks, Super PAC donors. Billionaire Harold
Hamm reportedly wants to keep on fracking until all of North Dakota is one big oil spigot. For
that to work, he needs that Keystone pipeline put in immediately. That’s the only way he’ll be
able to get his sludge down to the Gulf and get the refined gas exported to Europe, where prices are twice that of what’s paid in the States.
And then there’s Wyoming billionaire and mutual fund manager Foster Friess. It’s said he can’t believe these oil ratchet-heads are running away with the game. Allegedly, he’s threatened to get his neighbor, Dick Cheney, in on this bidding war. It’s reported that Friess said to Romney that “We’ll promise to put Dick back in the bunker at the Naval Observatory if you’ll go along with our demand to downsize America.”
Downsize America!
That’s the new code word for dumping all Wall Street financial regulations, exporting the profits of corporate and private equity firms to safe havens, arresting Occupy Wall Street slackers, and dividing the middleclass against itself. The thought of it has got Idaho billionaire-donor Frank VanderSloot twisted up into a tizzy.
It’s reported that VanderSloot is willing to go out moose hunting in order to bring Sarah Palin
onboard. And that should put Fox News in his pocket. What’s more, Frank reportedly wants to get his own show out of this: The Downsizers. It’ll make Trump’s Apprentice look like wimpy
kids’ stuff. But that isn’t the end to the craziness this bidding war has brought on.
It’s said that vulture capitalist Wilbur Ross is taking up French so that he can speak to Romney’s inner child. That’s the Mitt-kid who puts his inner dog out on a very long leash. Ross also has a fallback strategy. “With Romney,” Ross allegedly said, “you must approach him after he’s assessed the all the speculative options. That’s when we’ll get him to run off with all the cash— government pensions, Social Security, the whole bag-lady of entitlements.”
As you can imagine, this game creates a logistics problem for a reporter. As fast as you track down the information on one big donation, ten others multi-million-dollar checks have been written. And the game keeps getting bigger. According to Clare O'Connor at Forbes Magazine, there are a couple dozen more Super PAC donors out there, such as:
● Henry Kravis, who invented modern day leveraged buyouts
● Jerrold Perenchio, who owns Univision
● Julian Robertson, the guy who hedges on the hedge funds
● Wall Street brontosaurus, John Paulson
● Leveraged buyout master, Marc Rowan
● He who out-trumps the Donald on N.Y. properties, Steven Roth
● The other Manhattan property mogul, Stephen Ross
● Robert Rowling, the oil titan
● Bill Marriott, who owns half a hotel chain,
● The co-owner of the hotel chain, Richard Marriott
● Wall Street funds titan, Bruce Kovner
● The natural resources guy, Thomas Kaplan
● Hedge fund head hancho Paul Tudor-Jones II
● The king of coal, Joseph Craft
● Brokerage firm titleholder, Charles Schwab
● Marketing champ, Leslie Wexner
● Supermarket superhero, John Catsimatidis
● Wall Street warlock, Louis Bacon
● Jim Davis, the footwear mastermind
● Hedge fund Godzilla, Ken Griffin
● Billionaire H.P. CEO, Meg Whitman
● The guy who tried to buy Chicago, Sam Zell
● The hedge fund prodigy, David Tepper
With so many billionaires, where do you begin if you want to make a side bet on who wins
Romney’s ear by making the biggest Super PAC donation?
Myself, I’m betting on David Koch. He’s just so far ahead of the others. David got in the game way back with Baby Bush, who took the cash and ran with it. Reportedly, he is willing to go all the way, again, and will probably be responsible for a full billion dollars of Super PAC money going into this Buy the Presidency game.
And what can you say to that but, “Good luck, David. Hope you dictate good policy after the
election!”
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undefinedPeter Fray, former editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, told the Senate media inquiry today that politicians should refrain from using the phrase “fake news” for stories they don’t like. A more succinct option was available to them: “bullshit”, or “bulldust”.
Fray is right. We might distrust politicians and therefore apply an automatic discount to the value of pretty much everything they say, but they still possess the tallest soapboxes and the largest loudspeakers, and their words have an impact. “Fake news” has taken on a very specific meaning, namely stories that have been maliciously concocted to spread false facts. Every time a politician calls a legitimate – but contestable – story “fake news” they cheapen the news media and its value, and make it that much harder for the truth to take hold.
With that in mind, I can’t go past a small part of the testimony to the same media inquiry of Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood, who today said, “You don’t necessarily have to have a multitude of publications to have scrutiny of those institutions. It’s not so much who owns the organisation, as long as you’ve got at-scale journalism in your community you’re going to get decent scrutiny.”
This isn’t a lie. Nor is it “fake news”. It is, however, bulldust. Ownership matters enormously. Anyone not think a Rupert Murdoch–owned publication bears Murdoch’s influence? Anyone think the Washington Post hasn’t improved under Jeff Bezos? More practically, lack of diversity in ownership has a massive impact. It is not usually a long jump from media outlets being owned by the same media companies to those media outlets sharing content. As soon as those media outlets share content, there are fewer journalists needed to provide that content. That means fewer people looking into institutions, into politicians, into what the facts actually are. It’s basic probability: there is less chance the truth will come out. (To be fair, Hywood backed the principle of media diversity.)
Sometimes this isn’t even a question of investigative journalism, though. It can be a matter of there being a sufficient number of journalists, with different backgrounds, working for different editors beholden to different owners, to ensure the right questions are being asked.
A small example should suffice.
Last Friday the treasurer, arguing against Labor’s proposed top personal marginal tax rate of 49.5%, said, “You’re basically saying, ‘Slog your guts out. Build a company like this and at the end of the day your great reward is you’ve got to work one day for the government and work one day for themselves.’”
This “work one day for the government and one day for yourself” argument was widely quoted. As far as I can tell, it wasn’t really challenged, except by Eryk Bagshaw, a journalist at – wait for it – Fairfax. (I concede it’s possible I’ve missed it somewhere, but certainly most outlets let it stand.)
Bagshaw didn’t only contest the statement, he explained to his readers in some detail what the facts actually were.
While the Treasurer’s comments suggest a 49.5 per cent permanent tax rate would mean half a person’s pay could go to the government and half towards the family budget, the Australian Tax Office’s own figures show that at the current temporary rate of 49 per cent, someone earning $190,000 is taxed at 31 cents for every dollar, while even the wealthiest 0.1 per cent of Australians earning more than $1 million a year are taxed at 42 cents.
This type of reporting is important. Our politicians say false things all the time, and will do so unless they are called out on it. Or even, in fact, when they are. This, however, is not an argument for not calling them out. On the contrary: it’s an argument for a diverse media, in which there are enough individual journalists willing to hold their ground that eventually the politician is forced to stop.
Morrison was so pleased with his line that he repeated it – twice – at a press conference on Saturday. On Sunday, he tried again, but this time Insiders host Barrie Cassidy called him out on it, finally forcing him to add the caveat “every extra dollar you earn” to the beginning of his formulation.
You might think I’m being precious, given that Morrison’s statement would be correct with that caveat added. But compare it to Paul Keating’s very clear argument of the same point, put in under ten words: you’re “confiscating almost half of people’s income over $180,000”. Keating’s formulation is correct. Morrison’s is, quite clearly, deliberately misleading.
It’s not “fake news”, mind you. It’s just wrong. But without a diversity of journalists, from a diversity of outlets, pushing that point, Morrison would have just kept on his merry way.
This particular point, about a tax rate proposed by the Opposition, might not matter that much in the grand scheme of things. But don’t forget that Donald Trump – perhaps the world’s greatest beneficiary of actual fake news – is today in strife of historic proportions, partly because he keeps saying things that aren’t actually true, and because the media keeps calling him out on it. He’s been lying about things for a long time and been allowed to get away with a lot of it. These things are best caught early. There’s never any guarantee of a well-functioning democracy, but a diverse media, backed by owners who care about journalism, stacked with journalists willing to call bulldust, is as good a place to start as any.
In other news
MUSIC Feel the divine A new compilation celebrates the devotional music of jazz legend Alice Coltrane Anwen Crawford “Before she founded an ashram, Swamini Turiyasangitananda was a jazz pianist, harpist and bandleader named Alice Coltrane; between 1965 and 1967 she was also married to the jazz composer and saxophonist John Coltrane, and played in his band. And before that, she was Alice McLeod, a bebop musician from Detroit.” READ ON ART After ‘Sovereignty’ ACCA’s exhibition of contemporary Indigenous art was a long overdue success Quentin Sprague “If Sovereignty was an act of reparation, the challenge in its wake is surely two-fold: how to maintain the disruptive potential of Indigenous practices at the same time as communicating the sense that all histories – colonial, Indigenous, and otherwise – lie entangled in our region’s current moment.” READ ONOver the past few years, it has become enormously difficult to navigate the minefield that is Russia’s media censorship. This week captures the problem well: a primetime TV network broadcast blurred images of beastiality, suffering no legal consequences, while yet another Russian Internet user, this time in St. Petersburg, faces criminal investigation for reposting a meme.
On October 24, the NTV television program “Show and Tell” aired an episode dedicated to a leaked sex tape allegedly showing actor Alexei Panin engaging in sexual acts with a dog. Panin denies that it’s him in the video, accusing NTV of trying to take his eight-year-old daughter from him. He promises a lawsuit.
While NTV might face civil charges from Panin about his reputation, the network appears to be in no legal danger, despite the fact that it aired blurred, but still undeniably hardcore, images of a man and woman engaging in sexual acts with a dog.
“I’m no fan of the argument ‘children could see this,’ but there’s no other way to say it here: they could have seen this, and been scarred for life,” opposition activist Alexei Navalny wrote on his blog, complaining that the country’s “morality warriors” don’t really care about the Russian media.
Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg, police investigators came to a man’s home to interrogate him about a picture he reposted on social media. The image was a satirical map of the Russian Federation and its neighbors, created by the artist Alexei Kudelin, better known as “Vasya Lozhkin,” that was outlawed as “extremist” by a court in Novosibirsk earlier this year.
The dangerous image features “Great Wonderful Russia” surrounded by a black and menacing periphery, where the country’s various neighbors are labeled with racial epithets.
Lozhkin first published the picture in 2010. He’s since deleted it from his LiveJournal page. Lozhkin has described his artwork as something “not everyone could hang at home.” His satire often features disturbing images and gallows humor.The official website for the Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) anime announced on Tuesday that Hajime Isayama's original manga will bundle an original anime DVD. The DVD will come with the 11th limited-edition manga volume, and it will animate "Ilse no Techō" (Ilse's Journal), the prologue side story about a survey corps member. Kodansha published this story in Weekly Shonen Magazine and the manga's fifth book volume.
For this anime DVD, director Tetsuro Araki, series script supervisor Yasuko Kobayashi, character designer Kyoji Asano, and the animators at Wit Studio are reprising their respective duties from the ongoing television series. The bundle will go on sale on August 9 for 3,480 yen (about US$35), and it is limited to pre-orders submitted by June 24.
The manga and the anime depict the battles between humans and the giants who now rule the world outside humans' walled enclaves. Isayama launched the manga in Bessatsu Shonen Magazine in 2009. The manga has become a sleeper hit, and Kodansha USA is publishing the manga in North America. The television anime series premiered this week in Japan, and a live-action film is also in the works.
Source: Mangaoh via Manga News
Update: Illse's affiliation corrected. Thanks, saurers123The Florida judiciary is no stranger to misconduct and corruption. During one tawdry stretch in the early 1970s, three of the state’s supreme court justices resigned over corruption scandals. One was caught on a gambling junket in Las Vegas that had been paid for by a greyhound track owner with a case pending before the court. Two others stepped down after trying to tamper with cases involving campaign supporters.
In response to these and other embarrassments, Florida passed significant reforms, including a law banning judicial candidates from personally asking potential campaign donors for money. Like similar laws in 29 of the other 38 states where at least some judges are elected, it was a straightforward way to reduce a serious threat to judicial independence.
And yet this law may soon become the latest victim of the post-Citizens United era, where money is speech and more of it is only better.
On Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case challenging Florida’s personal-solicitation ban as a violation of the First Amendment. The lawsuit was brought by Lanell Williams-Yulee, a lawyer who was disciplined for writing, signing and sending a fund-raising letter to voters in 2009, when she was running to |
States should be more active in working with other countries on how to secure their arsenal, to secure their stockpile to prevent smuggling and theft of materials. It’s very intelligent for the United States to pay attention to that because those are the things that you should do to ensure that nuclear weapons stay out of the hands of groups that may not be deterrable in a conventional sense because they have no return address.Immigration detention inquiry: Government tried to cover up asylum seekers' mental health problems, inquiry told
Updated
The national inquiry into children in immigration detention has heard evidence alleging a Government cover-up about the scale of mental health issues among child asylum seekers.
Psychiatrist Dr Peter Young was the director of mental health services at detention centre service provider International Health and Mental Services (IHMS) for three years until earlier this month.
In evidence to the inquiry today, Dr Young alleged figures showing the extent of mental health issues among child asylum seekers had been covered up by the Immigration Department.
He said IHMS had collected figures showing "significant" mental health problems among a significant number of child detainees.
He said the "early data" was "broadly in line with what we are seeing with adults and perhaps a little higher".
Dr Young said IHMS provided a report to the Immigration Department "in the couple of weeks as [the data had] come in" and that the reaction was "negative".
"[The Immigration Department] reacted with alarm and have asked us to withdraw these figures from our reporting," he said.
Gasps were heard in the gallery and the inquiry's barrister Naomi Sharp asked who had sought the data's removal.
"I am not sure exactly. It comes from the department," Dr Young said.
Immigration Department boss responds to allegations
Immigration Department secretary Martin Bowles said he was not present when IHMS was allegedly asked to withdraw the figures.
"I was not there, so I am not sure of the reaction," he said.
Asked if he was concerned about allegations of a cover-up, Mr Bowles told the inquiry: "There has been a statement today. You have heard one side of the statement".
"If our staff did an inappropriate thing, then I will deal with that," he promised. "Our normal practice is to assess these things."
Mr Bowles said the chief medical officer and the independent health advisor were assessing the accuracy of the latest figures supplied by IHMS.
"We are assessing the data," he said. "I am not doubting Dr Young. I'm not doubting the reporting. We will look at this."
Responding to claims that IMHS was regularly overridden by departmental staff, Mr Bowles said: "not to my knowledge. I would be very upset if that was the case".
The department secretary bristled as he was asked whether conditions on Christmas Island were designed to break the will of asylum seekers.
"I am actually offended by these statements. It attacks the professionalism of our staff," he said.
And he reacted angrily to suggestions that the department was lying or misleading the inquiry about the numbers of children in detention.
He said there are 1,330 fewer children in detention than a year ago, but admitted 17 children were transferred from Christmas Island to Nauru in the last two months.
Mr Bowles also told the inquiry of the "significant improvements" that the department had made on Christmas Island, including a learning centre which opened for classes this week.
He acknowledged there had been a "short period" where children did not have access to school facilities.
"We recognised we didn't have appropriate education in place. That's why we've done something about it," he said.
The department's deputy secretary Mark Cormack told the inquiry people were now spending longer in detention, with the average stay now 350 days.
128 cases of child self-harm in past 15 months
Dr Young told the inquiry there had been 128 cases of child detainees committing acts of self-harm in the past 15 reporting months, but that figure does not include Nauru.
He said he was aware children had tried to poison themselves or ingest harmful substances, and said banging heads against walls is common.
There are a further 171 cases of child detainees threatening self-harm and the Human Rights Commission says it has been told 23 children have tried to self-harm on more than two occasions.
Ms Sharp said the commission had been told one child had attempted to self-harm on 16 occasions.
Dr Young said he was not aware of the case.
"If there was a case like that that was going on for a period of time, that would result in a recommendation for the child to be managed out of detention. Managed in hospital if that is required," he said.
The ABC has sought an update on the child from the Immigration Minister's office. The Human Rights Commission says it has been told the child was still in detention as of March 31.
Dr Young says the case did not surprise him "because the policy is that children are held in detention".
Clinical decisions 'routinely downgraded'
Meanwhile two doctors have told the inquiry their recommendations for the clinical treatment of detainees were often altered and downgraded by authorities.
Dr Grant Ferguson and Dr John Paul Sanggaran both spent time working on Christmas Island in 2013.
Dr Ferguson told the inquiry "there was direct interference with our autonomy" by IHMS.
He said IHMS medical director Lachlan Fieldhouse would change his written recommendations for treatment of detainees without consultation.
Dr Sanggaran said written clinical decisions by doctors were "altered and routinely being downgraded".
Dr Ferguson told the inquiry he was also asked by the medical director to prescribe medication for detainees he had never seen.
He also said there were "multiple occasions" when he were was asked to refer adolescents to the Immigration Department which was "not appropriate for doctors".
Medication 'taken from 3yo epileptic girl'
Both doctors told the inquiry that children with complex medical problems just cannot be treated on Christmas Island as there are no child psychologists, paediatricians or specialised children's mental health services.
Dr Sanggaran said detainees' glasses, hearing aids and medication were taken when they arrived on the island.
"One of the most concerning things I saw was nurses popping pills into a bin," he said.
He told the inquiry doctors often did not know what medication children were taking, or what it was for.
He gave an example of a three-year-old girl suffering epilepsy whose medication was taken from her when she arrived at Christmas Island.
Dr Sanggaran said the child started having seizures and medication was ordered from the mainland but that ran out and the seizures returned.
He said she was eventually transferred off the island.
Allegations of physical and sexual abuse on Nauru
Today's inquiry also heard claims of physical and sexual abuse against children by staff on Nauru.
Kirsty Diallo, who worked for Save the Children in Nauru in 2013, told the inquiry of inappropriate behaviour by guards who stroked girls' hair, and made them sit on their laps.
She said there was nothing to prevent child abuse in detention on Nauru, as there was no local child protection legislation, and no working with children checks.
Ms Diallo said a 16-year-old boy had been sexually assaulted by a cleaner who grabbed the boy's genitals in a toilet block last November.
Former employee describes'removing hope' as deterrent strategy
A former immigration department employee told the inquiry into children in detention he was conditioned to calling them "clients" to strip them of any hope.
Gregory Lake resigned from the department in April last year while working on Nauru.
He told the inquiry that the language used by employees was designed to dehumanise those held in detention.
Mr Lake said the way that detention centres are run is to construct an environment where people are used as examples.
"It's going to be worse being in Australia than it was where you came from. That's the whole point of a deterrent strategy to say don't come because if you do it will be worse," he said.
Mr Lake said "a way of doing that without breaking laws but doing it very effectively nonetheless is to remove hope."
He told the inquiry he was told by the Immigration Minister's office to select children that looked the youngest to be part of the first transfer to Manus Island to send a message of deterrence.
He said that occurred contrary to criteria from the Papua New Guinea government that children under seven years old could not be transferred because they could not be inoculated against malaria and Japanese encephalitis.
"However, the intention was that no-one outside in the public knew that because if they did then people smugglers would put people under seven on boats and actually get more people into the country that way," he said.
"So in order to create a deterrent for all children, the age was considered to be something they wanted to blur."
Abbott stands by hardline asylum seeker policy
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said his hardline immigration and border protection policy would not change.
"No-one wants to see children in detention," he told reporters in Hobart.
"No-one wants to see anyone in detention, but the only way to avoid this is to stop the boats."
Mr Abbott said he was very aware of the plight of children in detention.
"What is more horrific I ask you? What could be more horrific than the idea of children perishing at sea because their parents have fallen for the false promises of the people smugglers?" he said.
Asked about the almost 1,000 children being held in immigration detention, Mr Abbott said they would be "dealt with in the ordinary way".
Opposition hits out at 'culture of secrecy'
Dr Young still works at IHMS as a consultant and has been compelled to give evidence at the inquiry by the Australian Human Rights Commission.
The inquiry is examining the conditions of detention - especially on Christmas Island - the safety of children on Nauru, along with mental health assessments and the impact of long-term detention on children.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says allegations of a cover up by the Immigration Department are disturbing, if true.
"It is important that we don't have a culture of secrecy around immigration policies," he told reporters in Sydney.
"We all know when it is blue sky and good news for the Abbott Government, Scott Morrison is rent-a-quote, but he goes missing action too when the going gets tough."
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young described Dr Young's evidence as shocking.
"I call on the Minister today to release all incident reports in real time inside immigration detention centres," she told reporters in Adelaide.
"Let's do away with the secrecy, the lack of transparency and the cover-ups on what really goes on inside."
Senator Hanson-Young, who was denied entry yesterday to the Curtin Detention Centre to visit the 157 Tamil asylum seekers who have been the subject of a High Court challenge, says the Minister must explain himself.
"I am extremely concerned at the Minister's attitude to the welfare of these children, whether they are children detained on Christmas Island, Nauru, or indeed the new children who have recently arrived after being imprisoned on the Customs ship and are now locked up in the Curtin Detention Centre," she said.
The president of the Human Rights Commission, Professor Gillian Triggs, told the inquiry Immigration Minister Scott Morrison had agreed to give evidence.
However, she said Mr Morrison declined to take part in today's hearing because he is concerned about High Court proceedings.
"So we might hold a fourth inquiry... he has essentially said that he will appear."
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Immigration Minister said the Government "will await the outcomes of [the] inquiry to be detailed and any supporting evidence in the final report".
"There has been a reduction of children in detention of almost 35 per cent since the election on 7 September 2013," the statement said.
"More than 80 per cent of children are residents in the community either on bridging visas or under residence determinations."
Professor Triggs said it would be extremely concerning if information was being reduced, redacted or altered before it got to the minister.
Today's inquiry hearing came the day after Australian church leaders accused the Federal Government of "state-sanctioned child abuse" over its treatment of unaccompanied asylum seeker children.
Topics: immigration, refugees, community-and-society, law-crime-and-justice, government-and-politics, federal-government, mental-health, health, australia
First postedISIS ‘military police’ executed 100 foreign fighters who attempted to quit and flee from the insurgents’ de-facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria as frustration among militants has been growing, a UK newspaper reported citing a witness activist.
“Local fighters are frustrated — they feel they’re doing most of the work and the dying... foreign fighters who thought they were on an adventure are now exhausted,” an activist, opposed to both the Syrian regime and Islamic State (formerly known as ISIS/ISIL), told The Financial Times newspaper, which claims the source is reliable.
The activist said he had "verified 100 executions of foreign ISIS fighters trying to flee the northern Syrian city of Raqqa.”
The media reported that the insurgents created a “military police to crack down” on those unwilling to serve the so-called Islamic State.
In a bid to control how jihadists fulfill their tasks, the IS reportedly created some kind of documentation. The paper also reported, citing activists, that many fighters serving the IS have been arrested after their homes were raided.
“In Raqqa, they have arrested 400 members so far and printed IDs for the others,” the activist who asked his name to be withheld for security reasons said.
He also said that some fighters have become discontent and frustrated with their leaders and disillusioned with the realities of fighting for IS, through warning the change of mood “doesn’t affect the hardcore people of ISIS.”
READ MORE: Indian jihadist ‘kills 55 for ISIS, quits because no pay’
According to the report, foreign militants have often been the most active in major battles, but most of the demands are put on local fighters.
“They feel they are the ones going to die in big numbers on the battlefield but they don’t enjoy any of the foreigners’ benefits — high salaries, a comfortable life, female slaves,” the activist from Deir Ezzor said.
Another problem in the ISIS ranks is growing tensions between fighters of different ethnic groups, the report says.
“Many fighters apparently group themselves by ethnicity or nationality — a practice which undermines ISIS’s claim to be ridding Muslims of national borders,” The Financial Times reported.
A point of no return?
Volunteers to fight for ISIS have been flocking to the region from all over the world. Up to 11,000 fighters from 74 nations had gone to Syria to fight for militant groups during the protracted civil war with up to 2,800 from the West, the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King's College London (ICSR) estimated last year.
France, Germany and the UK account for the largest number of citizens fighting with militants in Syria. UK media reported in September that five disillusioned Britons accompanied by three Frenchmen, two Germans and two Belgians were stripped of their weapons and taken prisoner by their militant commanders after an attempt to flee Syria.
READ MORE: 5 Brits join ISIS each month, 1 dies every 3 weeks
In November, British PM David Cameron said that ISIS jihadists returning from the conflict region will be barred from coming home. Between 30 and 50 Britons want to return but fear they face jail, according to researchers at ICSR.
In September, France's parliament opened a debate on a bill to cope with the terrorism threat. Bill aims at imposing a travel ban on those suspected of planning terror activities.
Meanwhile, the first German was to be tried for fighting with ISIS was sentenced to 45 months in jail in December. German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has urged to “especially prevent [the militants’] return as fighters to carry out attacks in Europe."
READ MORE: ‘Terrorism exported to Middle East from Europe’ – Assad
The militants have experienced losses in the past weeks. On Thursday Iraqi Kurds claimed they broken IS siege of Iraq's Sinjar mountain during a two-day attack, involving 8,000 peshmerga fighters and US-led airstrikes, AFP reported. The victory freed hundreds of people from Iraq's Yazidi religious minority, who had been trapped on the mountain since August. At the same time US Pentagon announced the strikes killed several ISIS leaders.You’re a super chef, master of the culinary arts, but you often find your quest for the greatest foods the universe can offer end up taking you to places you dare never return to. But this time its different... this time it’s not where, but when.The last thing you remember before jumping into the mysterious glowing portal was... wait what was it? You cannot remember! The more you think about things the less you remember. As you come to your senses you find the world around you to be a very unfamiliar one. All you see is a strange book. Somehow despite losing your entire memory you can still remember how to read, and a good think that is to because your sure the key to you getting home lies deep in this frail scripture.As the sun sets on your first night here, you realise you must evolve in order to make it back home in time for tea... okay you might miss tea but still you want to get home soon.Welcome to my latest creation... Evolution of the Harvest.So you’ve stumbled across this page, possibly by accident, and you’re wondering if this is a pack you’d enjoy playing. Well actually you’re probably not thinking that, but let’s pretend you are...I initially began this pack to fill a hole I’ve noticed appearing in the Modded Minecraft Universe. Time and time again I see people saying how they’ve lost interest or motivation in packs. Well this pack is designed to reignite that love you have of Modded Minecraft.I’ve packed the pack with as many unique and interesting elements as I could just to give you a whole new outlook as to what you can do with the mods we all know and love. While the pack does contain a scripted story, I've tried to leave progression as open as possible. You may choose to travel to distant islands to gain a head start or you may prefer to stay on your island and build everything from the ground up; the choice is entirely up to you. I’ve also added a HQM Book, Custom NPC quests and a monument to complete to give you tones of targets to keep you interested.This pack is not a tutorial to the mods, and a lot of recipes have been altered using Minetweaker, but even people who have never played Modded Minecraft would be able to follow along reasonably well.
Progression is split up into groups called Ages. Each age represents the discovery of a new material and with it unlocks new mods. While to begin with gathering a new resource is tedious, soon with a bit of work you will discover easier ways to obtain them.
Progression is split up into groups called Ages. Each age represents the discovery of a new material and with it unlocks new mods. While to begin with gathering a new resource is tedious, soon with a bit of work you will discover easier ways to obtain them.
Progression is split up into groups called Ages. Each age represents the discovery of a new material and with it unlocks new mods. While to begin with gathering a new resource is tedious, soon with a bit of work you will discover easier ways to obtain them.
As you evolve through the map you will unlock new HUBs. HUBs are accessible via islands in the spawn world [The HQM Guide will direct you to them once you've unlocked the relevant Age's]. There is roughly one HUB per 2 Ages. In these HUBs you will meet the locals and earn their help by completing tasks for them.
In order for an NPC to help you, you must complete three tasks:
Find them their missing item
Gather the resources they need
Pay them to work for you
Spoiler: MOD LIST AppleCore
Baubles
BetterFoliage
Bibliocraft
Botania
Buildcraft
BuildcraftAddons
Carpenter’s Blocks
Chisel2
Code Chicken Core
CoFHCore
CustomItems
CustomMainMenu
CustomNPCs
DummyCore
Enchirition
EnderCore
EnderIO
EnderIOAddons
Ender Storage
Eureka
Ex-Nihilo
ExtraUtilities
Factorization
Flaxbeard’s Steam Power
Gadomancy
GardenOfGlass
GardenStuff
GrowthcraftCE
HardcoreDarkness
HQM-The Journey
Immersive Engineering
INpureCore
JourneyMap
Mantle
MaricultureDeluxe
MatterOverdrive
MineTweaker3
ModTweaker2
NotEnoughItems
Pam’s HarvestCraft
PerfectSpawn
PneumaticCraft
Project Red
SciAPI
Stellar Sky
Storage Drawers
Tinkers Construct
Thaumaturgical Knowledge
Thaumcraft 4
ThaumcraftInventoryScanner
Thaumcraft NEI Plugin
The Kitchen Mod
Thermal Foundation
TiCTooltips
Tinkers’ Modifiers
Twilight Forest
WR-CBE
CRASH REPORTS
SCREENSHOTS
Spoiler: Stone Age Hub
Spoiler: Electrical Age Hub http://imgur.com/a/pWFsF
CREDITS
CHANGELOGS [COMING SOON]
PC/SERVER FRIENDLY
In the quest book you will also find directions to certain Age-Specific islands. Most are optional islands to visit. Visiting them will allow you to hire NPCs to help automate some more grindy tasks.DO NOT expect to be able to complete every quest in each HUB as soon as you unlock them; they are designed to be relevant for a long period of the game and thus some quests may require materials only obtainable later into the pack.This pack contains as many unique features and things to do as I could fit into it including:A HQM QuestlineCustomNPC QuestsBonus MinigamesUnique progression lineLoads of Vanilla Command BlocksA scoring/bank systemSkyblock adventuresA monument to completeA custom achievement listAlthough pretty much set, this modlist is subject to changes. Details of permissions and versions can be found below. Any suggestions for mods to add are welcome however please note I wish to avoid several of the commonly used mods. This is as it can be boring to make the same machines in every modpack. I'm looking to direct the players to use the mods in more creative ways.- Full list of CustomNPC Quests- Mod Versions & PermissionsI've noticed many people are restricted to what packs they can play by their computer. One thing I've noticed is a skyblock pack can be quite intensive when it comes to mob spawning. So to counter this instead of the player building mod farms which spawn tonnes of mobs, you have to buy a premade mod farm from one of the HUBs. Each farm can be upgraded as you progress through the pack, and each HUB unlocks more types of mobs. This is done by hidden piping and does not involve physical mobs in game.Spawners are available for purchase in the shop however they are designed for the mid-late game so will not be accessible from the start. Natural mob spawning is disabled, however spawners will still work. To ensure the player still lights up their base hardcore darkness is enabled.But now you’re thinking that’s silly! Doing that makes it boring. Plus what would be the point in making fancy armor and swords. Well your going to need armor and swords if you want to earn some extra money. Each HUB has a mob battle area. Here you can try to fight off hoards to zombies, battle face to face with skeletons or run away and cry in the corner as the creepers charge you. You have to pay to enter but you earn money for the length of time you survive. And even when you die all your items are returned to you free of charge.Please note this pack is not currently set up to run on servers. It should work fine if you are playing together but if you wish to create several islands then some features, such as the shop, will not work. This is on my list of priorities to sort out.As a massive fire on the horizon belched smoke into a Northern California valley last week, about 20 people helped a pot farmer evacuate cows, goats, alpacas and other animals from a property at risk of being torched. As the motley group loaded the livestock onto borrowed horse trailers, about a dozen police officers roared up in cruisers.
“The officers said that anyone who had any dope in their car was going to jail,” one of the farmers helping load the animals recounted in a telephone interview. “That was really scary.”
The farm was one of the few permitted cannabis farms in Mendocino County, more than 100 miles north of San Francisco, making the pot on it as legitimate as can be in the haze of today’s regulatory environment. The cops didn’t find weed in the cars of those helping evacuate animals, but what amounted to a raid during the most destructive series of wildfires in recent California history underscores the continuing risks and challenges facing the marijuana industry in a state that has voted to legalize the drug.
The wildfires’ effect on California’s famed wine industry have been well-documented, but the fires affecting the North Bay’s pot farms as well as those farther north in an area known as the Emerald Triangle—Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties—have received less attention even as they have killed more than 40 people and burned at least 200,000 acres.
The financial cost, thus far hard to measure, could be massive: As federal laws force the cannabis industry to deal in all cash, it could mean millions in paper money is up in flames alongside uninsured crops that farmers need to continue operations.
Forced to operate in cash, without insurance, and under the constant threat of raids despite legal protections, the cannabis industry faces continued struggles as it waits for legal recreational marijuana laws to take effect in California. Yet as the fires continue to rage through the rural hills dotted by cannabis farms, law-enforcement officials say that they will continue to do their jobs.
Read also: The startup losing $1 million a month in hopes of selling $1 billion of pot a year
“Is the California Highway Patrol going to stop writing traffic tickets [during a wildfire]? No,” said Lt. Chris Stoots of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which enforces some water-related aspects of cannabis law, since illegal growers often divert water endangering the fragile ecosystem.
He said he doesn’t have knowledge of the specific raid farmers recounted, but that what the farmers said sounded typical; other agencies said to be involved in the raid didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“’Don’t you have anything better to do?’ is a common statement people make when they don’t like the outcome of what is happening,” said Stoots. “That’s always a lame defense. Those officers still have a job to do, and laws still apply even though there’s a crisis.”
Estimates for the effect on the cannabis industry from the California wildfires are tough to nail down, much like the actual size of the market.
California tax collectors estimate taxable pot sales of $486 million through June of this year, after taxable sales of $937 million in 2016. But those are just medical-marijuana sales. According to a report commissioned by the California Department of Food and Agriculture, outlaw growers produce around 11 million pounds every year—$9.9 billion at current prices—with the vast majority illegally sold across the U.S.
Don’t miss: Marijuana industry could be worth $50 billion annually by 2026
That black market exists in part because cannabis remains a Schedule I drug in federal guidelines, which means production, transport, sale and consumption of the drug are punishable by prison time. As a result, big banks won’t touch cannabis cash — despite Obama-era guidance that suggests they would not be prosecuted.
Consequently, everyone involved in the industry, from cultivators to retail shops, stores hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. Those bills, like the crops, are uninsurable for many of the same reasons that the industry deals in cash, which becomes its insurance against crop destruction.
“Nobody has crop insurance, nobody has insurance for what they’ve got in their safes,” said Tim Blake, co-founder of the Emerald Cup, a marijuana festival held annually in Santa Rosa, referring to the stacks of bills stashed in the rural hills of Northern California.
Deep in weed country, most of the cultivators that have been evacuated had a chance to grab their cash, says cannabis cultivator Justin Calvino, who was present at the Mendocino raid.
“You can’t move your crops. You pretty much have time to grab your cash, your birth certificate—the sheriff will give you about an hour.”
But farther south, in the wine regions of Napa and Sonoma counties, where pot also thrives — it is similar to grapes in terms of the growing conditions and crop cycle — many were less fortunate.
“I know 12 people who have had their cash burned by the fire,” said Joyce Williams, chief revenue officer of Big Rock, a private-equity firm that invests in cannabis businesses.
Williams says that some of those who have lost property and cash have had more than $100,000 go up in flames. “In other businesses you’re going to have access to resources when this type of disaster happens,” she said. “But in cannabis there’s no infrastructure or opportunity to act.”
See also: Congress gives medical marijuana users a good reason to be paranoid
Blake says that the fire’s timing was doubly damaging because many of the affected businesses had spent tens of thousands of dollars on equipment and permits as the new regulatory regime slowly came into focus. Now, without access to credit, he suspects some will get wiped out.
Some farmers may be able to sell their property if they can’t bankroll rebuilding and another year of crops, but others, including those that lease the land, may not recover.
Cannabis producers in Sonoma and Napa are dwarfed by growers elsewhere in the state, as is the case in the wine industry, where catastrophic damage at least a dozen major North Bay wine producers will reportedly represent less than 1% of the $34.1 billion California industry’s winemaking capacity.
Blake estimates that between 3% and 5% of the farms in Northern California have been torched, but notes that early rains and massive humidity in 2016 put a much more significant dent in the crop numbers — as much as 40% of the region’s crops were bad last year.
This year’s hot, dry summer made also means that near-perfect growing conditions had the industry on track for a bumper year that could have made up for last year’s downturn. Unfortunately, it also made the environment ripe for wildfires, which now could drive some farmers out of the business.
As for the raids on farmers and others in the industry complying with the law, that may well continue beyond the change in California law.
“It’s unrealistic to expect that everyone [in law enforcement] is going to change. I think it is going to take time for [them to] change in a realistic way,” said civil rights attorney Matt Kumin, who has years of experience defending those charged with cannabis related crimes. “Until then, it’s business as usual with many in local law enforcement and sheriffs’s departments.”Eric Bryan Lindros (; born February 28, 1973) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player. Lindros was born in London, Ontario, but grew up in Toronto. He played junior hockey in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) for the Oshawa Generals prior to being chosen first overall in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft by the Quebec Nordiques. He refused to play for the Nordiques and was eventually traded to the Philadelphia Flyers in June 1992 in exchange for a package of players and draft picks including Peter Forsberg. During his OHL career, Lindros led the Generals to a Memorial Cup victory in 1990. Prior to being drafted in 1991, Lindros captured the Red Tilson Trophy as the Most Outstanding Player in the OHL, and also was named the CHL Player of the Year.
Lindros began his National Hockey League (NHL) career with the Flyers during the 1992–93 season. He was an exemplary power forward,[1] and averaged more than a point per game. His hard-nosed style caused him to miss significant time with injuries, and he had many problems with concussions. Lindros captured the Hart Memorial Trophy and Lester B. Pearson Award after the lockout-shortened 1994–95 season. In August 2001, Lindros joined the New York Rangers via a trade. He then signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs for the 2005–06 season before finishing his career in 2006–07 with the Dallas Stars.
Internationally, Lindros represented Canada at the World Junior Championships three times (1990, 1991 and 1992), winning gold medals in 1990 and 1991. He is Canada's all-time points leader at the World Junior Championships with 31 points, five points ahead of Jordan Eberle and Brayden Schenn. Lindros has also represented Canada's senior team at the World Hockey Championships, leading the squad in scoring at the 1993 tournament. In Olympic play, Lindros represented Canada three times (1992, 1998 and 2002), winning a silver medal in 1992 and gold in 2002. On October 17, Lindros was inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame where he credited the quality facilities in London, Ontario, his coaches, and his parents for his success.[2] In 2016 Lindros was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.[3][4] In 2017 he was named one of the '100 Greatest NHL Players' in history.[5] Lindros' jersey, #88, was retired by the Flyers in 2018.[6]
Hockey career [ edit ]
As a youth, Lindros played in the 1985 and 1987 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournaments with the Toronto Marlboros and Toronto Young Nationals minor ice hockey teams, respectively.[7]
Junior career (1989–1992) [ edit ]
As a teenage power forward playing minor hockey, Lindros became nationally famous both for his scoring feats and his ability to physically dominate players older than himself. He attended Monarch Park and later North Toronto Collegiate in Toronto. Both Eric and his younger brother Brett (Eric in 1988–89) played for the Metro Junior "B" St. Michael's Buzzers before moving up to the OHL. Lindros' play made him the most highly valued amateur player in North America and he was often nicknamed "The Next One", a reference to Wayne Gretzky's moniker "The Great One."
Throughout his career, Lindros has been tagged with various other nicknames, including "The Big E." The hype around Lindros during his early career led to an exclusive deal with sports card manufacturer Score. Attempting to leverage this arrangement as much as possible, he was even featured on a baseball card showing him as a third baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays, although the closest he came to a professional baseball career was taking batting practice one day with the Blue Jays.[8]
Lindros refused to sign with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds after being drafted from St. Michael's. Greyhounds owner Phil Esposito had drafted him anyway, enabling Esposito to sell his share in the team at a higher price. Lindros was traded to the Oshawa Generals instead, and when they played the Greyhounds, some Greyhound players wore black armbands in protest of Lindros' refusal to play for their team.[9]
He played parts of three seasons for the Generals from 1990 to 1992.[10] During that time, he scored 180 goals, 200 assists, 380 points and had 437 penalty minutes in 157 games played.[citation needed]
Lindros helped lead the Generals to the 1990 J. Ross Robertson Cup, and a 1990 Memorial Cup victory.
During the 1990–91 season, Lindros won the Eddie Powers Memorial Trophy as top scorer, the Red Tilson Trophy as MVP, the CHL Player of the Year award and the CHL Top Draft Prospect Award. The Generals returned to the Robertson Cup finals, facing Sault Ste. Marie. The series was one of the more dramatic in OHL history given Lindros's attitude toward the team, with fans from the Soo loudly jeering him every time he touched the puck. The Greyhounds upset the heavily favoured defending champions in a six-game series, winning the last game on home ice.
On March 6, 2008, the Generals retired his jersey number 88, the second number to be retired by the franchise, and it was declared Eric Lindros Day in Oshawa.[11]
1991 NHL Entry Draft [ edit ]
Lindros was selected first overall by the Quebec Nordiques in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft. Lindros had signaled in advance that he would never play for the Nordiques, citing the city's isolation, lack of marketing potential, and French character.[12] Despite this, the team selected him anyway. Nordiques owner Marcel Aubut publicly announced that they would make Lindros the centrepiece of their franchise turnaround, and refused to trade Lindros, saying that the only way he would play in the NHL would be in a Nordiques uniform. While he awaited a trade, Lindros spent the time playing with the Generals and also participated in the 1992 Winter Olympics, winning a silver medal with Canada.
At the 1992 NHL Entry Draft, the Nordiques worked out trades involving Lindros with both the Philadelphia Flyers and New York Rangers.[13] The Flyers trade had the Nordiques receiving Steve Duchesne, Ron Hextall, Kerry Huffman, Mike Ricci, the rights to Peter Forsberg, the Flyers' first-round pick in 1992 (seventh overall) and 1993 and $15 million.[14] The trade with the Rangers had the Nordiques receiving Tony Amonte, Alexei Kovalev, John Vanbiesbrouck, Doug Weight, three first-round picks (in 1993, 1994 and 1996) and $12 million.[15] Additionally, if Vanbiesbrouck was declared an unrestricted free agent, James Patrick would have replaced him in the deal.[15] The Flyers, believing they had consummated their deal with the Nordiques first, filed a complaint and the NHL announced an independent arbitrator would be appointed.[13]
On June 30, 1992, 11 days after the draft, arbitrator Larry Bertuzzi ruled in favour of the Flyers.[14] Bertuzzi determined that the Flyers and Nordiques had agreed to a trade 80 minutes before the Rangers and Nordiques had reached their agreement.[15] Since the Flyers used the 1992 pick to select Ryan Sittler and Quebec had no interest in Sittler, the Flyers and Nordiques had to agree on a substitution for the pick.[14] On July 21, Bertuzzi ruled that Chris Simon and the Flyers' 1994 first-round pick would be added to the trade.[16]
After Lindros officially became property of the Flyers, he stated that he had been wary of playing for the Nordiques primarily because of what he called a "lack of winning spirit" in the organization.[17] At the time they picked him, the Nord |
ists", "women's bodies can shut down rape" and demeaning all Muslims as terrorists is not politically correct, but racist, sexist, and bigoted. Trump's bellicosity is giving his supporters a cover and an excuse to openly be racist against people they disdain while not having any shame in saying it. I wish the GOP would just come out and say "we hate women, gays, blacks, minorities, Muslims, there we said it!" so that the whole country can finally affirm what we've known for so long but apparently the "PC culture" has prevented them from admitting. Flag
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NYT Pick Brian Syracuse, UT 3 minutes ago To suggest the Obama has come out against political correctness in any meaningful way is silly. Obama is constantly using the holy grails of race, gender, etc. to berate opposing views. "That's not who we are." For many of us, it is who we are. Not racists or women haters, but people with different views. To oppose abortion is a war on women and politically incorrect. To oppose welfare spending is to be racist and politically incorrect. To suggest that there is problem with in black culture is beyond any acceptable norm is completely racist and unacceptable. People that hold these views are so far out of whack and hate filled that they must be mocked a shunned. Hmm, I wonder why people are rebelling against political correctness? Flag
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MSNBC's Chris Hayes and CNN's Van Jones made quite sure viewers knew where they stood with regards to the Darren Wilson indictment decision and the subsequent rioting and unrest Monday in Ferguson, Mo.
With a scene of fires and chaos playing before him, Hayes became poetic after a grand jury elected not to indict Wilson in the death of Michael Brown.
"Cameras right now are going to show things burning, and things are burning here in Ferguson tonight," he said. "They're not going to show thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people in metro St. Louis and I think around the country who are just burning up inside with a feeling of impotent rage, of alienation and of anguish and disappointment and injustice."
That's touching.
Hayes later said that the sound of gunfire that night was potentially just "crews" having a beef with one another and could have nothing to do with the protests happening. This was part of a theme; Hayes also assured viewers that "it doesn't take a lot of people to start a fire."
Jones repeatedly said the looting and arson going on was the work of a few "knuckleheads" and the "vast, vast majority" of people in the streets were acting peacefully. He eventually got into an on-air spat with fellow CNN personality Don Lemon about the nature of the scene in Ferguson.Local government 'a hot bed for perceived corruption', Queensland CCC chairman says
Updated
Two south-east Queensland mayors have avoided prosecution despite allegedly breaching the Local Government Election Act, as the Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) says public perception of councils is "on the nose".
Queensland's CCC has made 31 recommendations to the State Government to clean up local government elections, following complaints about the 2016 poll.
Delivering the report, CCC chairman Alan MacSporran said public perception of local government was accurate.
"It's certainly at the very least a hotbed for perceived corruption and that happens when you have a lack of transparency," he said.
"Their perception [the public] is, and I think correctly, there must be something wrong here — and that's why it's sought to be covered up.
"The public is right on the money, frankly."
The CCC has recommended prosecuting failed Gold Coast mayoral candidate Penny Toland for allegedly not declaring more than $30,000 in donations and gifts from a union.
But Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate will not be pursued, despite the report finding he failed to run a dedicated campaign bank account.
The CCC decided not to take action because of the "systemic nature of this issue" in the 2016 Gold Coast election, and because it was now past the 12-month timeframe a prosecution would need to have started by.
Moreton Bay Mayor Allan Sutherland has also avoided prosecution for paying for joint how-to-vote cards for himself and a number of other councillors.
The CCC said it was not in the public interest to prosecute because the how-to-vote cards were given the green light by the Electoral Commission Queensland (ECQ) and the conduct was widespread and had not been censured before.
The corruption watchdog has called for developer donations to be banned, a move which it says may need to extend to the state level.
The CCC also called for an expenditure cap to be set for local government elections, and it wants expenditure to be declared within seven days — or earlier if during the last week of a campaign.
Another recommendation goes to identifying groups of candidates by their behaviour, including whether they get funding from a common source.
The CCC also identified deficiencies in how the ECQ currently operates and has recommended changes to broaden its role.
Palaszczuk to bring submission to Cabinet on Monday
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the State Government fully supported the key recommendations in the CCC report.
Ms Palaszczuk said key reforms, including banning developer donations and strengthening perceived conflicts of interest for councillors, would be addressed in coming days.
"I will not make rules for local councils that I am not prepared to follow myself, so any changes we make will apply to state, as well as local government," Ms Palaszczuk said in a statement.
Gold Coast candidate faces prosecution
Ms Toland is facing prosecution for allegedly failing to declare donations and gifts from the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU).
The CCC has alleged Ms Toland received $38,241 worth of advertising and T-shirts made by the CFMEU, but failed to add them to a disclosure return to the ECQ because she did not know the extent of the campaign the union was running in her favour.
But the CCC said evidence given at the hearings showed she was aware of the campaign.
"Ms Toland's evidence that she was unaware of the expenditure and activities the CFMEU was conducting on her behalf does not seem credible," the CCC said.
In a submission to the CCC, Ms Toland's lawyers said their client "vehemently disagrees" with the findings and publishing the claims would tarnish her reputation.
Gold Coast Mayor questions donations focus
Cr Tate has defended his financial arrangements for the election campaign.
He said there were problems with the requirement that candidates use a dedicated bank account for their expenses.
"Take an example you jump in your campaign car, you go into the pumps station, fill the petrol and you pay with a visa card — you're in breach — now there is something not right there," he said.
"So I would say with hindsight would 90 per cent of councillors throughout the state make sure a dedicated account would be much more adhered to? The answer would be yes."
Cr Tate said he and other councillors would follow any changes to donation laws, but he questioned the focus on donations from the property industry.
"No matter what sector you're in, development, retail, or whatever is your political belief, do we want to curtail their right to support an ideology of a person that they are standing for?" he said.
"For instance in my part I stand for jobs for the next generation.
"Well, if somebody else who happens to be in the development industry wants to put their support behind somebody like me they should have the right to do so."
Gold Coast Deputy Mayor Donna Gates said "the city of Gold Coast has been exonerated" by the CCC's report.
A recent Four Corners story revealed Cr Gates had voted in favour of development applications linked to her campaign donors nearly 30 times since the 2016 election.
Each time, she acknowledged a potential conflict of interest.
Cr Gates said the CCC was wrong to suggest developer donations to council candidates posed a huge corruption risk and that the influence of councillors was overstated.
"The councillors do not have the majority say, that is a fatal error in my view, the majority say comes from the planners who do years of study and have a great deal of experience in making the recommendations to council," she said.
Ipswich councillor failed to operate dedicated bank account
The CCC found Ipswich councillor Paul Tully should have disclosed donations by three donors, into a bank account under the name of Goodna Community Fund.
The commission determined there was sufficient evidence to refer this matter to the ECQ to consider prosecution proceedings "but noted that Cr Tully has lodged an amended disclosure return with the ECQ after receiving the draft reporter for the purpose of procedural fairness".
The CCC said "it would not be in the public interest in those circumstances to take any further action".
It also found Cr Tully failed to operate a dedicated bank account for his re-election and stated there was sufficient evidence to prosecute.
"However, given the systemic nature of this issue, the CCC determined to take no further action," the report stated.
The CCC found, based on the use of join how-to-vote cards, that a number of Ipswich candidates were part of an undeclared group promoting the election of candidates.
However, the commission decided not to pursue prosecution, as the time to do so had expired.
Poor governance of Logan Mayor's futures fund
Logan Mayor Luke Smith is also facing an ongoing investigation into allegations he attempted to unlawfully influence the outcome of council decisions on development applications that would be beneficial to his campaign donors.
The ABC has reported in recent months on concerns raised over Mayor Smith's voting for planning changes that could favour developers who donated to his campaign.
The CCC report has criticised the Mayor's company Logan Futures, which was directed by two other people for the purpose of "handling the large amount of campaign funds".
Logan Councillor Darren Power has urged Cr Smith to stand aside until the CCC concludes its investigation.
Topics: local-government, government-and-politics, corruption, public-sector, law-crime-and-justice, laws, brisbane-4000, ipswich-4305, southport-4215, logan-central-4114
First postedMy love affair with the kettlebell
I don’t know where my obsession began. I believe I can thank James Harris of XSport Fitness on Columbia Pike in Columbia Heights, Arlington, VA.
When he was my personal trainer a couple years ago he threw everything at me: suicides, burpies, heavy rope, bear crawls, and strange cannonballs with handles on them: kettlebells.
I had never used kettlebells, medicine balls, Bosu balls, Swiss balls, or any of the tools used both for full-body conditioning and by circus strongmen.
I lost my forward momentum when I ran out of personal trainer sort of money.
I discovered that I could install an app on my Roku and bring personal training and fitness classes directly to my Sony Trinitron in the form of the web, iPhone, and Android app, Daily Burn.
I looked around at all the classes and thought kettlebells looked efficient, especially since I was looking to become the kind of strong that would help me at the gun range.
Target shooting pistols take a lot of leg and upper-body strength as well as a lot more endurance and stamina than you would think.
Shooting well and over the course of an hour or so, with a full-size and full power handgun is exhausting, especially if you ever want to keep a tight group.
It works! Just dominating the two-handed kettlebell swing really tightens up everything you need to keep shooting all day long!
And so I hooked up my DB account to Roku and started doing workouts virtually alongside Cody Storey and his gang in a three-month class they call DBK. So, I started buying kettlebells.
I started by emulating the kettlebells that they had in the classes. I didn’t know at the time, but they’re called competition kettlebells. I bought what the folks in the class had, starting with a two blue 12kg bells from CFF FIT, a yellow 16kb bell from Kettlebells USA, and a purple 20kg bell also from Christian’s Fitness Factory.
And then I got busy. But I was really unable to keep up with the every day 50-minute workouts so I lost my forward momentum while becoming more and more enthralled by the cult and culture of the kettlebell: Pavel Tsatsouline, girya, girevoy sport, and even /r/kettlebell over on reddit.
Then I quickly became obsessed with Pavel Tsatsouline, the author of Enter the Kettlebell!, Kettlebell Simple & Sinister, The Russian Kettlebell Challenge, and Return of the Kettlebell. Pavel is known as the guy who first really popularized kettlebells in the USA and he’s a hoot to read.
As I have gotten more experience with the bells, I realized that while I still needed lower-weight bells like the 12kg & 16kg bells in order to keep in line with my aerobic limits, I was strong enough by now to swing a 24kg bell and I wanted a cast iron Russian style kettlebell instead of the steel competition bells — because that’s what both the Russian and US Army uses for their training. 24kg is around 53 lbs so I bought a pair from Kettlebells USA, the Metrixx Classic E-Coat kettlebells — they’re some heave bells, but so awesome.
So, I took to giving Get Fit, Get Fierce with Kettlebell Swings by Don Fitch a go. His strategy is really simple and I want to make it a baseline for all my other fitness: swing a heavy bell for just 90-seconds once every hour, which would mean around 12-minutes of swinging every day.
Swinging the 24kg bell for a whole minute and a half isn’t easy so I think I am going to switch it up: sometimes I plan to swing the 24kg Russian bell as many times as I can, until I stop, even if it’s less than 90-seconds; other times, I plan to go back down to 12kg, 16kg, and 20kg bells in order to be sure I make it to 90-seconds. Variety is the spice of life, right?
If I have more time, I can do a DailyBurn class or I can add the high pull, the clean, the snatch, the strict press, the floor press, the push press, the squat, the pistol squat — no, I’ll never be able to do a pistol, the deadlift, the farmer carry, the row, the goblet squat, the sumo squat, and the intimidating Turkish get-up — there are so many great workouts — you can get a sweet laminated poster with all the exercises for $27 on Amazon: Power Systems Kettlebell Training Poster by Power Systems.
All this in pursuit of becoming a giverik, a girevik (what’s the difference? Which one is correct?). I have been suffering from aches and pains and have been a little too careful reintroducing kettlebells into my daily life so posting this article was my commitment towards getting back into the swing of things!
AdvertisementsWith five seconds and seven yards to go on Sunday night, Duron Harmon did something he’d done nine times before.
Intercept a fourth-quarter pass.
Such interceptions make up 76 percent of the New England Patriots safety’s career tally now, when including playoff action. And while not all of those late-game picks have brought along the same weight, the one Harmon came down with in the end zone at Heinz Field might as well have been a mooring keeping the AFC’s No. 1 seed from drifting away.
No timeout would be taken by the Pittsburgh Steelers, and no missteps would be taken by the Patriots’ defense when it came to getting lined up for the subsequent fake spike. There could have been many, given how JuJu Smith-Schuster’s 69-yard scamper and Jesse James’ called-back touchdown had gone.
But Eric Rowe mirrored Eli Rogers’ ensuing slant pattern and stopped Ben Roethlisberger’s third-down dart into triple coverage from reaching the board.
It reached Harmon instead. And the fifth-year Patriot and first-year captain took the touchback and the 27-24 win.
“I think just practice execution turned into game reality,” Harmon told reporters in the locker room afterwards, via Patriots.com. “We’ve seen it before. Everybody didn’t panic. Nobody was out there acting like they didn’t know what to do. We just played our roles, played good football, and it turned into a big play for us.”
The Patriots are now 13-0 when Harmon turns in an interception. And a staggering 10 of the 13 on his resume have turned up in the final quarter of regulation.
PICKS BY QUARTER
First
Nov. 19, 2017: 33-8 win over Raiders – 1:56 in first on third-and-11
Second
Dec. 14, 2014: 41-13 win over Dolphins – 8:56 in second on third-and-14
Sept. 20, 2015: 40-32 win over Bills – 0:16 in second on third-and-13
Third
None
Fourth
Oct. 27, 2013: 27-17 win over Dolphins – 0:55 in fourth on fourth-and-24
Nov. 3, 2013: 55-31 win over Steelers – 3:32 in fourth on first-and-10
Jan. 10, 2015: 35-31 win over Ravens – 1:46 in fourth on second-and-5
Sept. 10, 2015: 28-21 win over Steelers – 7:09 in fourth on first-and-10
Oct. 29, 2015: 36-7 win over Dolphins – 14:31 in fourth on second-and-7
Sept. 18, 2016: 31-24 win over Dolphins – 0:09 in fourth on fourth-and-5
Jan. 14, 2017: 34-16 win over Texans – 3:17 in fourth on second-and-5
Sept. 24, 2017: 36-33 win over Texans – 0:03 in fourth on first-and-10
Nov. 26, 2017: 35-17 win over Dolphins – 1:54 in fourth on first-and-10
Dec. 17, 2017: 27-24 win over Steelers – 0:09 in fourth on third-and-7
Five of those fourth-quarter picks have transpired in games decided by a touchdown or less.
Furthermore, a total of six of them have transpired with under two minutes remaining, with three ticking down to fewer than 10 seconds.
It’s a little too lengthy a sample size to be a matter of right place, right time. It’s as much Harmon, who has started only three games yet logged 598 snaps this season, as it is anything. Even if Rowe’s hip-pocket coverage on Rogers set the wheels in motion on Sunday night.
“It looked like Rowe tipped it. It bounced up in the air,” Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said without the benefit of film review in his postgame press conference. “Duron is around the ball. He reads the quarterback and the ball well. So does Devin [McCourty]. Those guys give us a lot of range and plays back there from their position.”
Harmon has intercepted the Steelers three times since checking into the secondary as a third-round pick from Rutgers in 2013. The only opponent he’s gotten in the way of more frequently is the Miami Dolphins, whom the centerfielder has collected five interceptions against.
Harmon’s picked off both this campaign.
The 26-year-old has a career-best and team-leading four interceptions through this juncture, too.
And three of them have taken place in the fourth.Running the ball can be a lot like winning a boxing match. It's not about the knockout punch, rather it is about tiring your opponent out round, after round, after round, after round and eventually, 12 rounds in, knocking them on their ass. With running, it is not about how you run in the first quarter, it is about how the ball is moving with four minutes left to go in the game (ask the Atlanta Falcons about this). Since running the ball in a game of attrition a majority of the time, it is important to find running backs who deal out punishment for four quarters and force a defense to submit to them.
BYU's Jamaal Williams is the back who can deal out that punishment over a game. At 6-2, 220 pounds, Williams looks more like a linebacker than a running back and he lowers his pads like one, too.
Williams had a tumultuous start to his career at BYU. After a few promising seasons, Williams suffered a serious leg injury during the 2014 season that kept him out for almost two years. Despite losing so much time to recovery, however, Williams returned at full force, powering the BYU offense. He scored 12 touchdowns despite being the only big threat on the Cougar offense and facing defenses keying on him.
What stands out about Williams is his power and his motor. He will bring the same energy to the 30th carry in a game as he does to the first. His non stop, leg churning, playing style is exhausting for a defense because it becomes such a chore to try to tackle him.
His natural power and balance are so good that wimpy tackles barely phase him and running with a head full of steam makes him difficult to square up with. What is so rewarding about this running style is, after four quarters, the defense is exhausted and beaten down by the physicality of the run game. At that point, they just cave...
William's game against Michigan State is a microcosm of who he is as a player. He will give you 27 carries for four, hard earned yards, and when the defense cannot take it any more he'll break off a big run. His game is more than just natural power, however. He does a good job changing direction for a taller, bigger back and his vision is very impressive.
Williams does a very good job working through the first level by finding the hole and working through traffic. Sometimes backs with his type of ability will just depend on their natural strength and speed to clear the first level of a defense (See: Fournette, Leonard), but Williams' ability to keep himself clean for as long as possible helps him gain yardage at the end of the run. Instead of trying to run through a first level, Williams looking for daylight at the line is the difference between a five yard gain, maybe, and a 40 yard gain. These are just little things with Williams that make him so impressive.
But, if he needs to break tackles at the first level, he will.
It is hard not to love Williams due to his combination of size, strength, violent running style and non stop motor. His consistency makes him even more lovable. Williams does a lot of very impressive things, but what keeps him from being a top tier running back prospect is that he lacks a top gear. As a lot of the examples show, he finds himself in a lot of positions in the open field where many backs in this class would score. Meanwhile he is often caught from behind. Also, Williams does not have extensive experience catching the ball and his most productive season as a receiver was in 2012. Neither of these things will keep Jamaal Williams from a very productive back, but it is the difference between him being a good back and a great one.
NFL Comparison: Jamaal Williams is similar to one of my favorite backs in the league for a while, Chris Ivory. While neither are great breakaway athletes, their strength and violent running style make them very valuable in the right offenses. Neither are going to contribute a ton in the passing game, but can pass protect and, most importantly, make a big impact the other two downs.
Williams ability to move comfortably behind the line in junction with his vision make him scheme diverse. I would argue that getting him going downhill in a more power or gap oriented scheme would benefit him more, but he is the type of back who could produce in any time of situation. The Eagles may love his running style, but his lack of experience catching the ball could drop him in value for the team. In general, it is hard to see Williams falling into the late rounds. Even without top tier athletic ability and him having injury history, Williams is too consistent of a back that a team will not want to snatch him up before day two ends. Even in a stacked running back class, Williams does enough to establish himself among the ten best backs this draft.We’re still waiting for new details on Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite to be revealed in a couple of weeks at the Electronic Entertainment Expo…but someone over at NeoGAF may have just gotten a hold of what’s going to be announced.
A poster by the name of “BassForever” (a Mega Man fan, mayhaps?) has revealed a roster of characters that could very well be coming to the game. Some of the names, like Ryu and Captain America, are pretty apparent. But there are some other names on the list that may take a few fans by surprise. Let’s look at the list:
Capcom: Arthur (Ghosts n’ Goblins series)
Chris Redfield
Chun-Li
Dante (Devil May Cry)
Firebrand
Jedah (Darkstalkers)
Mega Man X
Monster Hunter
Morrigan
Nemesis
Ryu
Spencer (Bionic Commando)
Strider Hiryu Marvel:
Ant-Man
Captain America
Captain Marvel
Doctor Strange
Gamora
Hawkeye
Hulk
Iron Man
Nova
Rocket/Groot
Spider-Man
Thanos
Thor
Ultron
The poster also noted that a fighter is missing from the Capcom side, but it could very well be Frank West from Dead Rising. They also made note that Venom will return from the earlier Marvel vs. Capcom games, but as a downloadable content character. Now, of course, this is hardly an official reveal, as Capcom wouldn’t verify the new entries that were included on this list – it’s more than likely waiting for E3 to officially confirm. It’s also noted that this is the roster, but it doesn’t look like the final roster for the game, as more fighters will likely be added. Still, there are some names worth noting, like Ant-Man, Doctor Strange and Nova from the Marvel side, and Arthur, Dante (possibly the new one from DmC: Devil May Cry) and Spencer returning from Bionic Commando. That is quite an interesting mix, though there aren’t too many new names to go around.Iran, on the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, is full of defiance and suspicion of President Obama ’s motives in reaching out to Tehran. But it is equally full of longing. Most people are under 30. Like these soldiers, they thirst for contact with the outside world and, above all, an America that looms with all the power of myth.
The Great Satan is great also in his power to exert fascination. “Death to America” has become background noise, as interesting as piped elevator music.
The revolution freed Iranians from the brutality of the shah’s secret police, Savak, and delivered a home-grown society modeled on the tenets of Islam in place of one pliant to America’s whim. But like all revolutions, it has also disappointed. Freedom has ebbed and flowed since 1979. Of late, it has ebbed.
Beneath the hijab, that is to say beneath the surface of things, frustrations multiply. Women sometimes raise their hands to their necks to express a feeling of suffocation. Hard-pressed men, working 12-hour days to make enough to get by, are prone to hysterical laughter with its hint of desperation.
Competing pressures bear down on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and behind him the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They know that with unemployment at 14 percent (and rising), inflation at 26 percent, oil revenues expected to plunge by about two-thirds this year, and the country’s oil and gas infrastructure in desperate need of modernization, opening to the West and its technology makes sense.
They also know Iran is composed of two worlds: the surface and the subterranean. The former is placid; the latter is hungry for more of the freedom the revolution promised. This, too, speaks for an engagement that might over time end Iran’s bipolar state.
On the other hand, a revolutionary government that deprives itself of its great enemy is one that has lost the core of its galvanizing propaganda. Opening equals risk.
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This is the background to Ahmadinejad’s offer to “hold talks based on mutual respect” with a United States he continued to criticize. It came in response to Obama’s best statement on Iran to date — one devoid of threats and one that spoke of the dangers, but not the unacceptability, of a nuclear Iran.
Mutual respect, a phrase Obama also used, begins with that. As Iranians often note, carrots and sticks are for donkeys.
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The young soldiers pointed to how the United States backed Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war, another act of American perfidy. “Everyone was with Saddam,” Dehghani said. “Except Syria,” I suggested, which prompted a guffaw.
“The Arabs are chickens,” he said. “Just look at what Egypt did about Gaza. Those big-bellied Arabs, you take up a stick and they run away.”
Scratch the surface and there’s no love lost between Persians and Arabs, another reason to be careful in distinguishing Iranian rhetoric, which can seem monolithic, from Iran’s many-shaded reality.
Dehghani offered me a bowl of Ash, a soup of noodles, chickpeas and vegetables. “Why not try to do something about your own country rather than going around the world waging war?” he asked.
I told him I thought Obama was trying to do just that. Then Dehghani told me that his father wanted him to stay in the Revolutionary Guards because there’s money to be made — Ahmadinejad has channeled funds and jobs their way — but he was more interested in starting his own business.
That’s typical enough. Iranians are property-buying, car-mad, entrepreneurial consumers with a taste for the latest brands. Forget about nukes. Think Nikes.
A few days after this meeting, I found myself on the Tehran subway. A bunch of youths started smiling and pointing. “This guy’s an American!” they exclaimed. There was no menace, only curiosity.
A young woman in a black hijab was standing near me. Abruptly, she looked me straight in the eye and said in English: “Where are you from?”
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“New York.”
“Oh.” And she smiled.
America, think again about Iran.TEHRAN (Reuters) - Turkey has delivered a Western offer to Tehran to renew negotiations over its nuclear programme, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Thursday, expressing hope talks stalled a year ago could soon be revived.
Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi (R) speaks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before an official meeting with Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Tehran January 5, 2012. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl
As new sanctions from the United States and the European Union added pressure on the Iranian economy, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Tehran was also interested in returning to the negotiating table.
Speaking at a joint news conference with Salehi, Davutoglu said Salehi had “responded in kind” to “an expression of willingness by the West to resume negotiations” that he had brought.
“We are waiting for a good result coming out of the willingness of the two parties to go back to the negotiating table,” Davutoglu told the news conference, carried live on Iran’s Press TV with English translation.
“As far as negotiations over Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy programme, we hope that we will gain good results and the unfavorable conditions that have emerged, we hope that they will go away. On the international arena we hope that Iran will be able to have good ties.”
Salehi confirmed Iran was ready to return to talks with the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany (P5+1) at a time and place agreed by both sides.
He said the EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who heads the P5+1 delegation, had suggested to Turkey that it host the talks and that Ankara had agreed.
“Personally I think that Turkey is the best place for the talks to take place,” Salehi said.
STALEMATE
Istanbul was the venue of the last talks which ended in stalemate since when Iran has come under much tougher sanctions from the West which accuses it of seeking nuclear weapons capability. Tehran says its nuclear programme is peaceful and that it has a sovereign right to atomic technology.
Israel, which says a nuclear armed Iran would be a threat to its existence, has said it could launch pre-emptive strikes if diplomacy fails to stop Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Iran says it would close the Gulf to shipping if attacked, a potentially major blow to the world oil market.
Salehi insisted Iran would survive the latest sanctions, which could cut any bank around the world off from the U.S. financial system if it also does business with Iran and will also stop the EU buying Iranian crude.
“Iran, with divine assistance, has always been ready to counter such hostile actions and we are not concerned at all about the sanctions,” Salehi said.
“Just as we have weathered the storm in the last 32 years with the help of God and efforts that we make, we will be able to survive this as well.”
But in a further indication that Iran hoped to resume talks, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev spoke by phone on Thursday at Tehran’s initiative, the Kremlin said.
According to a statement on the Kremlin’s website, Medvedev expressed satisfaction with Ahmadinejad’s “positive evaluation” of Russia’s “step-by-step” proposal to dispel concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme.
Russia supported four rounds of U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran in the late 2000s but expressed sharp opposition to further U.N. sanctions and criticized tougher EU and U.S. measures.Report: Napoli €35m Higuain deal
By Football Italia staff
The Corriere dello Sport claims Napoli have agreed a €35m deal with Real Madrid for Gonzalo Higuain.
It is reported the clubs renewed negotiations after difficulties emerged in their attempts to sign Leandro Damiao from Internacional.
According to the Corriere dello Sport, the deal was struck for €35m, although Napoli must still work out personal terms with the player and the tricky issue of image rights.
The Argentine international has been on the market since declaring his desire to move on at the end of last season, as he wants more playing time.
So far advanced negotiations with Juventus and Arsenal have failed to finalise a transfer, so Napoli are diving back in.
They can invest the €64m earned by selling Edinson Cavani to PSG and Higuain would be an ideal replacement in the line-up.Why are ‘outees’ being left to fend for themselves in finding the next steps to individuality?
Catching your breath after a deep dive; that’s what coming out feels like.
Finally getting to a place where you are ready to show the world your sexuality is an absolutely amazing achievement. It is infinitely liberating, there is no taking away from that.
However, the obvious is overlooked: Coming out isn’t the end of the race, it’s the beginning of a marathon which will test your endurance, character and very definition as a person.
I’m lucky, my coming out to my parents was relatively stress free. And while I endured bullying and felt unsupported during my school days, I came to terms with my sexuality and grew happy having that part of myself open to the world.
As a newly out and proud gay man I submersed myself in gay culture and enjoyed its bounty of self expression.
But I wasn’t prepared for bathing in a pool of open sexuality with other out men, stewing in self-inflicted insecurity, stereotypes and expectations.
Not all gay men act the same way to each other or to the wider LGBTI community. But I found most of the stereotyping I faced was from other gay guys.
The chink in my armor, and the biggest toll on my mental health, is dwindling body confidence. They made me believe I had to have the fit other’s stereotype of a young gay man by having the perfect smooth, buff body.
My failure to live up to their ideal bled into my life, knocking my confidence.
By forcing myself to try to fit within this, by attempting to meet society’s expectations, I prevented myself from truly finding individuality and happiness.
It’s all too easy to adopt other’s attitudes about who you should be and how you should look when there isn’t much encouragement to take your own place in society.
Very quickly as these stereotyped expectations bled into my life and I was treading familiar waters of anxiety and low self-esteem with depleting energy once more.
I continue to manage my body image issues – alongside my panic disorder diagnosis – on a daily basis.
It’s only when I afford myself the opportunity to step back and realise that I’m going down this same path again that I change my direction and avoid pitfalls.
On the bright side, I still managed on my own to – if I do say so myself – become a well rounded an ultimately happy individual – I just want to make use of my hardships to advocate the discussion of topics, like mental health and coming out, in the hope of lessening the burden of those yet to take the leaps of faith I have so far in life.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and in writing this I hope to gift a message to a version of myself out there who’s full of questions: You are not defined by sexuality or its stereotypes.
At first coming out feels like discovering who you are. As time goes on, it becomes about owning that part of who you are. You are gay, but you have to find your own individuality with that and not get lost in the ‘ideals’ of your sexuality.
Coming out will later bring more questions. It’s a great step but not the end of the journey. There will be further insecurities to work |
craft, and substantially increased the production of motor torpedo boats. In addition, in the interwar years, the Regia Marina started cooperating with the Italian air force and created torpedo bombers squadrons.
Today, China likewise appears to be implementing a counter-intervention strategy, although it is far from clear how important this concept is in current Chinese military thought. (see: “This is Still the One Article to Read on Chinese Naval Strategy in 2015”). However, as I stated before, “Anyone studying the Chinese military knows that the PLA is seeing a conflict with the United States through an anti-access and area denial lens.”
Closely analyzing French and British Naval policy towards Italy in the 1930s, one also notices how little both navies factored in cultural and psychological aspects. For example, some naval historians, argue, that due to their experience in the 19th century, the Italians had developed a keen aversion to large sea battles, after a devastating defeat by the Austrian Navy in the Adriatic in 1866, which made any aggressive Italian action in the 1930s less likely.
Today, Western naval analysts also appear to underestimate cultural and psychological factors when analyzing the Chinese Navy. According to two professors, who recently wrote an excellent study on the subject (“Projecting Strategy: The Myth of Chinese Counter-Intervention”), this is due to the fact that, “history has shown—both in general and in previous U.S.–China cases specifically—that countries tend to evaluate their opponents through a ‘military lens’ that is heavily shaped by their own traditions and doctrines.”
Yet, it can also be caused by drawing the wrong lessons from past conflicts. “The outcome of the Spanish Civil War depended as much as controlling sea lines of communication and maintaining local sea control as it did on fighting and winning battles on land. Italy’s participation in the Spanish Civil War from 1936-1939 created false illusions of Italian naval strength. Actually, success resulted from the enemy’s weakness,” notes a globalsecurity.org article on the Italian Navy in the interwar period.
The result of the French overestimating Italian naval strengths throughout the 1930s lead to a naval arms race in the Mediterranean and substantially influenced the French government’s foreign and naval policies vis-à-vis Mussolini and Hitler. The British more accurately assessed the Italian Navy’s fighting strengths, yet their forces thinly spread out to protect global commerce and the far-reaching British Empire could not withstand the loss of even a single battleship. Consequently, the British admiralty used the “hype” surrounding Italian naval power as an excuse to focus their maritime ambitions elsewhere.
The British concern in the 1930s is very similar to the United States’ fear of losing a single aircraft carrier to Chinese missiles; the psychological impact would be just too shocking to contemplate, yet it appears that the United States opted for the French approach and is engaging in a naval buildup to confront the ostensible growing might of the PLAN (see: “The United States’ New Maritime Strategy: A Quick Look”).
However, while I recognize that it is part of any serious national security professional’s job description to occasionally pronounce Cassandra-like warnings about impending national security catastrophes (I argued before that such commentators usually suffer from the “Gathering Storm Syndrome”), caused by underestimating an enemy’s military capability, I strongly believe that the current hype surrounding the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) military build-up is somewhat unwarranted.
In a previous article, I also noted that the obsession of America naval analysts with the Chinese military reminded me of a quote from the 1985 movie St. Elmos Fire, where one of the protagonists muses about the Cold War: “I enjoy being afraid of Russia. It’s a harmless fear, but it makes America feel better, Russia gets an inflated sense of national worth from our paranoia.” However, the history of the Italian Navy in the interwar years illustrates that miscalculating military power is far from harmless for policymakers, especially in times of meager financial resources.
This article is based on a previous piece published in The Huffington Post.Progressives are notorious for their internal foreign policy disagreements—particularly over the use of force and the proper role of America in the world. But the debate over President Barack Obama’s decisions to intervene militarily in Libya and begin withdrawing from Afghanistan reveals that there is serious and profound disagreement among conservatives over which direction their coalition’s foreign policy should take heading into the 2012 presidential election.
Charges and countercharges are flying between conservatives. Supporters of the wars in Libya and Afghanistan are on the offensive against perceived isolationism creeping into the ranks of conservative presidential candidates and elected officials. Other pundits, like former Ronald Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, have defended the “new sobriety” of conservatives skeptical of the wars. Judging by the flurry of recent rhetoric, an out-and-out war over the contours of conservative foreign policy is brewing within the ranks of the conservative elite.
The main dividing line among conservatives today is between neoconservatives and conservative nationalists. These two groups share many of the same underlying assumptions—for example that the United States is inherently insecure in an anarchic international system in which survival depends fundamentally on military power. But they do not necessarily share the same ideas of what must be done about this problem.
Neoconservatives look at anarchy and see that it results from the lack of an overarching authority that can impose order on the international system. Since anarchy results in chronic insecurity for the United States, national security can only be assured by eliminating or tamping down international anarchy. Therefore the United States must take on the role of the overarching international authority and impose order on the international system in order to ensure America’s security. Neoconservatives often invoke values to justify military interventions since they believe that the spread of democracy equals the spread of American power and hence enhances American security.
By contrast, conservative nationalists do not have the same visions about international order that drive neoconservatives. To conservative nationalists, international anarchy and the profound insecurity it generates means that the United States must look out for itself first and foremost.
While conservative nationalists range from noninterventionist isolationists like Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan, to expansive hegemony pursuers like Dick Cheney, the average conservative nationalist believes in the need for robust military power to protect the country and its interests with as few international restrictions as possible. They have no interest in nation building, and they view military force as a means of ensuring security in an inherently hostile world.
The differences between neoconservatives and conservative nationalists were obscured during the Bush administration. Many of the conservative nationalists who served under President George W. Bush—particularly Vice President Dick Cheney—had an expansive view of American security that was hard to distinguish from the neoconservative pursuit of benevolent American hegemony. And 9/11 only served to amplify the existing sense of national insecurity felt by conservative nationalists. It made them more receptive to the wide-ranging nature of security held by Cheney and others in the administration.
More than anything else, the invasion of Iraq and subsequent nation-building project there served to unify these two strains of conservative foreign policy thinking. For neoconservatives, invading Iraq would be a vindication of their theories of hegemony, and a democracy aligned with the United States and Israel against Iran would enhance U.S. power and interests. Conservative nationalists, on the other hand, saw a potentially nuclear-armed Iraq that could give those weapons to terrorists as an intolerable threat—particularly after 9/11.
While they normally find nation-building projects anathema, conservative nationalists supported the post-invasion war out of the fear that terrorists would somehow follow the United States home if it left Iraq. As President Bush put it, “The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad.”
President Bush was able to unify these not altogether dissimilar two positions by virtue of being president and therefore being able to definitively set the conservative foreign policy agenda. As conservative foreign policy scholar Colin Dueck writes, “To a remarkable extent, when one party controls the White House, that party’s foreign policy is what the president says it is.”
While there is no indication President Bush ever really embraced the grand neoconservative theory of benign American hegemony, he did fuse neoconservative rhetoric on freedom and democracy with a broadly conservative nationalist foreign policy.
It should not come as a surprise, then, that conservative foreign policy thinking began to crack up without presidential leadership. Conservative nationalists became more wary of the broad implications of the neoconservative project, while neoconservatives and their conservative nationalist fellow travelers warned of the dangers of retreating from a maximalist conservative nationalist or neoconservative concept of America’s world role.
This conservative crack up has come to a head as President Obama made the twin decisions to intervene in Libya and begin withdrawing from Afghanistan. The decision of 87 House Republicans—including presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (R-MN)—to oppose the war in Libya has caused paroxysms among neoconservatives and maximalist conservative nationalists. The Wall Street Journal editorial board labeled those who voted for a resolution cutting off funds for military operations in Libya “Kucinich Republicans,” while Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) blasted conservative opponents of the Libya war as “isolationist.”
Similarly, expressing doubts over the military mission in Afghanistan has earned the ire of the conservative foreign policy elite. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s highly qualified statement in a recent Republican presidential debate supporting an eventual turnover of security responsibility to Afghan forces led former Bush speechwriter and Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen to pen a column decrying “the GOP flirtation with retreat in Afghanistan.”
But the intraconservative charge of isolationism stings. Washington Times columnist Tony Blankely defended Romney and other pessimists on Afghanistan against charges of isolationism. Washington Post columnist George Will went on the offensive, charging McCain—and by implication the broader neoconservative and maximalist conservative nationalist foreign policy elite—with advocating endless war.
The internal divisions between conservatives on foreign policy have come into full bloom over the past few months. Conservative foreign policy elites are aggressively policing wayward behavior and statements from conservative elected officials and candidates that do not comport with either the neoconservative or maximalist conservative nationalist line. Given the aggressiveness of the conservative foreign policy establishment in this policing it is likely that conservatives are heading into an even bigger fight over the nature and scope of their ideological coalition’s foreign policy as the campaign season heats up.
Peter Juul is a Policy Analyst at American Progress."It's soaring and sounds kind of perfect"
Pond have opened up on working with Tame Impala and their love of Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade’.
Speaking to NME backstage at End of the Road Festival, frontman Nick Allbrook hailed Beyonce’s vocal delivery as “immaculate” when asked to name his favourite pop album from the last year.
“I thought Lemonade was incredible”, he told NME.
“The enormity, the scope and the vision. The production, the lyrics, the delivery, her vocal delivery is immaculate every time. And like the best vocalists, it’s soaring and sounds kind of perfect but deeply emotional.”
Allbrook, who was formerly a touring member in Tame Impala, also opened up on touring with the Kevin Park fronted psych band.
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“There’s no work process apart from practicing for live shows in Tame Impala. You just don’t do anything until it’s time to rehearse to play live and maybe listen to some of Kev’s demos, inevitably say wow”, he said.
“I’ve learnt heaps personally, but I’d never tell him that. I’ve learnt chords!”
Earlier this year, Pond also opened up to NME about how they enlisted the services of Kevin Parker once more to mix new album ‘The Weather’, which was released in May.
“There’s just no point in thinking about anything else. He’s like our best buddy – it’s not often you get the opportunity that your like best, best friend and bandmate is actually one of the most significant mixing and sound people in the world”, Allbrook said.Portland, Oregon and Mount Hood. Oregon is the 2nd worst state to make a living, according to The Cheat Sheet. (Photo: Thinkstock)
We all want to make a good living, but the rat race doesn't provide the same course obstacles in every state. America's status quo now includes a painfully obvious split economy. Some citizens are experiencing a rebound in prosperity, while others are dumbfounded by the use of "recovery" in headlines. Either way, location plays a major part in your personal finances.
The United States is a collection of mini-economies. MoneyRates.com recently analyzed every state to find where workers have the best or worst shot to make a good living, based on employment statistics and living expenses. The financial site evaluated the five key factors listed below.
Average wages: Average annual wage data is from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
State tax rates: MoneyRates analyzed the state tax information collected by the research group Tax Foundation.
Cost of living: Data was sourced from the Council for Community and Economic Research's Cost of Living Index.
The unemployment rate: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Incidents of workplace illness, injuries, and fatalities: This workplace safety data is from the BLS, which sourced data from employer reports to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses.
After finishing second on the list last year, Texas ranks as the best state in 2015 to make a living. The Lone Star State swapped places with runner-up Washington, while Wyoming finished third. All three top states do not have a state income tax, and offer attractive employment opportunities in addition to favorable cost of living environments. Virginia, Illinois, Michigan, Colorado, Delaware, Ohio, and Utah round out the best 10.
Let's take a closer look at the 10 worst states in America to make a living in 2015.
MORE: The 10 Worst States to Have No Credit
10. Connecticut
Connecticut ranks as the No. 10 worst state in America to make a living in 2015, despite improving by five spots this year. The average income sounds impressive at $55,060, but Connecticut has a high cost of living and high unemployment. In fact, Hawaii California, Alaska, and New York are the only states with a higher cost of living. Workplace safety is also a concern. The estimated state tax on average income is $2,578.30.
9. Rhode Island
Residents looking to flee Connecticut may want to think twice before considering its neighbor, Rhode Island. The Ocean State ranks as the No. 9 worst state to make a living. That's an improvement from No. 4 last year, but the state still has high unemployment and the average income of $49,570 is not enough to make up for the high cost of living. On the positive, workplace safety is in line with the rest of the nation, and the estimated state tax on average income totals $1,858.88, significantly lower than other states like New York, Massachusetts, Maine, and Connecticut.
8. South Dakota
South Dakota has several positive factors, but still ranks as the No. 8 worst state to make a living. It has no state income tax, low unemployment, and relatively safe work environments. However, low unemployment does not appear to be translating into higher wages. The average income is only $37,300, the second lowest in the nation (Mississippi is the worst at $36,750). Furthermore, the cost of living index comes in at 101.3, the best on this list, but fairly average compared to the rest of the U.S.
7. Montana
Montana suffers much of the same economic pitfalls as South Dakota, and ranks as the No. 7 worst state to make a living. Montana enjoys low unemployment and an average cost of living index, but the average income is $39,880. Unlike South Dakota, Montana also has a state income tax, costing an estimated average of $2,208.72. Making matters worse, Montana's workplace safety ranks as one of the worst in the nation.
MORE: 3 Ways to Declare Your Financial Independence This July 4th
6. California
There's a steep price to pay for sunshine and ocean waves all year long. California has one of the biggest economies in the world, but managed to rank as the No. 6 worst state to make a living. The average income of $53,890 does not go far with a cost of living index of 138.2, the second highest in the nation. Furthermore, unemployment is high and workplace safety is poor. The estimated state tax on average income is $2,523, respectable when compared to other high-cost states.
5. Vermont
The Green Mountain State may not actually be a good location for you to earn some green. Vermont ranks as the No. 5 worst state to make a living. It has a low unemployment rate and a reasonable estimated state tax on average income of $1,829.47, but that's not enough to compensate for a high cost of living and an average income of $44,540. Vermont is also tied with Maine for the highest frequency of workplace safety incidents.
4. West Virginia
West Virginia ranks as the No. 4 worst state to make a living. The state suffers from one of the worst unemployment rates in the nation. When residents do find a job, disappointment may accompany their paychecks. The average income is only $37,880, while the cost of living is slightly more than average. On the positive, the estimated state tax on average income comes to $1,479.60, the second lowest on the list.
3. Maine
Maine ranks as the No. 3 worst state to make a living. The biggest negative factor impacting workers is the high amount of workplace safety incidents. Maine is tied for the highest frequency of workplace illness, injuries, and fatalities (5.3 workplace incidents per 100 workers). The cost of living is also above average, while the average income is $42,140. The estimated state tax on average income is $2,709.16.
2. Oregon
Oregon ranks as the No. 2 worst state to make a living, plummeting 11 spots from the prior year. The state's cost of living index is nearly 30% above the national average at 128.5. The average income is $46,850. In addition to high unemployment, Oregon has one of the highest rates of workplace safety incidents in the nation (4.2 workplace incidents per 100 workers). In March 2015, Oregon noted that there was a slight rise in worker fatalities in 2014 from the previous year. The estimated state tax on average income is $3,981.50.
MORE: Top 10 States Where Americans Are Broke
1. Hawaii
Paradise is not cheap. Hawaii ranks as the No. 1 worst state to make a living in 2015. The state's cost of living index is a whopping 170.8, driven by housing costs. The estimated state tax on average income totals $3,073.77. An average income of $46,230 is in line with the rest of the nation, but when you adjust for taxes and the cost of living, workers in Hawaii get the equivalent value of just $0.55 for every $1.00 they make.
The Cheat Sheet is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1M41obd"Morning Joe" childishness: The show's inane demand that President Obama treat Americans like children Obama's response to the terrorist attack in Brussels was measured and serious. Of course, "Morning Joe" hated it
Earlier this week, a series of coordinated terror bombings in Brussels, which ISIS claims it planned, left 34 human beings (including three perpetrators) dead. The terrorists bombed the city’s airport and one of its metro stations. Taken altogether, the real target of the attack was clear. It was the European project itself; and the modern cosmopolitanism that, to many, it represents.
At the risk of stating the obvious: These are serious issues. And they deserve a serious response. President Barack Obama, who was on a diplomatic trip in Cuba and elsewhere in South America, provided that serious response. And this made some of the media’s self-designated stewards of American empire very, very mad.
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To be fair, their anger stemmed from a profoundly different assessment of Obama’s behavior than the one I just gave you. Their criticism had little to do with Obama’s official statement, which promised to “stand in solidarity” with Brussels; it was the other things that Obama did — and that he didn’t do — that had them so upset.
What were his transgressions? He didn’t respond to the attack by dropping his plans and zooming in Air Force One to Europe or Washington. He stuck to his plans — which included attending a symbolically important baseball match in Cuba, as well as a state dinner in Argentina, which featured dancing — instead.
And for more than a few people (not all of whom were Republicans, mind you) this was simply unacceptable.
“That was a tremendous mistake,” Richard Haass, the ultra-establishment-y president of the ultra-establishment-y Council on Foreign Relations, explained to the bright lights of “Morning Joe.” Going to Argentina was “fine,” he noted, “but you’ve got to be careful of these little photo ops and optics.” (“Optics” being the sine qua non of politics on “Morning Joe.”)
“Baseball games and tangos,” Haass tut-tutted. “That’s inconsistent with the seriousness of the day.” Nicolle Wallace, a former GOP campaign heavyweight and torture apologist, went a few steps further. It wasn’t just a mistake, she said; it was a “communications crime.” Good thing the ICC isn’t prosecuting over “optics” yet!
You can’t really expect this from “Morning Joe,” little-watched fount of conventional wisdom that it is, but President Obama did actually explain why he didn’t drop everything in order to focus on the “optics.” And he did it at the baseball game, no less! (“Morning Joe,” of course, didn’t like that.) His decision, he said, was conscious and political. It was an attempt to signal that the world doesn’t stop at ISIS’ command.
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Here he is, in his own words, via ABC:
President Obama explained his decision to attend a Major League Baseball exhibition game in Cuba today between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban National Team, following this morning's terrorist attacks in Belgium. "The whole premise of terrorism is to try to disrupt people's ordinary lives," President Obama said in an interview with ESPN during the game, noting that "it's always a challenge when you have a terrorist attack anywhere in the world." The president added that one of his "proudest moments as president" was when Boston united in the wake of the attack on the city's marathon, complimenting Red Sox David Ortiz's in particular for declaring that Boston would not be intimidated. "When Ortiz went out and said probably the only time that America didn't have a problem with somebody, a person on live TV, was when he talked about Boston, how strong it was and that it was not going to be intimidated," Obama said.
The president’s actions, in the end, were not especially complicated.
Rather than worry about his own “optics” and pander to Americans’ understandable (but not especially hard-headed) fears concerning terrorism, Obama decided to treat them like adults. He decided to behave as if regular people understand that the irrational panic these outrages inspire is the reason groups like ISIS use terrorism in the first place.
And, boy, do media types like “Morning Joe” hate it when he does that. They prefer to treat Americans like excitable children. I doubt that they do so with such consciously Machiavellian intentions; but the fact that watching television all day is behavior usually associated with children is relevant, I’d suspect.Labour’s governing body has unanimously backed measures to make it easier to punish anti-Semitism in the party.
In a move personally backed by leader Jeremy Corbyn and the Momentum activist group, the national executive committee adopted proposals from the Jewish Labour Movement which make racism and specifically anti-Semitism a specific disciplinary offence for the first time.
But the addition to party rules must still be debated by delegates at the party’s annual conference next week ahead of a crunch vote which senior Labour figures hope will start to repair relations with British Jews after a string of controversies engulfed the party over the last 18 months.
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“We are heartened that the NEC has adopted our rule change proposals and will be taking them forward to Party Conference [in Brighton] next week,” said JLM chair Jeremy Newmark. “This is another step forward, however our campaign will not end until these proposals are adopted in full by Conference itself – this is not a given and will require the firm support of the leadership.”
If passed, JLM – which first brought forward proposals for a rule change exactly a year ago – said the constitutional amendments “will simply bring the Labour’s rules to the place that should have been expected from a political party rooted in values of equality and anti-racism”.
It added: “The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. That means that if passed at Conference the new rules will need to be firmly implemented to create a zero-tolerance environment for antisemitism and other forms of discrimination. The Party will then need to take steps to rebuild its relationship with the Jewish community.”
Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, who was accused of failing to get to the heart of left-wing anti-Semitism in her report on the issue, played a key role in ensuring the proposals received backing across all factions of the NEC. Following the meeting, Corbyn thanked the peer and JLM for their work in drafting the motion, adding: “Jeremy is delighted that the NEC backed plans to tackle discrimination in the party. As a party of equality, there can be no place in Labour for prejudice.”
The move, whose specific wording was still hotly debated until the meeting itself, would finally brings racism in line with expressing support for another political party as a specific disciplinary category. It says conduct involving “racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia or otherwise racist language, sentiments, stereotypes or actions, sexual harassment, bullying or any form of intimidation towards another person on the basis of a protected characteristic” should be considered prejudicial to the party. JLM fought off an attempt to make genuine and sincerely held views a mitigating circumstance.
Senior Reform Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner said Corbyn’s support for the rule-change was “a great move forward,” after a year in which he was criticised for not doing enough to tackle anti-Semitism on the left of the party.
The development comes after relations between Labour and the community reached an all-time low following the suspension of several elected officials and members. The scandal first erupted with the resignation of the former head of the Oxford Union Labour Club, who claimed a high proportion of the OULC have some “kind of problem with Jews”.
The party leadership have stressed their zero tolerance approach to anti-Semitism but MPs and Jewish leaders have repeatedly accused the party has at times failed to turn rhetoric into action. Last year Corbyn criticised the radio comments of his ideological ally Ken Livingstone, who said Adolf Hitler supported Zionism “before he went mad.” The former mayor was suspended but a disciplinary panel failed to expel him despite finding against him.
Elsewhere in the meeting, the NEC’s 35 voting members agreed to lower the bar for entry to Labour leadership elections, giving a boost to the party’s left-wing, one week before the party conference in Brighton. The NEC also voted to increase its membership from 35 to 39, allocating four more seats to unions and local party representatives – another coup for Corbyn, whose allies now hold the balance of power in Labour.THERESA MAY knew from the moment she became prime minister last month that Brexit would be her biggest test. Nobody has ever before tried to disentangle a large and sophisticated economy like Britain’s from as intricate and regulated a body as the European Union, after it has been a member for 43 years. Before the June referendum, David Cameron’s government noted that Brexit would be the start, not the end, of a process and warned that it could last up to a decade.
The administrative challenge alone is vast. Mrs May has passed much of it to pro-Brexit ministers known, inevitably, as the three Brexiteers: David Davis, Liam Fox and Boris Johnson. Just setting up a new Department for Exiting the EU under Mr Davis is taking time. The department is now 150-strong, but it will have to expand to more like 400 (including officials in Brussels). Mr Fox’s Department for International Trade needs 1,000 staff, including hundreds of trade negotiators. Relations between the two, and with Mr Johnson’s Foreign Office, can be strained. Already Mr Fox and Mr Johnson have clashed over who runs economic diplomacy. Mr Fox and Mr Davis are hardly best friends.
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Given all this, it is not surprising that there should be speculation about when to trigger the Brexit process under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. Brexiteers have always disliked Article 50: it sets a two-year deadline that can be extended only unanimously, and its voting rules exclude the exiting country. Moreover, it is meant to cover mainly administrative issues such as sorting out pensions, relocating EU agencies based in Britain and safeguarding multi-year projects (the Treasury has promised recipients of EU money that it will guarantee their funds, including paying farm subsidies until 2020).
But Article 50 also promises to take account of future relations with the EU. That means, above all, trade arrangements. Yet experienced negotiators say trade deals take far more than two years to negotiate: the Canada-EU agreement has taken seven and has still not been ratified. Brexit will require many such deals, including one with the EU and others with some 58 third countries such as South Korea that have free-trade deals with the EU. Mr Fox has talked grandly of “scoping out” free-trade agreements that Britain might make with America and Australia. But these cannot be pursued seriously until there is more clarity over Britain’s trade relations with the EU.
Some Brexiteers say the simplest course would be to revert to the rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), of which Britain is a member. But this would imply tariffs on some goods, and would not cover most services, including financial services. Nor is falling back on the WTO as easy as it sounds. Britain’s membership is linked to the EU: to rejoin independently, it must agree on a new tariff schedule, which would be hard in areas with shared import quotas, like agriculture. The WTO’s director-general, Roberto Azevedo, likens this to accession—and it needs unanimous approval, including from countries that are not always friends of Britain.
Could the Brexit process be delayed to allow several years of trade talks? Mrs May has said only that she will not trigger Article 50 this year. But letting the start date drift far into next year or even into 2018 could be testing. Tory Brexiteers (and voters) know that Mrs May was a Remainer, so they will pounce on any hints of backsliding. It may be tempting to wait for elections in other EU countries, notably the French presidential election next spring. But putting off Article 50 further might mean its two-year expiry clashes with the European elections and a new EU budget round, both due in 2019. And delays could irritate Britain’s EU partners, who might refuse to negotiate seriously until the government shows that it really means to leave.
One alternative proposed by some in London is to seek prior political agreement to extend the Article 50 process beyond two years. But since the treaty requires unanimous approval at the end of the two years, it may not be possible to secure a guarantee that binds future EU leaders.
Another possibility is an interim arrangement to take effect during the hiatus after Article 50 expires, but before the final shape of future trade deals is clear. This would probably be an off-the-shelf model, such as temporary membership of the European Economic Area that includes Norway. This would preserve full access to the EU’s single market. But it would have two drawbacks. One is that, in trade, the temporary often becomes near-permanent. The other is that, against Brexiteers’ fervent wishes, it would imply continuing to accept free migration from the EU, make payments into the EU budget and abide by all single-market rules.
Life is clearly possible outside the EU. But the process of getting there is full of pitfalls and problems. It is no wonder that Mrs May, contemplating the future from her walking holiday in Switzerland, has said little more than that “Brexit means Brexit”. And it is no wonder that she has dumped the responsibility for delivering it into the laps of the three Brexiteers.San Diego elementary school cafeterias will go meatless on Mondays in an effort to promote better nutrition among students in California’s second-largest district.
The San Diego Unified School District is the latest agency to join the national “Meatless Mondays” movement that promotes vegetarian meals at the start of every week. The goal is to reduce world’s carbon footprint, cut the risk of some disease and scale back the obesity epidemic among American youth.
The San Diego school board voted 4-1 with Scott Barnett opposed, saying the district should not move forward without proper analysis of the proposal.
Skeptics, including the meat industry, say San Diego Unified should pass up this trend since students already have daily vegetarian choices — including salad bars stocked with locally grown produce, vegetarian chili and tofu entrees — in addition to daily chicken and beef dishes. Some expressed concern that poor students who rely on subsidized meals (65 percent qualify for subsidized lunch based on family income) for the bulk of their daily nutrition need the protein that comes with eating meat.
But the overwhelming support from the medical community, parents, students nonprofits and others convinced the board to make the menu changes. About 28 percent of San Diego County youth are overweight or obese, according to public health data.
Lawrence Hansen, a professor at the UC San Diego medical school, urged the board to steer children toward healthy diets that are free of animal products.
“I have five reasons why the district should adopt Meatless Mondays: heart disease, cancer, strokes, diabetes and obesity,” said Hansen, who is a vegetarian for ethical reasons. “I think there is some karma involved. The less cruelty we impose on animals, the healthier we are.”
A large crowd attended the meeting, but no one speaker addressing the board spoke in opposition.
Authored by board President John Lee Evans and Vice President Kevin Beiser, the proposal applies to elementary and K-8 schools but not middle and high schools. They would continue to serve their regular entrees, including three daily vegetarian options.
Elementary school students who pack their own lunches are free to eat meat on Mondays.
The menu adjustment is the brainchild of a nonprofit initiative in association with Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health. The campaign is designed to encourage people to cut meat consumption by 15 percent to reduce greenhouse emissions and improve public health.
UC San Diego and the University of San Diego have adopted Meatless Mondays. So did the Los Angeles Unified School District.
By eliminating meat from the Monday menus, Beiser said more children will be forced to try vegetarian food. Beiser has been inspired by some vegetarian students who have been spreading the word about meatless eating to their classmates.
Joel Vettel, a fifth-grader at Jerabek Elementary School in Scripps Ranch and lifelong vegetarian, was honored Tuesday with a framed copy of the district resolution. Since the policy was approved on Joel’s eight birthday, the board also gave him a birthday card with a $25 gift certificate to a local vegetarian restaurant.
“This will helps kids eat more healthy,” Joel said. “Eating healthy also gives you more energy. I have a lot of energy.”
The meatless policy will not cost or save the district money, officials said.The outgoing headmaster of Eton College has described teacher training as “a mess” and said it should be easier for unqualified teachers to get into the classroom.
Tony Little, who is preparing to leave the boarding school this summer, called for a national system that would open up teaching to people “without professional qualifications but with good subject knowledge”.
Those who wanted to become “career teachers” would have to work towards a “charter mark” that would have to be refreshed, he said, adding that his own school recruited unqualified teachers because it could “train them better” than others would.
"In the future I would like a new national framework which would open up teaching initially to people without professional qualifications but with good subject knowledge," he said.
In an interview that will be published next month in Insight, the magazine of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, Mr Little also called for it to become compulsory for teachers to carry out research.
“We need to make the leap from a pretty hit-and-miss affair, to a structure of professional competency in which research is obligatory and becomes a state of mind, allowing teachers to develop their own practice on the basis of evidence," he said.
Mr Little added that successive governments had “spent a lot of money on structures and systems” but that money would have been “better spent on teacher training”.
“It doesn’t really matter what type of schools we have if we do not have really good teachers,” he said.
In the interview Mr Little also expressed frustration with the exam system, which he said had created a “silo mentality” at his school and at others.
“Each subject is very well taught in itself, but I am exasperated by an exam system that makes it difficult for teachers to make links and pupils to see things in different ways,” he said.
“The exam system is like an egg timer. There is a wealth of experience and learning at the top, then it is all squeezed through the narrow bottleneck of exams and pushed out of the other side."
He added that he was “not against exams or rigour” but wanted to see changes to “the way exams are designed”.
Eton College has set up a Centre for Innovation and Research in Learning that aims to “promote a wide range of ways to think about how we learn,” Mr Little said.
Mr Little said changes to the way in which young people accessed knowledge using technology meant that schools risked appearing “irrelevant” to teenagers. Schools needed “a new way of teaching young people the precision of thought needed to interact with new robotics and artificial intelligence,” he added.
He said he felt ready to leave the school, which he has led since 2002, but that he would miss “listening to wonderful music in chapel” and being part of the school’s “strong sense of community”.A Christian Science practitioner is an individual who prays for others according to the teachings of Christian Science.[1] Treatment is non-medical, rather it is based on the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1875) by Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), who said she discovered Christian Science in 1866 and founded the Christian Science church in 1879. According to the church, Christian Science practitioners address physical conditions, as well as relationship or financial difficulties[2] and any other problem or |
also sheds about 11 pounds, thanks to additional refinement to its carbon-fiber construction.
Out back, there's a honkin' new wing with a dual-plane design. It sports a 20-millimeter Gurney flap on the trailing edge of the wing, and two additional (but smaller) Gurney flaps on the wing's endplates. Gurney flaps are small tabs that improve wing efficiency and therefore downforce. In fact, the Vulcan AMR Pro has approximately 30 percent more downforce than Aston Martin's Le Mans-winning Vantage GTE.
Aston Martin is already in the process of installing the kit on the first round of customer cars, and it hopes to have them finished up this fall. Only Aston Martin's Q division will install the parts -- you can't have them shipped to your local shade tree mechanic.
And that's about it. It's not like the 800-ish-horsepower V12 needed any more power, so that remains unchanged. Aston Martin didn't say how much the AMR Pro upgrade kit costs, but if you could afford the $2.3 million car itself, I imagine you can spring for some canards and Gurney flaps.
Now playing: Watch this: Aston Martin Vulcan: Exclusive first look at this 800+...WARNING: This story contains disturbing content. Discretion is strongly advised.
A sentencing hearing has been temporarily cut short for two brothers convicted of kidnapping and repeatedly raping a 17-year-old girl.
The judge granted a request by the defence lawyers to adjourn Tuesday’s hearing. A new date will be announced Aug. 3 for the continuation of the sentencing hearing.
The lawyers want more time to explore mental health issues relating to the Manyshots brothers; the Crown has finished its submissions.
Corey and Cody Manyshots pleaded guilty to kidnapping, uttering threats, sexual assault, and robbery. A charge of sexual assault causing bodily harm was withdrawn.
READ MORE: Manyshots brothers admit to kidnap and repeated rape of Calgary teen
The young victim was in the courtroom and asked to have her victim impact statement read by the prosecutor on her behalf at the start of the hearing.
However, provincial court judge Terry Semenuk ruled if the victim doesn’t read the statement herself, he will not allow it to be read at all. (The law allows victim impact statements to be read by someone else, including the prosecution, but it is at the judge’s discretion).
The brothers sat emotionless in the prisoners’ box. Cody Manyshots waved to his family when he entered the room.
The Crown is asking for a 12-year sentence for each of the brothers, minus credit for time served.
In submissions, the Crown said generally the guilty pleas would be mitigating factors in sentencing. However, Zailin Lakhoo added the brothers have shown a lack of acceptance and responsibility.
“They don’t acknowledge the gravity of what they’ve done,” she said.
Cody’s defence lawyer is asking for six years minus (enhanced) credit-leaving approximately four years left to serve. Corey is asking for time served (at enhanced 1.5 credit) plus two years.
The prosecution told court the victim has said she “will never be the same again.” The judge acknowledged obvious emotional, physical and psychological damage.
Watch below: Global’s past coverage of the Manyshots brothers’ case
In November 2014, the teenage girl was taken from a northeast bus stop and dragged to a nearby alley where she was sexually assaulted. She was then taken to a Martindale home where she was again repeatedly raped by both brothers. Corey forced her to perform oral sex.
Manyshots’ father sat in the living room with another man as they brought the young girl into the house. She tried to look to the father for help, but no one intervened.
READ MORE: No charges to be laid against father of brothers who pleaded guilty to rape of Calgary teen
Between the assaults, Corey cooked. His girlfriend and child were also in the home and saw the young girl. The victim also watched them take drugs that she believed to be crack.
The Grade 12 student was held for eight hours before she was able to escape. She waited until they were asleep, then snuck out the back door.
Once outside, she wrote on her hand the address, the name “Cody” and several words including “native” and “black and red shovel.” With her cellphone gone, she caught a bus, CTrain and another bus until finally she could run home.
Her mother took her to a nearby police department where she described the brutal attack. She was able to give directions for investigators, who drove her to the area where she was kidnapped and found the home in which she was held captive.
The teen broke down as she picked both Corey and Cody out of separate photo lineups. On Corey’s photo she wrote “this is the man.” On his brother’s photo, she wrote “Cody.”
READ MORE: Bail denied for Manyshots brothers accused of kidnapping and sexual assault
In considering the sentence, the Crown is pointing to a long list of aggravating factors including the premeditation, the robbery, the choking, the fear of death and the violence used.Hermeneutics and Ludocriticism
by Veli-Matti Karhulahti
Abstract
This article introduces the concept of ludocriticism as a practice for evaluating videogame artifacts. The primary method of this practice is hermeneutics. If the reader chooses to enter the main article, she or he will find out how the concept of hermeneutics has been previously used in game and videogame research, and how it can also be used to explain and perhaps even cultivate the evaluation of videogame artifacts. If the reader has the endurance to reach the last section, she or he will discover one of the key outcomes of the discussion; the notion of hermeneutic play, which refers to a mode of playing videogames for the sake of understanding their ludo-generic identities.
Introduction
One of the most distinctive characteristics of the videogame as an aesthetic artifact is the manual, which safeguards its use: While the operability of the product remains an enigma, its understanding is ultimately secured. For paintings, films, and novels the situation is quite the opposite: While they operate ipso facto, their understanding poses a challenge. The difference becomes most visible in journalistic criticism. Whereas the journalistic criticism of most aesthetic products is governed by guiding interpretation (what they "mean"), the journalistic criticism of videogame products is governed by judging evaluation (are they "good"). This evaluative criticism of videogame products shall henceforth be referred to as ludocriticism: a practice that is not so much concerned of understanding the product, but rather of whether the product is worth understanding.
For the academic who normally holds reverse interests, the concept of "worth" provides a lucrative view to the videogame’s unseen mechanisms. A comprehension of how videogames become worth the player’s time, money, and effort is an analytical donation to ludo-ontology, -phenomenology, and -aesthetics, to name but a few major schemes. A frequent (but not too frequent) emergence of attempts to explain and advance ludocritical values is hence not surprising (e.g. Mitchell & Clarke, 2003; Bogost, 2006; Lundgren, Bergström, & Björk, 2009). Instead of continuing the study of these values, the present article chooses to focus on the scarcity of ludocritical methods, nonetheless.
With reference to Espen Aarseth’s (2003a) founding methodological review, the premise is that ludocriticism rests upon two fundamental dominators: empirical play and critical analysis. The idea is to take hermeneutics as a method for explaining and guiding this doubly active practice. Hermeneutics is thus not applied here solely as a pragmatical (Aarseth, 2003a), phenomenological (Sicart, 2009), or meaning-making (Arjoranta, 2011) instrument but as an analytical meta-ludic method for describing and fostering the ludocritical process.
The first section revisits the concept of hermeneutics in game and videogame research. The second section accommodates hermeneutics to ludocriticism. The third section provides ludocritical case studies of three videogames: Trine (Frozenbyte, 2009), Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (Kojima Production, 2008), and Deadline (Infocom, 1982).
Hermeneutics and Game Studies
The roots of modern hermeneutics are often traced to Friedrich Schleiermacher (1838/1998), who already noted the multidimensionality of the term that had thus far been nothing but a loose referent for activities related to communication:
Hermeneutics as the art of understanding does not yet exist in a general manner, there are instead only several forms of specific hermeneutics … a) the art of presenting one's thoughts correctly, b) the art of communicating someone else's utterance to a third person, c) the art of understanding another person's utterance correctly. The scientific concept refers to the third of these as the mediator between the first and the second. (p. 5)
Schleiermacher’s last, "scientifically" branded concept of actively processing information with the aim to understand an underlying "meaning" is what has today been historicized as classical hermeneutics. It is an archeology of truth; a search for the "correct" interpretation of texts, spoken words, and artworks that in its highest form culminates into "an understanding of the utterer better than he understands himself" (266). Because such understanding does not emerge as an instant but by gradual interpretive recursion, the process is essentially circular: Details of the object are interpreted in terms of the whole, and the whole object is interpreted in terms of its details.
During the 20th century thinkers like Martin Heidegger (1962) and Hans-Georg Gadamer (1989) liberated the hermeneutic method from classical object-oriented interpretation and began to apply it to their universal philosophical theories. These applications, not least phenomenological and ontological, lead to the birth of philosophical hermeneutics which
takes as its task the opening up of the hermeneutical dimension in its full scope, showing its fundamental significance for our entire understanding of the world and thus for all the various forms in which this understanding manifests itself: from interhuman communication to manipulation of society; from personal experience by the individual in society to the way in which he encounters society, and from the tradition as it is built of religion and law, art and philosophy, to the revolutionary consciousness that unhinges the tradition through emancipatory reflection. (Gadamer, 1976, p. 18)
In the context of videogame research, then, one can roughly distinguish between two hermeneutics: The classical hermeneutic analysis of the videogame as a textual artifact, and the philosophical hermeneutic analysis of videogaming as a phenomenological process. While the above distinction is not utterly unproblematic, it provides some basic tools for dealing with ludo-hermeneutic perplexities.
Two Hermeneutics
In The Video Game Theory Reader 2 Dominic Arsenault and Bernard Perron (2009) attach hermeneutics to that part of gameplay in which the player interprets "the ramifications and meanings of the plot" (p. 128). Taking Marvel Ultimate Alliance (Raven Software, 2006) as an example, they recognized the "classic metaphor of the foreign, evil dictator wishing to rule the world" (p. 123). On the later pages of the same book, Frans Mäyrä (2009) talks about hermeneutics as the line of thinking that enabled one to understand that "games are inherently and principally events and processes," that is to say, "a game is inseparable from its playing" (p. 317). Here the difference between classical and philosophical application is palpable: whereas Arsenault and Perron talk about understanding the videogame as a textual artifact, Mäyrä talks about understanding videogaming as a phenomenological process.
Perhaps the first videogame critic to make a clear hermeneutically termed cut between textual interpretation and the phenomenology of videogaming is Steven Poole (2000), who observed how in films the viewer is required to
reconstruct stories that have been fragmented through cuts and flashbacks, or to deduce the thought processes of a character by reading an actor’s face. This process is hermeneutic: it is about interpretation. But the imagination that videogames require of the player is a different process: it is pragmatic. (p. 319–320)
Let it be stressed that Poole does not claim that his "hermeneutic" and "pragmatic" modes are mutually exclusive: In videogame play both are in use. A similar conclusion can be read form Julian Kücklich’s (2002) distinction between "hermeneutic" and "aesthetic" interaction:
From the perspective of the player, his or her actions make sense as a direct response to the fictional world of the game. This is what I call the mode of aesthetic interaction. From the perspective of the observer, the player’s individual interactions with the game are only meaningful as a textual strategy, alternatingly in accord with and directed against another textual strategy of the game. This is what I call the mode of hermeneutic interaction. (p. 107)
To sum, for both Poole and Kücklich, "hermeneutics" is a more or less accurate application of the classic textual interpretation. Both also recognize that videogame play is not governed by this interpretive mode alone, but also by another, "performatively" motivated interpretation.
The problem of the above views is of course that they reduce hermeneutics into its classical form and disregard the tradition of philosophical hermeneutics. The performative mode of interpretation that they correctly see as the governing one in videogaming might also be hermeneutic by nature, albeit in a rather different, philosophical way. Not long after Poole’s (2000) and Kücklich’s (2002) contributions this reality was realized by Aarseth (2003a), as he called for "a real-time hermeneutics" that "requires analysis practiced as performance, with direct feedback from the system" (p. 5).
Aarseth’s (2003a) performance model can be considered as the phenomenological basis on which more recent ludo-hermeneutic applications build on. One such instance is Miguel Sicart’s (2009) study of videogame ethics that applies hermeneutics to phenomena "in which a player interprets the game situation and her role in that situation using those values that are a part of her gamer culture, of her gaming community, and of her real-life presence" (p. 101–102). In Sicart’s theory the performative-interpretive process becomes an ontology that makes it possible for ethical videogames and players to exist in the first place.
Furthermore, a rather different performative mode of hermeneutics has been suggested by Jonne Arjoranta (2011) who sticks with the classical premise of videogames as texts that "create and transmit meaning to their players" (p. 1). Yet in contrast to Poole (2000) and Kücklich (2002), his hermeneutically pursued "meaning" does not consist simply of thematic elements but of the performative activity itself: "Better interpretations lead to better gaming, and so players can know if they are misunderstanding by failing to succeed in their goals" (p. 12).
Aarseth’s (2003a), Sicart’s (2009), and Arjoranta’s (2011) contributions can be considered ludo-analytical models that rely more on philosophical than classical hermeneutics. They do not apply hermeneutics as a textual strategy for unearthing extra-ludic messages but as a process that gives birth and facilitates comprehending the activity itself. While the importance of theorizing this performative hermeneutic is unquestionable, it is obvious that a general hermeneutic theory of the videogame cannot be founded on it alone. As David Ciccoricco (2010) and many others have convincingly shown, even those videogames that are commonly considered "pure action" may require consultation of the classical hermeneutic tradition to be "understood to the full" (1).
Double Hermeneutics
As a solution to this situation Veli-Matti Karhulahti (2012a) has suggested what he calls a "double hermeneutic" method for videogame interpretation. His idea is to recognize videogaming as an activity during which players work with both classical and philosophical hermeneutics. Whereas the former "aesthetic" interpretation "aims at generating aesthetic understanding of game elements," the latter "ludic" interpretation "aims at generating ludic understanding of game elements" (p. 20). In this rubric the videogame is thus simultaneously an aesthetic-textual object and a ludo-performative process, its ad hoc appearance depending on which interpretive mode the player is using.
The "double hermeneutic" label of Karhulahti’s method does not, however, derive solely from its dual modality but also from the particular two-way affectivity of ludic interpretation. A ludic interpretation is not only an object-oriented mental configuration but also a potential object-altering material configuration. The fact that ludic interpretations often materialize as physical performance gives them a specific "inducing" instrumental character as they
affect not only the interpreter’s understanding but the interpreted as well […] the act of playing a videogame is a multilayered double hermeneutic process in which the player’s interpretations repeatedly shape both the player and the game. (p. 20–21)
Accordingly, it appears that Karhulahti’s "double hermeneutic" actually refers to two distinct "doubles" of videogame interpretation: the doublet of classical and philosophical hermeneutics and the doublet of the ludo-interpretive affect.
At this point it is perhaps good to take a look at the more recent work in field of interpretation, namely at the work of Wolfgang Iser (2003) who reminded his readers that
interpretation is no longer to be identified with hermeneutics, as it has been in the past. Instead, hermeneutics is just a prominent genre dealing basically with texts that are opened up for understanding. But when it comes to interpreting something that is neither textual nor scripted, such as culture, entropy, or even the incommensurable, the procedures of interpretation are bound to change. (p. ix)
One of Iser’s (2003) chief alternative methods of interpretation is cybernetics (2), which overlaps significantly with the previously discussed "pragmatic," "performative," and "ludic" interpretative modes. What defines cybernetic interpretation is not the digging up of "meaning," but a control-driven (material and/or mental) configuration of dynamic phenomena that lack stability. Consequently, while hermeneutics can be qualified by an excavatory tendency,
cybernetics, operating in recursive loops, is a means of controlling entropy, elucidating the individual self-maintenance of autonomous systems, and configuring the structural coupling of systems. Its focus is on phenomena that emerge from coping with contingency, from the reciprocal "perturbation" of systems, and from their being bracketed together. Recursivity operates either by an input/output relationship, when control is to be achieved, or by processing noise, randomness, and perturbation, when the self-organization of systems is to be conceived. (p. 8–9)
Before trying to harness cybernetics in ludic use, the "incommensurable," "contingent," or "emergent" status of videogames must be probed. As to multiplayer videogaming in the lines of Counter-Strike (Valve, 2000) and FIFA14 (EA Canada, 2013) the answer is certainly positive: There is nothing more "emergent" than a living opponent. Yet, when it comes to single-player activities, the situation is not so clear: While there are arguably "emergent" components in Tetris (Pajitnov, 1984) and Grand Theft Auto (DMA Design, 1997), finding such components from videogames like Dragon’s Lair (Advanced Microcomputer Systems, 1983) that rely mainly on fixed quick-time-events and videogames like The Curse of Monkey Island (LucasArts, 1997) that rely mainly on fixed puzzle structures seems to be difficult. Although the cybernetic mode of interpretation can be useful in some videogaming situations, it appears not to be applicable to videogaming as a whole.
If "non-emergent" or static ludo-structures conceal an hermeneutically attainable "meaning" or "understanding" in a sense that a fixed solution always resolves the situation without uncertainty or indeterminate consequences (as in puzzles), "emergent" or dynamic ludo-structures lack "meaning" or "understanding" in a sense that the cybernetically interpreting player can try to control them (materially and/or mentally) but never reaches her or his target due to the open-endedness of the object (as in strategic challenges) (Karhulahti, 2013). Regardless of this contrast, as long as both interpretive modes aim at ludic success, it appears coherent to discuss them commonly in terms of ludic understanding-generation.
To wrap-up, the idea that players switch between ludic interpretation which aims at generating play-contributing understanding of perceived components, and extra-ludic interpretation which aims at generating play-extraneous (3) understanding of perceived components, is still valid. These modes should not, however, be identified with hermeneutics as a matter of course, as they might also be discussed in other terms, such as cybernetics. Further analysis of these interpretive modes is not a present concern. The next section will apply hermeneutics to ludocriticism (4).
Hermeneutics and Ludocriticism
A ludocritical approach to videogaming leads to a situation similar to what Dennis Diderot (1883) once coined "the paradox of acting":
If he is himself while he is playing, how is he to stop being himself? (8)
In the same way as Diderot’s actor is supposed to lose himself to the role if he is to do his work in the most professional manner, is the ludocritic supposed to "immerse" totally in her or his ludo-interpretive play to experience the product as it operates in the hands of hoi polloi? (5)
The answer is obviously negative, as not even the most "immersed" players interpret with ludic motivations alone (for a comprehensive problematization of "immersed," see Calleja, 2011). While ludic interpretation is a necessity for the videogaming process to transpire, players do interpret videogames and their components with play-extraneous interest as well. The videogame and its components are therefore objects of extra-ludic analysis also for the every player. Put another way, extra-ludic interpretation—be it aesthetical, ethical, or technical—is a natural part of videogaming.
To recall a remark of the previous section, both ludic and extra-ludic generation of understanding that players pursue can, but need not, be hermeneutic. This is because interpreted videogame components need not be stable units of text (static textons) but they may also be more and less unpredictably behaving and surfacing dynamic products of the algorithm (dynamic textons); or even better, completely erratic extra-algorithmic entities that are controlled by other players or agents. Let that last unit be called a texzon (Greek zo-, "living being"; note the Latin origins of "text"). In practical terms, whereas static textons might be most efficiently understood via hermeneutic interpretation, dynamic textons and texzons might be most efficiently understood via cybernetic interpretation. The dilemma here is of course that in videogames the textonomic nature of the interpreted components are rarely known at the moment of play (6).
For instance, as players encounter a fellow character for the first time in Journey (Thatgamecompany, 2012), they might not know whether it is a pattern-repeating static entity that every player meets, or a dynamic entity with random algorithmic behavior, or perhaps another individual player; a texzon whose behavior is limited but not controlled by the product. Be the last case true, classical hermeneutics (which departs from the premise that the object of interpretation conceals a meaning) is virtually useless since the logic of the perceived motion is not that of a "text" even in the broad algorithmic sense, but that of an organic being. Uncovering such logic is hardly achievable by means of the hermeneutic circle but requires recursive cybernetic looping that responds to the continuous renewal of the entity’s impulsive dynamic state.
Lucky as players are, the textonomic statuses of videogame components are normally implied in the paratextual or in-game instructions; or if not, disclosed along play. This means that a devoted player eventually learns the use of appropriate interpretive strategies. For a devoted ludocritic, likewise, learning to play the videogame is unconditional, but not the undertaking. What delineates the ludocritic’s work is not so much the understanding of the videogame, but the estimation of whether the videogame is worth understanding.
To be able to estimate the "worth" of a videogame, it is not enough for ludocritics to switch between ludic and extra-ludic interpretation as players. Because the operability of the product gets defined firstly by their experiences as players, they also need to interpret "themselves at play;" or as Olli Leino (2010) put it more smoothly, the "game as played." This metaphorical third-person observation is henceforth referred to as meta-ludic interpretation.
Meta-ludic interpretation differs from ludic and extra-ludic interpretation firstly by the interpreter’s position: Whereas the latter two are made as a player, the former is made as a critic. The second point of difference is the interpreted object: whereas ludic and extra-ludic interpretation target the components of the videogame, meta-ludic interpretation target the videogame as a singular aesthetic artifact. This singular but multimodal "text" can in no conditions be sensibly considered "incommensurable," "contingent," or "emergent," for it is a fixed manmade creation by definition. For this reason the primary method for interpreting it must be hermeneutic rather than cybernetic (7).
From Meaning to Knowledge
– They write the script with one part missing. It's a new idea. The home-maker, that's me, is the missing part. When it comes time for the missing lines, they all look at me out of the three walls and I say the lines.
– What's the play about?
– I just told you. (Bradbury, 1953)
Meta-ludic interpretation is exercised primarily on two regimes. On the thematic regime the critic interprets the "meaning" of the videogame. A fine example is Ian Bogost’s (2007) interpretation of Tooth Protectors (DSD, 1983) as "a game about the responsibility of oral hygiene" (p. 202). On the evaluative regime the critic interprets the operability of the videogame. Another fine example is Bogost’s (2007) interpretation of Chase the Chuck Wagon (TMQ, 1983) as a "rather forgettable, neither entertaining nor of particular interest as an early example of videogame advertisement" (p. 203).
The first thing of notice is that meta-ludic interpretation is not the exclusive privilege of authorized ludocritics. Drawing on George Dickie’s (1969) renowned aesthetic theory, the critic of any cultural product "differs from other percipients only in the motives and intentions and not in the way he attends" (p. 39). There is no reason to deny meta-ludic interpretation from any player.
The second thing of notice is that on both meta-ludic regimes the object of interpretation is the videogame as a stable artifact (as played) and not a process of "emergence." Despite the fact that Bogost’s (2007) interpretations derive from processual videogaming experiences that most likely include many "emergent" events, entities, and their cybernetic interpretations, the final object of interpretation has taken the form of a stable videogame artifact.
Although there seems to be no binding reason for ludocritics to entirely disregard the thematic regime, a reality is that they do (see Zagal & Bruckman 2008). This is because, as in Bradbury’s above-cited play, the "about" of videogames is often more easily done than said. This is also the reason for the present article to discuss ludocriticism as an evaluative practice in contrast to general videogame criticism in which evaluation is typically suppressed by the intrinsic value of interpretation (cf. Konzack, 2002; Consalvo & Dutton, 2006; Malliet, 2007; Gursoy, 2013). The contribution of hermeneutics to the ludocritical practice thus differs somewhat radically from its classical role as a "meaning-seeking" endeavor. With an awareness of the coming collateral damage, hereinafter the majority of thematic concerns are intentionally left aside.
An understanding of videogames was earlier stated as a matter of course. The point of reference for that slightly hyperbolic statement was ludic understanding, the faculty of knowing or learning how to play (to know how to play does not automatically result in winning). The object of this ludic understanding was the videogame component as part of the phenomenological videogaming process (handled by means of ludic interpretation). Furthermore, it was remarked that the same videogame components could be understood also in thematic or other terms with extra-ludic potential (handled by means of extra-ludic interpretation). What follows next is a formulation of generic understanding that determines the ludic identity of the videogame as played. Here the object of understanding is no longer the videogame component but the videogame artifact.
Because the ludic identities of videogames are crucial for their evaluation, generic understandings are a considerable ludocritical factor. As the roots of generic understanding go way back to pre-videogame criticism, let it be described via Schleiermacher’s (1838/1998) general critical principles. Accordingly, the critic
must include the work in a specific genre, attribute a specific purpose to it, and then the question is: to what extent does it achieve its purpose, and is it appropriate to its genre? (p. 161)
Even though Schleiermacher (1838/1998) theorized criticism as a disparate practice from hermeneutics, it is evident that attaining a generic understanding of a work is a result of hermeneutic processing. This fact was later given special highlight by theorists of philosophical hermeneutics; not least Gadamer (1989), for whom the "working out the hermeneutical situation means acquiring the right horizon of inquiry for the questions evoked by the encounter with tradition" (p. 302).
A ludocritic can match Gadamer’s (1989) "right horizon" (cf. "fusion of horizons") with the generic understanding of the videogame, that is, with the understanding of the regulated methods of interpretation that allow the videogame to be played and criticized in the context of its cultured conventions. It is not insignificant to emphasize that the range of these cultured conventions goes far beyond the common notion of "videogame genres."
Generic videogame understanding comes close to what Karhulahti (2012a) has previously discussed as videogame-specific "double hermeneutic circles"
into which players must come in the "right way" to experience games according to their designs. This means possessing both skills that correlate with challenges and knowledge that supports those skills and helps understand the language of the game in general. (p. 21)
Notwithstanding the visible overlap, a major difference lies between generic understanding of videogames and their "double hermeneutic circles." This difference is found in Karhulahti’s "skills" that correlate with the challenges of the videogame in question. Because videogames are rarely mere interpretive products but often demand nontrivial physical performance too, even the most comprehensive generic understanding is not always a certificate of successful performance. In the "double hermeneutic circle," then, generic understanding can perhaps be equated with its play-supporting "knowledge;" an understanding of cultured videogame-specific conventions.
A generic understanding of a videogame (the "right horizon" for playing it) does not, to repeat, assure successful performance. While a cultivated generic understanding of a videogame most likely empowers its player’s performance, more importantly it enables the player to locate the videogame, as played, in a culture-historical context; and thereby, to construct refined meta-ludic interpretations of it. The hermeneutic generation of generic understanding makes refined ludocritical judgments possible.
From Completion to Depletion
How are we to assess or evaluate this mode of spectator engagement: sensuously rich and dynamic in terms of perceptual activity, yet semantically compromised and relatively quiescent in terms of interpretative activity? (Darley, 2000)
As should be evident by now, the difference between the ludocritical practice and the majority of aesthetic criticism is quite drastic. One way to explain this is the logics of consumption: If readers are dignified by the number of books they read and filmgoers by the number films they watch, what makes players is the amount of hours they play. In Markku Eskelinen’s (2012) more strict wording,
In literature, theatre and film everything matters or is conventionally supposed to matter equally—if you’ve seen 90% of the presentation that’s not enough … the player [in contrast] either can’t or doesn’t have to encounter every possible combinatory event (p. 278)
The videogame can be considered a genuine temporal cultural artifact: The more there is to enjoy, the better the product. While players do not usually have to exhaust videogames to enjoy them, if the product is one of quality they will (or at least are tempted to do so). Accordingly, it would not be totally inadequate to declare length as a positive criterion in ludocriticism; contra film criticism, for instance, in which you can hardly find judgments like "at least it was long." If intensity of experience is the first ludocritical criterion, length of experience is the second ludocritical criterion. By additionally taking into consideration the fact that price is a regular factor in videogame reviews, the framework in which the ludocritical process takes place could be described happily in mathematical terms:
intensity multiplied by length divided by price (8)
The serious purpose of the less-serious formula is to signpost the specific position of the videogame as a cultural product. Keeping in mind that the videogame is a polygonal phenomenon to the most extreme degree, a careful oversimplification will not do harm: for the consumer the worth of a videogame is defined by the duration of its depletion.
While videogames are by no means the only cultural products with "depletion charge" (see Nehamas 2007), the process of ludic depletion is quite different from the hermeneutic depletion that dominates Western consumption of aesthetics. As Ragnhild Tronstad (2003) correctly observes, a videogame
may be experienced as exhausted independently of any "fusion of horizons"—that is, independent of the player’s experience of having reached a (more or less complete) understanding of the text. (p. 237)
What Tronstad means by "understanding" is of course the word in its meta-ludic sense. A player may be able to "complete" a videogame without constructing coherent thematic or evaluative interpretations of it. Following this remark, one might even claim, with Andrew Darley (2000, p. 199), that the videogame differs from the unendingly interpretable "real texts" in the exact reality that it is depletable. Be it correct or not, the fact still remains that unlike the orthodox art critic who works for "educating his readers" (Berleant, 1970, p. 136) and making "judgments of existence" (Dufrenne, 1973, p. 62), the ludocritic seeks knowledge of her or his artifact rather with an eye of a jeweler, on quality and quantity.
The next and final section takes a ludocritical look at three videogames as played: Trine, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, and Deadline. Because the focus of this article is on the method rather than on the values investigated by it, the function of that analysis is not to find out what makes these videogames "enjoyable" and how that "enjoyment" gets depleted, but to concretize the ludocritical process. The selection shows how even those videogames that can be examined in same taxonomical classes—in this case "single-player storygames"—may turn out to require very different ludocritical treatment.
Three Case Studies
As a ludocritic begins to work on a videogame, her or his prime enterprise is to evaluate whether the videogame artifact is worth temporal and monetary sacrifices; and if yes, to what intensity and extent in relation to the others of its kind. To succeed in the enterprise the ludocritic must construct a fitting generic identity for the videogame in question. This is a hermeneutic process that runs throughout her or his play sessions: The generic understanding of the videogame refines along with the ludocritic’s observations of it.
Ludocritical Process (Trine [Frozenbyte, 2009])
Trine begins with an introduction in which a narrator tells of a dead king and his ruined empire attacked by an undead army. After a few minutes the ludocritic is in control of an avatar to save the kingdom. This moment reveals Trine as what the popular discourse calls a "side-scrolling platformer;" a videogame in which virtual events take place in a continuous two-dimensional space. Soon the ludocritic makes note of a significant feature: there is no single avatar but three, each owning special skills that allow different actions. The avatars can be changed on the fly, which turns out to be crucial in the challenges that emphasize kinesthetic performance.
As the ludocritic progresses, occasional puzzles occur |
end of the first period as a trailer when David Pastrnak found Marchand wide going to the net, and the nifty empty net backhander late in the third period that he simply threw at the net. Different goals to be sure, but evidence that confidence is starting to come back for an elite offensive player like Marchand.
“I think it’s just an example of what our team does when everybody is going and everybody is playing well,” said Marchand, who has 15 goals and a team-leading 38 points on the season in 43 games. “We get a lot of opportunities, and we had opportunities to score even more goals than that tonight. When we play fast and we play hard against other teams we get our chances, and luckily they’re starting to go in.
“But we knew all year that if we continued to push and continued to get opportunities that they would start to go in. You can’t get the [scoring] opportunities that we get every game and not have them ever go in the net.”
The Bruins have scored 30 goals in their last 10 games for an excellent three goals per game average, and the power play has gone 8-for-33 over that span for a 24.2 percent success rate. Those numbers are way up from where they’d been most of the first half this season for the Black and Gold, and Claude Julien thinks players like Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and others rounding into form is the exact reason behind it.
“We all know that when [Marchand] scores it helps a lot,” said Claude Julien. “He was a 37 goal scorer last year and I knew at some point things were going to turn around for him. The same with [Patrice Bergeron]. He’s getting good looks and he’s getting shots on net, and I think his point production is really going to come around as well. This is what we need. We can look in the past or we can build on what we’re doing now, and [the latter] is what we choose to do.”
The Bruins just have to hope that it keeps building upward for Marchand and others as it looks like they’re finally hitting their offensive stride.Lucius Verginius Rufus (AD 15-97; sometimes incorrectly called Lucius Virginus Rufus), was a Roman commander of Germania Superior during the late 1st century. He was three times consul (in 63, 69, and 97), born near Comum, the birthplace of both Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger.
Verginius Rufus was born in Northern Italy as a member of an equestrian family. He became consul in 63 under the emperor Nero. After his consulship, Verginius Rufus was made governor of Germania Superior. When Gaius Iulius Vindex revolted against Nero in 67, Verginius Rufus led an army against him and defeated the rebel in 68 near modern-day Besançon. After Nero's fall, the legions under Verginius Rufus hailed him emperor in preference to Servius Sulpicius Galba (Vindex' ally), but Verginius Rufus refused to accept the purple. After the death of Otho in April 69, the soldiers again offered the throne to Verginius, but he again refused it. Verginius retreated to an estate at Alsium on the coast of Etruria northwest of Rome. There he studied, composed poems, and had a literary salon.
After the murder of Emperor Domitian, Marcus Cocceius Nerva was elected emperor by the senate. Nerva chose as his co-consul for 97 the elderly Verginius Rufus, who was enticed out of retirement. However, when Verginius Rufus was to hold a speech, he dropped a book he was carrying, and while bending down to pick it up, slipped and broke his hip. He died not long afterward at the age of 82 and was given a state funeral.
At the public burial with which he was honored, the historian Tacitus (then consul) delivered the funeral oration. Pliny the Younger, his neighbor and ward, has recorded the lines which Verginius had ordered to be engraved upon his tomb: Hic situs est Rufus, pulso qui Vindice quondam Imperium asseruit non sibi sed patriae ("Here lies Rufus, who after defeating Vindex, did not take power, but gave it to the fatherland").
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Dan Arnold is one of our leading scholars of Indian thought, but his latest book is more than just a scholarly exposition of Indian debates about the nature of mind. Brains, Buddhas, and Believing is an important work of philosophy that offers arguments aimed simultaneously at classical Buddhist thinkers and at important contemporary physicalists. Numerous books have offered accounts of Buddhist tenets, but few have ventured sophisticated and serious critiques of those tenets. Arnold's book now joins Griffiths' On Being Mindless among the key works that those who wish to defend Buddhist philosophy today must read to understand the scope of the challenges they face.
Chapter 1 lays out some major structural aspects of Dharmakīrti's view through an examination of his famous argument for rebirth. This discussion embodies the careful scholarship and broad knowledge on display throughout the book. Arnold handles a number of difficult issues well; an example is the helpful and very clear discussion of mental consciousness, or manovijñāna, on p. 34. Although the discussion mostly seems pitched to those already familiar with Buddhist thought, philosophers of mind not trained in Indian traditions could learn a great deal about Dharmakīrti by reading it.
Chapter 2 offers a brief, well-informed, critical discussion of the views of Fodor and Dennett. Arnold presents familiar material from a distinctive perspective, allowing him to relate it in illuminating ways to Indian ideas.
In many ways the heart of the book, Chapter 3 contains a Kantian-inspired challenge to both Buddhist and physicalist accounts of mental processes. According to Arnold, these views are not in a position to explain how information from the senses manages to lead to fully-formed conceptual judgments. As a result, they cannot account for the contentfulness of these judgments. In several passages, he suggests that we might deal with this issue by postulating a Kantian faculty of spontaneity, which is responsible for the synthesis of perceptual information into judgments expressible by that-clauses. The operation of this faculty is in some sense non-causal, though Arnold is not completely clear about what that sense is. In other passages, he seems to back away from asserting such a faculty, and to restrict himself to the weaker claim that meaning and thought involve an aspect of normativity that cannot be characterized exclusively in causal terms.
Chapter 4 focuses on Dharmakīrti's semantic theory, known as apoha or "exclusion." Arnold presses the standard problem of how to connect perception, which for Dharmakīrti is entirely nonconceptual, with a structured judgment that could form part of an inference. But he also criticizes Dharmakīrti from an unexpected and highly original direction. He asks how Dharmakīrti could account for the process by which a child learns its first language. This issue was not central to ancient Indian discussions of language, and perhaps as a result, Dharmakīrti did not develop an adequate theoretical response to the problem. Arnold effectively shows this much, and thereby highlights Dharmakīrti's failure to give sufficient consideration to social aspects of language and cognition; but the degree to which this line of argument supports Arnold's own Kantian theses is open to question.
Chapter 5 focuses on the key concept of svasaṃvitti, often translated as "reflexive awareness." This chapter contains a careful and sophisticated exploration of some difficult lines from Dignāga. It also contains a fair-minded and lucid presentation of Dharmakīrti's most important argument for his views on this topic, the "constraint of joint apprehension" argument (Skt. sahopalambha-niyama.) The chapter concludes with a detailed discussion of a line of argument, presented by the Śaiva philosopher Rāmakaṇṭha, originally intended to establish the existence of a real self. Arnold holds, though, that the argument does not succeed in establishing its intended conclusion. It was unclear to me what of importance he thinks Rāmakaṇṭha did succeed in showing through this reasoning.
Chapter 6 begins with consideration of an argument, developed in the Mīmāṃsaka tradition, and intended to show the eternal preexistence of language. As in previous work, Arnold draws on quite a wide range of Indian texts and philosophers to make his case. Here again, he creatively appropriates this argument to his own, rather different purposes: supporting the ineliminability and irreducibility of an intentional level of description. As presented by the fourth-century CE philosopher Śabara, the argument is that the use of language can never have begun, because the act of introducing a linguistic convention itself requires the use of language. As Arnold puts it, the act of creating a relation between a linguistic item or symbol and some entity or entities in the world "does not stand to reason unless we presuppose that both the agent and the audience of this act already have (what we were here trying to understand) the idea of meaning something" (204).
Arnold is well aware that his physicalist opponents hold that language arose through an evolutionary process, and he agrees with this claim sufficiently to reject the radical intended conclusion of the historical argument he appropriates. But "Mīmāṃsakas would argue that it's just as unclear how persons in the remote past could at any particular point first have 'conferred meaning' on the world as it is hard to imagine in the present what it could look like to do that now; the appeal to an evolutionary timescale does not eliminate the difficulty" (211). Arnold suggests, as a result, that it is "impossible to imagine the first devising, by hitherto nonlinguistic beings, of linguistic conventions" (212).
Arnold is on shaky ground here, however; I think I can easily imagine what he says he cannot. Suppose we are given some creatures like prairie dogs that have the ability, widely shared among infralinguistic animals, to learn by association: for example, that the howl of the coyote is often followed by the arrival of a dangerous predator. Now suppose that a particular prairie dog, perhaps due to a mutation, begins to emit a distinctive cry of fear whenever it sees a coyote. The other prairie dogs could easily come to learn that a cry that sounds like that indicates an imminent coyote, and thereby gain a significant survival advantage. This family of prairie dogs could propagate across the plains, and soon all the prairie dogs could be emitting a cry of this kind. Indeed, the same process could produce a population with dozens of simple signs like this one. Such animals would have the capacity to utter meaningful sounds without having the concept of "meaning."
Now, let's endow these creatures with the very capacity Arnold thinks is insufficient to solve the problem: the capacity, theorized by Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, for apoha or "exclusion." That is, let's give these primitive quasi-linguistic beings the ability to form new concepts: more general ones, that include several already existing categories, and more specific ones, that exclude all those entities within an existing category not satisfying a certain condition. I think it would be relatively simple for the resulting beings to create, first the general category "sound," and then the metalinguistic terms "word" and finally "meaning." One of these creatures could teach a new, abstract term to others by giving them examples, and thus leading them internally to perform the operation of exclusion for themselves.
There are numerous holes in this account.; I haven't given any story about the origin of grammar, for example. But if this is even the skeleton of a plausible account of the origin of a simple language, then Arnold's Mīmāṃsaka-inspired argument clearly fails. The moral would be: don't bet against the power of gradual, stepwise evolutionary accounts to explain complex behaviors.
The rest of Chapter 6 looks at Madhyamaka, and specifically at Candrakīrti's criticisms of Dignāga. Here Arnold uses impressive, textually based arguments to suggest that Candrakīrti would endorse the view that the intentional level of description is ineliminable. Arnold's take on Madhyamaka plays a notable role in his overall project: it allows him to claim that he is not criticizing the Buddhist tradition as a whole, but only part of it, and that some Buddhists could and would endorse his arguments. But this claim rests on a highly controversial interpretation that assimilates the Madhyamaka view about the status of persons to that of the Pudgalavādins. Though such a reading is not unprecedented, it faces grave difficulties. The Pudgalavādins were widely criticized for misunderstanding the Buddha's teaching of non-self, including by figures we recognize as Mādhyamikas, such as Śāntarakṣita.
According to Arnold, "to argue (with Kant) that 'there is pure practical reason' is also effectively to argue that an exhaustively impersonal account of the mental is finally unintelligible" (113). One of the greatest intellectual achievements of the Buddhist tradition was the discovery of the idea that thought and agency are made possible by, and actually consist in, a complex array of impersonal processes. Versions of this idea appear frequently in the Perfection of Wisdom sūtras. Indeed, this is exactly what is meant by "dependent arising" in such texts as the Śālistambha Sūtra. The prominent role of quotations from the Śālistambha in Śāntideva's Śikṣā-samuccaya is evidence that Mādhyamikas did not reject this discovery, but built their view upon it. Arnold, on the other hand, does wish to deny this insight -- in spite of the fact that the advent of scientific psychology has given it far more empirical support than it ever could have had in ancient India.
Like many other Kantian-inspired accounts, the one Arnold offers as an alternative to cognitivism is initially quite compelling, but when carefully and closely examined, bafflingly obscure. One rather basic question unanswered in Arnold's presentation is: could there be a being that was physically a duplicate of a normal human, but was lacking in spontaneity? And if so, what would such a being be like?
This question represents a dilemma for Arnold. Perhaps there could be such a being and she would be radically crippled, perhaps by being unable to speak or understand the world. But since there is no physical difference between her and a functioning human, we cannot avoid the conclusion that there must be spooky mind-stuff constantly causally intervening in the world, and that the laws of physics must be false. More likely, Arnold would say that there couldn't be such a being: anything physically like a human could be brought under an intentional description, although we might miss the intentional aspects of that being's existence by failing to bring such a description to bear. But on this horn of the dilemma, intentional phenomena will supervene on the physical, so that Arnold will fall within the broadly physicalist camp after all. Indeed, on this reading, Arnold's view looks rather like Dennett's "intentional stance" account, which the book rejects (75-80).
Arnold's suggestion that our ability to get judgments out of perception depends on a mysterious Kantian faculty of spontaneity seems implausible in light of quite basic discoveries from psychology. Patients with face-blindness induced by head injuries are deficient precisely in the ability to transition from perceptual information to the recognition that "This person is Mary." Yet surely their metaphysical capacity for spontaneity, if they ever had one, is intact. What they have lost is the physical basis for an entirely causal, subconscious form of information processing.
Meanwhile, Kant's connection between conceptual thought and freedom contrasts starkly with one of the central claims of many Asian traditions: that the process of imposing conceptual filters on our experience is a principal source of bondage and limitation. Both Buddhists and Daoists frequently emphasize that the categories with which we understand our experience can drastically restrict the range of possibilities we can see. Artistic and technological creativity may often emerge from overcoming the limitations imposed on us by the subconscious processes that, usually without our noticing it, impose categories on our experience.
Arnold places much weight on a particular transcendental argument. He claims that "reason's being practical is not, in fact, something that can coherently be denied, insofar as it is only in terms of reasoning that such a denial is even intelligible" (200). This would be a good argument against true eliminativists such as the Churchlands, but it fails against opponents who hold, not that there is no such thing as reasoning, but that theoretical reasoning consists in a causally describable process. It's perfectly consistent to claim that my mental representations have been causally determined to arrive at the accurate conclusion that there is no Kantian spontaneity, and that human brains do not respond to reasons as such but only to reasons embodied in syntactically coded representations.
Indeed, wanting my beliefs to be accurate is plausibly related to claims about causation that are not easy to square with Arnold's views. I want to believe that the barn is red if and only if it is red. If I am lucky, my senses and my brain have evolved in such a way that the redness of the barn can cause me to believe that the barn is red. We may begin to worry that, here as in the free will debate, Kantian spontaneity will turn out to be nothing but randomness, and so worse than useless in relation to what we legitimately want.
Though, in most of the book, Arnold is quite fair to the Buddhist tradition, there are occasions when he seems not to give a sympathetic account of Buddhist views. He writes, for example, that "it's hard to see how essentially momentary mental particulars could so much as 'conceive' themselves as resembling each other" (197). Put in this plural form, the sentence seems to be making a plausible point; but this phrasing is tendentious. If we have any understanding at all of what a momentary mental particular would be, then we understand how it could represent something about the past: it could have a content like "The barn yesterday was red." But then, what on earth would prevent mental particular A from having the content "Past experience B felt similar to past experience C"? And this kind of cognition is all Dharmakīrti needs to sustain the aspect of his views Arnold is criticizing.
Arnold stresses that historical Buddhist thinkers were not physicalists, and that some of their religious commitments were incompatible with physicalism. Yet his book as a whole indirectly makes a strong case for the compatibility of the main thrust of Buddhist philosophy of mind with an empirically informed naturalism and with a scientific worldview. Recent years have seen the emergence and increasing influence of views that draw inspiration from Buddhist teachings and that recognize the immense value of Buddhist meditative practices, while rejecting magical and mythic elements of the tradition and embracing a naturalist outlook. Philosophical advocates of such views should be eager to engage with the challenges presented in Arnold's original and stimulating book, and the rest of us can learn much by considering the issues it raises.Starting with the October Insiders Build of Visual Studio Code we have added an easy way to run your Node.js applications on top of the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). This is useful for developers targeting Linux or multiplatform production environments, making it possible to develop on Windows without relying on external systems or virtual machines.
We aimed at making running Node.js on WSL as easy and streamlined as possible. You will need Node.js installed and in your PATH in WSL, which can be easily done by following these instructions. In VS Code, all you need to do is add one new attribute to your launch.json :
"useWSL": true
This will make VS Code use WSL for running Node.js. Everything will work as expected, including debugging and custom runtimeExecutable settings:
Note: You will need Windows 10, build 15063 or later. If you are running an earlier version, you may encounter Error 0x80070057 when spawning WSL. If this happens you can try adding "console": "integratedTerminal" or "console": "externalTerminal" to your launch.json.
Native modules
In general, modules installed using Windows should work out of the box with Node.js spawned through WSL, and vice-versa, as long as they don't have any dependencies on native modules. Special care is needed when native modules are used.
When using native modules in WSL, those also need to be built for the Linux platform. You can do that by running the following commands from the Windows shell in the project directory:
npm install bash -i -c "npm rebuild"
Bartosz Sosnowski and João ReisLet's stop here. I'm serious. Up until this point, I give the episode 7 out of 10 sacred orbs. It's decent, with the only major flaw being Sokka and Katara's quick lapse in fortitude about eating in the canyon. The minor flaws being too heavy-handed with the themes and metaphors (but I still appreciate what the writers are doing).
The last 3 minutes of this episode is utter bullshit. It contains a major character error for Aang, and brushes off all the events of the episode in a frankly disrespectful manner. In something that's extremely rare for Avatar, it fails to respect its audience.
I give the final 3 minutes of the episode only 2 sacred orbs.
Conclusion:
Similar to how the Avatar fandom chooses to believe the The Last Airbender movie (what movie?) doesn't exist, I like to believe the final three minutes of this episode doesn't exist. Now, the events aren't inherently "bad"; in a normal kid's show, this would be pretty commonplace. What's frustrating is the fact that a poorly written part such as this belongs in the ATLA canon. The standards of storytelling are MUCH higher, to the point of comparison with any of the classic adult live action shows. There's a lot to like in The Great Divide, however, the ending just brings it down.
The Great Divide. What an ironic name--the fandom is certainly not divided on their opinion of the episode. :)
Averaging between the great divide of my 7/10 and 2/10 ratings, I give The Great Divide 4.5/10 sacred orbs.
Thank you so much for reading! Until next time, peace.
P.S. My joints say a storm is coming...
is anepisode to say the least. Unlike most of the Avatar saga, this one is complete filler, meaning, it doesn't really develop our main cast or introduce recurring characters. It's the only episode you couldskip and be completely fine. That being said, I think there's more substance here than most people realize, and in fact, the majority of the episode is pretty decent! I wouldrecommend skipping an episode of Avatar.Like many other episodes, the opening scenes foreshadow future events and conflicts. Katara and Sokka fighting over whether or not to put up the tarp is actually a perfect reflection of the squabble between the two tribes. In both cases, the conflict is petty at best, and it leaves Aang in no-man's land to mediate and find a solution.Over the course of, Aang developed and matured as he fulfilled his role as peacekeeper and conflict solver. Part of the reason--and I have to commend the writers for this--was showing some of the downsides of being that responsible hero. The earthbender guide said it best, "It's lonely, isn't it...being impartial?" Indeed, Aang spent the majority of the episode cold and alone because he wouldn't side with any one tribe. This actually reminded me of Sam Raimi's original Spiderman movie: "With great power comes great responsibility." Just like Peter Parker, Aang learned what it truly meant to be a hero, but only through sacrifice and loss. He sacrificed food, shelter, and time with his friends because of his role as the Avatar. It's not always what it's cracked up to be...Gotta love Appa and Momo! They have so many little character moments!How does Aang solve this conflict? He sliced the melon and gave Momo 1/3 and Appa the other 2/3. He explained that Appa needed more because of his 5 stomachs.Behold, the Great Divide! It is the largest canyon in the entire world.Oh, Sokka.Couldn't they all fly on Appa? It would maybe take 4 round trips...BOOMERAANG!! Get it? It's gotin it! xDIt is here where Aang decides to split the two tribes. To better understand their deep-seated conflict, he sends Katara with the Gan Jins and Sokka with the Zhangs. It soon becomes apparent that the two tribes are just extensions of Sokka and Katara; they exist only to provide weight and drama to their conflict. This episode should have been named. Prepared vs. unprepared. Clean vs. Unclean. Balanced diet vs. MEAT.I respect what the show was trying to do with this, and for the most part, it's effective.Where this analogy falls apart (isn't executed well) is when Katara and Sokka give in to eating food. I think this is completely against the values they usually stand for. For instance, in, Katara says she WILL NOT give up on the prisoners. It is in her nature to stand firmly in her beliefs, and to almost never give in to temptation. However, what's her excuse for eating? Paraphrased, "I know the other tribe is doing it, so it's ok for us to do it too!" This is definitely an odd character choice.I think the tribes' sentiment speaks to so many issues we have today, from climate change to racism. "They're doing it, so can we!" When will people form a backbone and stand up for what is right?******In perhaps my favorite part of the episode, we get to see each tribe's version of history, animated with a striking visual style.Jin Wei transported the sacred orb from the great eastern gate to the great western gate, symbolizing the sun's rise and fall. Before he reached the western gate, Wei Jin, a member of the Zhang tribe, stole the orb with envy. "You can nevera Zhang."Wei Jin, according to the Zhang's legend, was a noble man who took the orb only to complete the Gan Jin's redemption ritual. Instead of the Gan Jins thanking Wei Jin for his service, they considered him a thief and sentenced him to twenty long years in prison. "We Zhangs will never forget that."Now I know what you must be thinking. Jin Wei? Wei Jin? Sounds like a story that's probably made up and changed again and again through the generations. That's kind of the point of it all, to show how little it actually means. So what if it happened? Even if it DID happen, it doesn't mean the whole tribe is bad!Here we go again. "If one guy is bad, then the whole tribe is bad." "If this group is bad, then that means the wholeis bad." Like I said, I appreciate the broad topics and lessons the show is trying to convey. Although it is meant for children, I believe the message translates just as well for adults.This silly conflict ends up in a needless battle between the two tribes' leaders. If you think about it, this is just like the fire nation's Agni Kai--a fight to the death for honor. So I thought it a nice touch that an alternate version of the Agni Kai theme played during this short fight.Sorry, I'm going to go on a little tangent here. When I was a kid, I watched a few Avatar episodes from Book 1 as they aired. Weirdly enough, they playedmost often on TV. I mean, as a child, this episode was entertaining. But I have this vivid memory of the way Aang looked at this custard... Interestingly, I started liking custard, cakes and pies much more after this aired.Alright, back to the review. :) This scene shows that Katara has perfected the water whip, which she started learning two episodes ago. Cool!Canyon Crawlers. It's like a much lighter and kid-friendly version of the bug scene in King Kong (2005). Still creepy though!In the end, the Zhangs and Gan Jins set their differences aside and worked together to get out. I liked the irony of using the very food that got them trapped to escape the canyon.BALTIMORE (JTA) – Not even a shard of glass was visible on the sidewalk outside 311 N. Exeter St. in downtown Baltimore on Wednesday afternoon, no sign of the havoc that struck two nights earlier, when rioters had their way here just as in other parts of this city.
But across the doorway and in the three-story brick building that houses Sports Mart, evidence of the looters lay everywhere: trampled cardboard boxes, plastic hangers on the floor and a sea of empty red Nike boxes sitting atop debris as far as the eye could see.
A human tornado blew through this sports apparel store on Monday night, carrying away $1 million in sneakers, work boots, jackets, shirts, sweats, caps – nearly all the merchandise in a business that Leon Levy, now 89, started in 1980 with his sons Harvey, Marc and Brian.
It was one of dozens of businesses that were looted amid violent riots in Baltimore that left 15 buildings and 144 vehicles aflame. This week’s unrest followed the funeral for Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died under questionable circumstances while in police custody on April 19. When peaceful protests gave way to violence, many locals said the chaos reflected pent-up frustration with Baltimore’s police and a sense that city government had neglected its poorest neighborhoods.
Nearly all of Monday’s rioting occurred west of Sports Mart, beyond Highway 83, which vertically splits this area of downtown. North Exeter Street is only one block long and seems isolated, with little foot or vehicular traffic even in the daytime. Next door is a dog-care business. Across the street is an organization that assists military veterans. A mall around the corner closed years ago.
But the store did not escape unscathed, and now, instead of serving their overwhelmingly African-American clientele, the Levys are dealing with insurance adjusters and wondering when they’ll be able to reopen.
The business long has enjoyed a loyal customer base, providing the family with what Marc Levy, 63, called “a very good living.” He lives in predominantly white Eldersburg, a suburb with few Jews. Harvey resides in Pikesville, not far from where, in 2010, two members of a Jewish volunteer patrol group were charged with assaulting a black teenager walking in their neighborhood; one of the defendants was convicted on two charges.
In the two days since the looting, many African-American customers and neighborhood residents have reached out to the Levys with sympathy and offers of help.
They included Jeff Alston, a 45-year-old truck driver who doesn’t live in the neighborhood anymore but has shopped at Sports Mart since he was 10, when the store first opened and his father, Joseph, began bringing him in to buy tennis shoes, basketball sneakers and T-shirts.
Now, out of loyalty, Alston regularly buys work boots and paraphernalia related to the Ravens football team here to mail to his son, Mar’kee, 21, a chef in Orlando, Fla.
When he saw TV reports of the store’s destruction, “I was upset,” Alston said.
He says he appreciates the personal service the Levys provide, the fact that they greet regular customers by name and donate items to amateur athletic teams in the neighborhood. The Levys are friends of his, Alston said, so he’s prepared to help however he can.
On the plus side, there was no vandalism at the 20,000-square-foot store, so cleaning up and restocking are all that are needed to reopen, Marc Levy said.
“It ain’t the end of the world,” he said. “We’ll come back from this.”
The business won’t relocate, he said; the Levys own the building, which previously served solely as a warehouse.
Levy says he is furious that the police didn’t respond to any of the brothers’ continuous telephone calls pleading for help Monday night and into Tuesday morning as the looting was taking place. He and his brothers watched the scene unfold in real time on their cellular phones from feeds from video monitors in the store.
“It’s 100 percent the mayor’s fault,” Levy said of Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, accusing her of minimizing concern for property damage as it was occurring.
It’s not the first time the shop in East Baltimore, a mile east of the Inner Harbor, has been broken into. Levy pointed to a now cinderblock-filled opening where thieves entered in 1983 and to the ceiling where others broke in during a 1989 blizzard. There have been armed robberies twice here and multiple times in Sports Mart’s three other, now-closed locations elsewhere in the city. During one robbery, the Levys were tied up.
But this attack was different, the Levys said.
Standing at the cashier’s counter, behind which six racks full of professional teams’ caps were looted, Levy says he wonders how he’ll view the customers standing at this spot and paying for merchandise once the shop reopens.
“The hardest thing for me is looking at these people and thinking, ‘Are these the ones who took advantage?’ It’s hard,” he said. “I’m nice to everybody. I don’t care what you do for a living. I’ll call you sir. I’ll treat you with respect.”
It’s a sentiment his customers reciprocate.
Ten minutes later, as he stood atop some detritus near the front door, Levy listened to several phone messages of support.
“I’m so sorry. It broke my heart. It’s freakin’ crazy. If there’s anything you need from me, don’t hesitate,” came a message from an Israeli friend named Yaron.
“I’m a concerned citizen, and I heard something happened at your store,” said Joanne Page, who later told JTA that she’s never shopped there. “I want to know if you needed any help in getting your store back together. I’m not asking to be paid for it.”
Venus Carrothers, who lives seven blocks away and has rewarded her grandson for good grades and for his job at a local hospital by buying him sneakers at the store, also left a message.
“To see people running into the store and stealing, it was senseless,” she said in an interview, referring to watching the security footage, which was broadcast locally. “What is the purpose? It had nothing to do with Freddie Gray.
“I would like to volunteer my time and clean up the store. It took [away] a lot from the whole community because where are we going to go now? For him to lose $1 million worth of merchandise – it’s crazy, it’s crazy, it’s crazy. He’s suffering and we’re suffering. It’s a no-win situation. Hopefully he’ll reopen his store and it won’t happen again.”(CNN) Dylann Roof pleaded not guilty Friday to 33 federal charges in the deadly June attack at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, according to the court clerk's office.
Earlier this month, a grand jury indicted Roof on 33 counts, including federal hate crime and firearms charges, in the shooting that killed nine people.
Roof, 21, already faces a number of state charges in the shooting. South Carolina, however, doesn't have a hate crime law, prosecutors said.
The Rev. Clementa Pinckney, a former state senator who was the church pastor, was among those killed.
Roof was captured in North Carolina the day after the June 17 attack and was brought back to South Carolina. Law enforcement officials have said he admitted to the killings.
If he's found guilty of the federal charges, Roof faces life imprisonment or the death penalty, but federal prosecutors said they haven't decided on whether to seek the death penalty.
JUST WATCHED Church shooter shouldn't have been able to buy gun Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Church shooter shouldn't have been able to buy gun 01:33
South Carolina authorities have provided an image on Twitter of Roof wearing a jacket with the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia, a former British colony where a white minority ruled until 1980 and whose name was changed to Zimbabwe.
Roof also had a website called "The Last Rhodesian" that included a long, hate-filled racist manifesto. The site included photos of Roof burning an American flag, taking aim with a pistol and posing proudly at places connected to the Confederacy.Several parents of children at a Christchurch preschool have raised concerns over comments made by a staff member who is the aunt of Ihaka Stokes.
Preschool managers will meet with parents at 5pm after a teacher publicly described her nephew's death as a "terrible tragic accident".
Marrisa Hunton – whose nephew Ihaka Stokes died after what police called a "violent assault" – has been cautioned by the Christchurch childcare centre and is not at work.
Police charged a 22-year-old man with murder after 1-year-old Ihaka died on July 3. The man has name suppression.
Christchurch preschool Montessori at St Albans sent a letter to parents concerned about Marrisa Hunton's online comments in the wake of her nephew Ihaka's death.
In the July 23 letter sent on behalf of the preschool, BestStart Education and Care Centres chief operations officer Fiona Hughes said several parents had made contact and a meeting would be held to discuss the issue.
"These concerns relate to the activities of a relative of Ihaka Stokes' family who is also a teacher employed at the centre," she said.
"The activities include some public comments made by our teacher on the case in support of her family. Some parents have expressed concern about these views and how that impacts on their feelings about their children attending the centre and being cared for by a teacher holding such views."
Hunton, who is the sister of Ihaka's mother Mikala Stokes, made several comments on social media during a police homicide investigation into Ihaka's death but before charges were laid.
It included comments on Facebook saying the death was the result of an accident. Her comments were published in the media.
"This little boy was not murdered he died in a terrible tragic accident," she wrote.
She said the media were "out for a story" and did not care how it was portrayed "as long as it gains attention".
Police said Ihaka suffered several fractured bones and other non-accidental injuries in an " |
Date: October 5th. Preview.
Akame ga Kill! – If you look at it with anything more than a cursory glance, Akame ga Kill! certainly contains many problematic messages. The show goes for hyperviolence, and sometimes seems to want you to take it seriously. Me? I’m watching it as a silly shlocky action series, with regular manga-style gag humor, and I actually find it enjoyable, so I’m going to keep watching. It scratches that itch for me.
Current Rating: 6.9/10. Fun, simplistic fun, though sometimes it’s not. I’m sort of alright with it as my empty popcorn show?
Airing Date: Right now. 12 out of 24 episodes aired.
World Trigger – Toei animation, this can be good, or this can be bad. An invasion from a different dimension, secret group, but actually living normal life in the shadow of these events, rather than all doom and gloom. I’m mostly picking this up because it reminds me of Gatchaman Crowds. The downside is it also reminds me of Tokyo ESP, and what people say of this make it sound like a relatively dull battle-shounen. It might be that I’m getting old, but I prefer marathoning shounens, watching them weekly doesn’t really cut it.
Interest Rating: 1/3. The premise interests me, but it seems like it’d be a worse Seven Deadly Sins, and it’s filling the same spot as Akame ga Kill! as well.
Airing Date: October 5th. “Trailer”, mostly made of manga-style still shots.
Didn’t Make it In:
Sora no Method – This show looks very pretty. The writer behind it was being Kanon, an ex-Key author. It looks like it’d be a cross between AnoHana and Glasslip, with cute girls doing cute things with a big infusion of melodrama and some mystery. I’m just gonna say “No” preemptively, though I like some melodrama now and then, and quite liked AnoHana, it’s just that this feels too much for me right now, and the “moe slice of life” might be too strong. Might pick up after it ends.
Ookami Shoujo to Kuro Ouji / Wolf Girl and The Black Prince – Standard abusive shoujo manga adaptation. I like them better after they end, also to avoid the more “rapey” ones, and I wish I didn’t mean that term.
Grisaia no Kajutsu – The first of the harem romance VN adaptations. I’m gonna nope this one in the bud.
Girlfriend (Kari) – What’s worse than a romance VN adaptation? An adaptation of a mobile dating game where you get to date 100 different girls. Anime please. The one thing that stands out for this anime is a bunch of top-notch voice actresses, but even such voice actresses and great visuals didn’t save Hyakka Ryouran for me, for instance.
Overall Sunday Thoughts: Action, action for everyone! Simple action, without much more – I expect enjoyment though! And if you want melodramatic romance, or just melodrama, seems Sunday will have that for you as well. I’m starting with 3 shows on Sunday, but am quite likely to pick 2 and stick to them, but this day has an extra chance of me picking the series after they finish their run.
Monday:
Inou Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de / Inou Battle Within Everyday Life – First, why I’m watching this and why I have even a shred of hope for this – “Ordinary school students get amazing powers, but half a year later, nothing in their life changed.” – I’ve read stories set up around apocalypse-cults where the apocalypse failed to happen. I find that a very interesting setting, and this series feels as if it could actually take the premise of Haruhi Suzumiya and actually do something with it, and be more interesting than most such series. Ootsuka Masahiko, credited as Chief Director worked on Dennou Coil, FLCL, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gurren Lagann, Diebuster, and other awesome Gainax stuff.
Now to the bad – “This is soooo Light-Novel!” is written large all over this series. It’s likely not going to have much to differentiate it from all the other Haruhi-style LNs, which are usually quite bad. The preview made me think not only of such LN adaptations, but also the equivalent manga adaptations such as D-Frag! which are fine, but not my thing. Takahashi Masanori, the other director of the series, worked on Angel Beats!, Vividred Operation, and Strike Witches. That doesn’t infuse me with confidence.
Interest Rating: 1/3. I know I’m going to regret this, it’s more like “interest-level 1.5/3, expectation-levels 0.5/3”.
Airing Date: October 6th.
Write-ups/Notes: I suspect I’ll drop this 1-2 episodes in. But hope springs eternal. Trailer.
Didn’t Make it In:
Shingeki no Bahamut GENESIS / Rage of Bahamut GENESIS – This show is very close to being watched, I’ll likely try it when a couple of episodes are out anyway. So, a fantasy series based on a story-less mobile card game, meaning the director, Satou Keiichi, who created Karas, directed Tiger and Bunny, Asura, and worked on plenty of mecha design could have more input. Seems like epic fantasy, with a lot of giant ass monsters. What’s the story? No one knows just yet. Trailer.
Orenchi no Furo Jijou – 4-koma adaptation, one shtick, not my thing, but I know many of you guys like that sort of stuff.
Overall Monday Thoughts: Monday is up in the air. I have a show I plan to watch without much hope for, and another series that interests me but I won’t pick up without good buzz. Likely to end up being a free day.
Tuesday:
Didn’t Make it In:
Trinity Seven – A magical apocalypse, a boy going to a magical school to save his cousin who got swept up in it. As someone who likes such stories, I’ve had hopes. Then I read some more about it, and realized it’s going to be a thinly veiled harem. One boy, seven girls. No thanks. Here’s a preview to show you all the girls, and their boobs.
Overall Tuesday Thoughts: A day of pure bliss, of nothing, a day to catch up, and do non-anime stuff! Just like last season.
Wednesday:
Parasyte / Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu – Many of the bloggers I speak with are massively hyped about this series, and I won’t lie and say it had no effect on me, but the reasons I care for this myself is because it seems to combine what I liked about Tokyo Ghoul and Ping Pong, of all combinations. Parasyte is based on a manga that finished its run in 1995. Although there’s also a live-action film coming out, it means that the series will be “complete”, with no cliffhanger or original ending finale, and that it’s probably not churned out as an advert to a still-running series. The other bit is that although horror rarely works well in anime, I’m still interested in it, and seeing someone have to deal with an “evil” side, but also coexist with an invading monstrous race that can’t be that monstrous? I’ve always been interested in that sort of premise.
Interest Rating: 2/3. I hear a lot of good stuff, and there’s a lot behind it that makes me hopeful, but I’m still wary because horror in anime is often… disappointing.
Airing Date: October 8th. Trailer.
Write-ups/Notes: It’s possible, if I find it meaty enough. I suspect small editorials will work better.
Hitsugi no Chaika S2 / Chaika the Coffin Princess S2. Officially “Avenging Battle” – As I said in my Spring 2014 season overview, this show was pleasant enough to get through, and it even had a recurring theme that was meaty and handled well and an actually interesting post-war setting. It’s a nice and light show with some good action, but it’s not terribly more than that, it really needed to step up its characters, and character-arcs, as it had 1.5 actual characters.
I commented that it truly felt like half a series, and that a lot of how I’ll think about the show as an entire thing would depend on the second half. I don’t have great expectations, but I’m ready to be pleasantly surprised.
Interest Rating: 1.5/3. Chaika occupies an interesting spot here, I have less hopes for it being great than new entries, but I’m relatively sure it won’t be crap.
Airing Date: October 8th
Write-ups/Notes: Though I wrote notes for most of the first season (see here for some of them), I doubt I’d take any for this season. There’s not enough to justify episodic write-ups, maybe. Trailer, made up almost entirely of season 1 footage.
Overall Wednesday Thoughts: Wednesday, the last day before the Thursday madness hits. Another day that seems comfortable. Will Parasyte amaze? I hope so, but since I am not actually invested in the manga, I’ll be fine even if it doesn’t. A comfortable day, unless Parasyte really delivers on hard-hitting themes.
Thursday:
PSYCHO-PASS 2nd Season – I know a lot of people are worried or disappointed that Urobuchi Gen who wrote the script for the first season was replaced by Kumagai Jun, who has a relatively unimpressive resume (Persona 4 the Animation, Hamatora? Eesh), but I’m going to watch this series for the same reason I’ve watched the original – actual serious science-fiction in a dystopian setting, discussing issues of humanity and morality? Yes please. Even if the original wasn’t perfect, it was still quite good.
I’ll have watched this even if it were an original first season. What it benefits from is already having an established world and cast that are interesting and developed. The downside is people might notice differences which will bug them. I’m going to hope for the best, and even at worst, it’d likely be better than most on offer.
Interest Rating: 2/3. This is the sort of series I want to see more of. How will it turn out? Probably interesting.
Airing Date: October 9th. Trailer.
Write-ups/Notes: I still want to get a piece on the original out, but it’s been too long since I watched it. Mini-pieces on this one are a possibility.
Gundam: G no Reconguista – I’ve never watched anything related to Gundam, aside from the endless Gundam clones Sunrise keeps pumping out (Buddy Complex, Valvrave, etc.). And while Gundam may be where all those tropes began, right now when we’re fully acquainted with said tropes it doesn’t amount to much, especially not with a new series. And still, since this is a bona-fide main Gundam work, I expect a lot of effort will actually go into this show to make it more than just a pale imitation of itself.
I do worry a bit that even though the show is aimed at newcomers to the franchise, we’re going to get swamped with franchise spoilers as people point out all the ways in which it relates to the rest of the franchise. Also, the art-style looks almost classic (aside from the CG), which is a nice touch.
Interest Rating: 2/3. Gundam, so many Gundam clones that range from great to incredibly boring, this is an actual Gundam, but it may yet fall. Also, my first Gundam!
Airing Date: October 2nd. Trailer.
Write-ups/Notes: Could be interesting to note my thoughts on this as a newcomer, but if I do any for Psycho-Pass, then that’d take too much effort.
Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso / April is Your Lie – A-1 churn out really pretty anime. This is the bet for the drama-melodrama anime of the season (except perhaps Sora no Method). Angsty teenagers, young romance, trying to find yourself, and your art, and the hardships of growing up. It’s a story we’ve all heard countless times, but there’s a reason we keep returning to it, because it resonates.
Interest Rating: 1.5/3. I may love it for the feels, or I will tire of the melodrama. This one’s a speculative pick.
Airing Date: October 9th. Trailer.
Write-ups/Notes: No, I suspect what I wrote for Nagi no Asukara’s episodes will stand in well for any would be “interpersonal drama” show for some time to come.
Didn’t Make it In:
Amagi Brilliant Park – KyoAni is going to work to make me trust them again. This one has the author apparently actually controlling the content, and apparently some good people are behind it, but the premise doesn’t really interest me, and three shows on Thursday are enough for me. Might give it a try if people say good things about it. Likelier after the season ends.
Shirobako – Girls making anime! It’s by P.A. Works so will likely look good, but their works had been mostly “miss” for me since Hanasaku Iroha back in 2011. It’s also listed as comedy. The only reason I’m mentioning this is since the director is Tsutomu Mizushima, who worked on Genshiken, Girls und Panzer, and a couple more, and series composition is done by Yokote Michiko who worked on Cowboy Bebop, Hikaru no Go, Genshiken and Mononoke. I’ll keep my ear to the ground about this one.
Ore, Twintails ni Narimasu. / I, Will Become a Twin Tail. – “This is so Light-Novel it’s not even funny.” – A boy with fetish for twintails is given the power to transform into a girl with twintails to fight alien invaders, aided by girls with twin-tails. I don’t care if it’s making fun of itself, enough is enough >.>
Denki-gai no Honya-san – Another moe slice of life meets comedy with people working in an office, hilarity ensues. I just think live action does this better.
Danna ga Nani wo Itteiru ka Wakaranai Ken – At first I was excited, a series actually having a married couple? Setup reminds me of Genshiken? But then I saw it’s going to be a 4-koma adaptation revolving around one joke, a normal wife married to an otaku.
Overall Thursday Thoughts: Oh Thursday, what a crazy day. That I’m only picking up three shows is a small miracle, especially as the top two picks in “Didn’t Make it In” actually interest me, but I’ve decided to cut back because I have too much on my plate as is. Three shows that could be meaty on my plate, and a lot of comedy and slice of life for everyone else. A mix of new and old.
Friday:
Garo: Honoo no Kokuin (Garo: The Carved Seal of Flames) – Garo is a live action tokusatsu franchise, meaning lots of special effects, power-rangers style stuff, and usually bad acting. The series many characters in anime go to festivals to observe, what we see in Samurai Flamenco, seem to fit. MAPPA, the studio behind Zankyou no Terror, which looked amazing will be behind this one. Apparently the story here is a pretty standard insane prince, quest for power, golden knight fantasy sort of deal. Will it be good? I really don’t know. Expect lots of over-the-top stuff.
Interest Rating: 1.5/3. Wary though, expectation level is lower. I’m checking this because it’s an existing franchise making the jump to anime, and I’m intrigued.
Airing Date: October 3rd. Preview.
Didn’t Make it In:
Terraformars – This one almost made it in. It helps it’s directed by Hamasaki Hiroshi, the director behind Texhnolyze and Steins;Gate. It’s also the sort of corny premise that I like, of a fight against the odds against humanoid cockroaches on Mars. It’s just that I don’t think the source material is actually going to be good. It’s going to be the show that manga readers will hype to high heavens, and then complain non-stop that the manga did it better. I might check it out after it ends. Tune in if you want b-movie action, shlocky non-horrror, and apparently racist undertones.
Interest Rating: 1/3. Almost. It’s just the sort of series I know I’d lose interest in 4-6 weeks in, if I watch it weekly.
Airing Date: September 26th, talk about soon. Two-part OVA which is apparently meh is already out. Trailer.
Overall Friday Thoughts: Honestly, there’s nothing on Friday I have much hopes for, but I can be pleasantly surprised. I am secretly hoping that like the first half, Mushishi 2nd season will actually air on Fridays. Otherwise, it’d be a good day to relax from Thursday, with some action, or with non-anime.
Saturday:
Avatar: The Legend of Korra Book 4: Balance – Season 3 ended a couple of weeks ago, it was great. Back to the joys of actually traveling the world, experiencing the culture, and meeting new people that made the original Avatar: the Last Airbender, so enjoyable, and its world feel so realized. And the ending, oof, it sure did come out of nowhere, but not in some grand way, but in a somber way. I can’t wait to keep watching, and I won’t have to wait long!
Hype Rating: 3/3. I haven’t been this excited for something since… why, since the last season of Korra, back in fall, and the third season was an improvement over what came before so I’m really excited.
Airing Date: October 3rd.
Write-ups/Notes: I know it’s not anime, but it’s my blog. And this is going to be better than most anime to air this season anyway, so suck it up.
Mushishi Zoku Shou 2nd Season (Mushishi 2nd part, 2nd season…) – More Mushishi! The original Mushishi was great, and so was the new season that aired back in Spring. Yes, some of the episodes felt weaker, some were scarier, and some were sublime. It’s still quite an experience, and most people who liked Mushishi, which I’ll hazard to say is made up of most people who’ve watched it, will be happy for more episodes of it.
Interest Rating: 3/3.
Airing Date: October 18th. This will likely be 10 episodes long. Hopefully it’d actually end up on Fridays, like the first half.
Sword Art Online Season 2 – This series is doing work. I’m not as emotionally attached to it as I was when I watched the first season, or indeed, when I’ve read the novels it is based on. Is it the series itself, or that I’m watching myself watching the series? Regardless, the story here is sound, and the delivery is mostly sound as well, and again, it’s doing a lot of work on actual characters and motivations. I’m eagerly awaiting the Mother’s Rosario arc, myself.
Current Rating: 7/10. I like it, but I don’t love it. It’s not perfect, but it’s doing solid work.
Airing Date: Currently airing.
Write-ups/Notes: I do write-ups now and then when an episode is especially interesting or brings up something I want to discuss. You can read those write-ups here.
Log Horizon Season 2 – I liked Log Horizon’s first season on the whole. It had enjoyable cast, a good atmosphere, and some actual politics. But being a day-time anime aimed at the whole family, you could clearly see they removed a lot of the political nuance and replaced it with “Next week we’ll reveal our true plan!” and there were some pacing issues throughout the series in several segments, where nothing happened, because the depth was removed to make it more palatable. Regardless, this show was worthwhile, it dealt with social issues, and issues of morality quite well, and the world-building and showing how a game’s rules work when adapted to “reality” was usually clever and even inspired.
I meant to go and read the novels, but then the second season was announced so I decided to wait. The people behind the series remain the same, but the studio changed from Satelight to DEEN. Another worry is that the first season covered 5 novels, and still had some padding. This season will have the same number of episodes (25), but only has two novels’ worth of content to cover. Will they cover the manga’s side-stories or come up with an anime-original finale? I’m not sure, but those are reasons to worry. Still, time spent with the characters from this show is actually enjoyable, so padding will not be the worst, just adjust your hopes accordingly.
Interest Rating: 1.75/3. Interest rating is actually higher, but expectation rating is lower, due to the reasons mentioned above.
Airing Date: October 4th.
Write-ups/Notes: You can see my notes for every single episode of the first season here. I’m moving away from episodic notes, and considering this season may be padded, I’m unsure whether I’ll write any.
Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works – I’ve watched the original Fate/Stay Night anime back around 2007. I thought it was fine. Everyone saying how it sucks these days is awfully anachronistic post-Fate/Zero crowd. I did also watch Fate/Zero, and didn’t actually care much for it; I think it could’ve easily been much better with better series composition. I’ve also watched the Unlimited Blade Works movie back in 2010. All this to say that I know a thing or two about the Fate-verse, and consumed considerable amounts of material related to it (and Fate/Kaleid, and some Kara no Kyoukai films). But, I can’t be called a Fate-fan. You see, the Fate fandom is incredibly hardcore and god awful, that even if I were to rate everything I’ve watched as 10/10, I wouldn’t be a real fan because I didn’t consume everything about it.
This series is gonna ride massive ways of hype, but it’s also going to have people jumping down your throat telling you how the original material, or another route did XYZ, constantly spoiling stuff, constantly spoiling your enjoyment. I’d love to be proven wrong, but this will be the same situation as with popular GrimDark anime, times billion. It doesn’t help that the source material is honestly not that strong. The director behind it only really directed the 6th Kara no Kyoukai film and a couple of Fate/Zero episodes, mostly working as an animator or animation director. This series will be beautiful, but for the most part it’s likely to be an action series that takes itself a tad too seriously. Taper your enthusiasm, and avoid reading or engaging with hardcore fans in discussions.
Interest Rating: 1.5/3. Soooo fucking wary.
Airing Date: October 4th, just follow the sounds of hype and wails of despair.
Cross Ange: Tenshi to Ryuu no Rondo / Rondo of Angels and Dragons – Someone on Twitter put it right, this show is the perfect posterchild of what NewType covers are like. Mecha versus dragons! Skimpy outfits that make absolutely zero sense, a princess who is sort of banished and has to protect the realm. It looks crazy, it looks fun, and it does indeed remind me of Mai-Otome, that was also such a “NewType cover” show. It just looks fun?
Interest Rating: 1.5/3. What could possibly go wrong? Well, either it’d be great, or pretty terribly mediocre.
Airing Date: October 4th. Trailer.
Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter / Sanzoku no Musume Ronja – Astrid Lindgren wrote my favourite children’s book, The Brothers Lionheart. Studio Ghibli is the studio credited with the main work on this series, though with Goro Miyazaki, rather than Hayao. But go and watch the trailer. I was fine with the full CG people in Sidonia, also done by Polygon, but seeing what are supposed to be more emotive faces, on Studio Ghibli’s lush backgrounds, with these twisted CGI faces? Also, the trailer really makes it seem like a pure children’s show – not that that’s bad (I super love Avatar: the Last Airbender and Princess Tutu, for instance), but the chances of it just not delivering rise up.
Still, this is Astrid Lindgren, and Studio Ghibli, and though I might regret it, I’m gonna watch it.
Interest Rating: 2/3. Hype Rating: 1/3.
Airing Date: October 11th. Trailer.
Didn’t Make it In:
Madan no Ou to Vanadis / King of the Magic Bullet and the Vanadis – Another medieval fantasy series. I like this sort of stuff, but after hearing it’s basically an excuse for an endless parade of scantly-clad women, and considering how stacked Saturday is, it was an easy drop.
Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete – Another VN/LN-style harem non-comedy, with one male lead and an endless amount of girls, supposedly about leaving our childhood behind. Yawn.
Overall Saturday Thoughts: Ah, Saturday. This day is so great, this day is so terrible. That’s seven shows I’m going to watch on this day, which are probably 2-3 more than I find comfortable. I still hold hope Mushishi will actually air on Friday nights, otherwise the only real hope for me is that I’m going to wake up to Korra (which airs on Friday-time for North America), and that Log Horizon and Ronia are “Day-time shows”, so there’d be several hours between them and the rest of the shows. Still, Saturday is incredibly packed, and I could feel a whole week’s worth of watching with it.
Overall Season Thoughts:
I do find myself agreeing with Guardian Enzo, recently-serialized manga adaptations are often little more than adverts, light-novel adaptations are pandering trash, and visual-novel adaptations just don’t work out in anime, for reasons covered in my Seitokai no Ichizon post, and the Nisekoi one. Original anime projects, once the hallmark of potential are increasingly “miss”, so what are we left with? Manga adaptations of completed or long-running series, and the rare novels. And yes, sequels to works that proved themselves, often manga adaptations.
I’m going to try 17 series. Of these, I’m extremely skeptical about three (World Trigger, Inou-Battle, and Ronia), of the remaining 14, there aren’t that many I’m actually excited for, and maybe it’d have been more sensible to only watch those, it’s not like I don’t have shows on my backlog, video games, books, and my real life to juggle. Which shows am I actively excited for? In order: Korra season 4, Mushishi S2 part 2, Psycho-Pass 2, Gundam Reconguista, Log Horizon 2, and Parasyte. Rounded up with the ongoing Akame ga Kill! and Sword Art Online II.
It’s not smart picking up shows only to drop them later, but that’s what I’m going to do once more. The goal is to get down to ~12 shows after three weeks or so. I’d like it to be down to 10, but continuing I’m actually watching 8 returning/continuing shows, that’s not meant to be. And that’s the other bit, this season is heavy on drama and romance. There’s a lot of 4-koma adaptations, a lot of popcorn action. But if you’re looking for more serious shows that aren’t melodrama romance, you’re basically stuck with returning shows, or Parasyte.
I see a lot this season that is likely to be good, but not a lot I’m terribly excited for, returning shows aside.
As for my desire to write less episodic notes, this season seems pretty good for that.
Which shows are you guys excited for? Anything you think will be terrible but can’t avoid checking out? Anything you’d like to see me cover in particular?
If you’d rather not comment, here’s a strawpoll for which shows you’d like to see me cover. No promises, please vote for up to three.Mother superior says nuns abducted from convent have been taken with three other women to town held by rebels
Opposition fighters have abducted 12 nuns from a predominantly Christian village near Damascus and taken them to a rebel-held town, the mother superior of a Syrian convent said on Tuesday.
Febronia Nabhan, Mother Superior at Saidnaya Convent, said that the nuns and three other women had been seized from another convent in the predominantly Christian village of Maaloula and taken to the nearby town of Yabroud on Monday.
On the same day, Syrian rebels had captured large parts of Maaloula, around 40 miles north-east of the capital, after three days of fighting.
The state news agency Sana reported on Monday that six nuns, including the Maaloula convent's mother superior Pelagia Sayaf, were trapped in the nunnery.
A tourist attraction before the civil war erupted in March 2011, some of Maaloula's residents still speak a version of Aramaic, a biblical language spoken by Jesus. In September, rebels seized parts of the town only to be driven out within a few days by government forces.
News of the kidnapping came as Syria's state TV reported that a suicide attacker detonated his explosive vest in an unspecified government institution in Damascus, killing four and wounding 17. The TV station gave no further details about the blast in the central Jisr Abyad neighbourhood.When I was in grad school, I faced near-constant financial problems. My income was barely adequate, and the variety of streams it came from meant that my access to the money I’d already earned was often delayed in unpredictable ways. My one advantage was a good credit rating. I had gotten my first credit card as an undergrad, and I used it sparingly and paid it in full nearly every month. After a semester abroad, I was carrying a balance, and I took out a small bank loan to pay it off. So I had drawn on a significant amount of credit and used it responsibly. I understand that not everyone starts from this point, so my strategies may be inapplicable for many people.
My goal was to keep my spending within the limits of my income and subsidized student loans. Like most grad students, I maintained a pretty austere lifestyle, but nonetheless there were times when I was forced to engage in deficit spending. My strategy for coping with the difficulties of financial management during these periods was based on three simple principles:
1. Think short-term: Long-term questions like how I was going to pay everything off were moot. The important thing was how I was going to keep meeting my immediate obligations until the next influx of cash came.
2. Favor liquidity: Given my access to credit, the only hard constraint was the availability of cash (meaning money in my checking account). If given a choice between going further into debt or making a cash payment that would quickly put me at risk of not being able to meet another cash obligation, I always chose going further into debt.
3. Preserve the credit rating: This meant always paying every bill by whatever means necessary. If I missed a single payment, that could lead to a decline in my credit-worthiness, leading to higher minimum payments and a decline in liquidity that could further endanger my ability to meet my ongoing obligations.
To make this strategy work, I maintained at least three credit cards at all times. My intention was to have one credit card as my "rolling account," which I would pay off every month. Most of the time, this actually happened. The other two gave me room to bounce money back and forth. I absolutely refused to ever have a debit card for a variety of reasons. First, if the credit card company was willing to give me a free loan every month for my day-to-day purchases, why not take it? Second, if I did wind up carrying a balance, the consequences were likely to be less expensive than if I overdrew my checking account (fees and penalties were at their pre-crisis peak). Finally, if someone stole my debit card, that gave them access to my actual money — and even if I’d get that back, any serious disruption to my liquidity could have very negative consequences.
At times, I would not be able to pay the full amount of my "rolling account," and so I would do a balance transfer. This actually helped my short-term liquidity because the balance transfer satisfied the need to pay that account for that particular month. I always timed my balance transfers to take advantage of the ability to “skip” a payment out of my checking account. Balance transfers do normally carry a fee, but the priority under the emergency circumstances of grad school is not to minimize your debt load, but to maintain your ability to keep rolling over your debt on favorable terms. Making sure to keep rolling over balance transfers with new offers does have the long-term benefit of minimizing your interest payments, but in the short term, it also reduces your minimum payment, hence helping the all-important liquidity. If your card has cash-back rewards, it helps to stockpile these so that you can get a free minimum payment out of it every once in a while.
Informal credit can be helpful, too. Periodically paying for group outings on your card and taking cash can reduce the need for ATM withdrawals for cash-only settings, maximizing the amount of money available in your checking account. Having a roommate with a more stable financial situation can also help if he’s willing to let you delay paying your portion of the rent until that next check comes in (thanks, Mike!). I always avoided taking direct loans from friends and family members, however, because I knew I would never actually pay it back, at least not within a reasonable amount of time. Between the stress of being indebted to an evil bank and the stress of letting my financial situation ruin an important personal relationship, I always went with the former.
For this system, it helps to be as anal-retentive as possible. I always paid my minimum payments for my credit cards within a day or two of receiving my statement, just to be safe. I set up as many other bills to charge my credit card automatically as possible. I also kept up the seemingly antiquated discipline of maintaining a written check register, which allowed me to keep better track of where funds had already been committed. People sometimes make fun of me for doing this, but one benefit is that I’ve literally never overdrawn my checking account at any point in my entire life. Given how badly the downward spiral of overdrawing your account can become, that’s hugely important.
Now that I’ve gotten a job, I’m on pace to pay off my credit card debt over a period equal to how long I was in grad school — meaning that it was essentially "income smoothing" on a very long time frame. My student loans are excessive, but I can still pay them off within the normal 10-year period without living in abject poverty. And this has all been possible even though my salary at both places I’ve worked has been far below average. So I think that this strategy, though stressful and far from ideal, has turned out basically successfully for me.
I can anticipate two objections. The first comes from people's justifiable fear of credit cards. Being overwhelmed with credit card debts seems to many people like the worst possible financial outcome, and so they might suggest that I should have relied more on student loans. I believe this would not have been desirable for two reasons, one short-term and one long-term.
First, student loans take time — you need to request the disbursement, wait for the institution to cut a check, go deposit it.... Credit cards are much more flexible and instantaneous. To me, it was meaningful to get the problem definitively solved right now rather than spending a few days worrying about when the check would be available. Second, in the worst-case scenario, credit card debt is dischargeable through bankruptcy. One does have to balance that against the interest rates for each type of debt, but my credit rating gave me access to very favorable rates through balance transfers, so that both my student loans and my long-term credit card debt carry similar rates overall. For me, then, the choice between taking on further (unsubsidized) student loan debt and further credit card debt was obvious.
The second is that I simply should have worked more to avoid going into debt. To some extent, I concede that this is true. Most of my periods of unemployment were involuntary, however, and in any case, there can be a trade-off between avoiding debt and finishing more quickly. The cost of grad school is not just the direct cost, but the opportunity cost of going without a full-time salary. Every year that you go without finishing is a year that you've foregone potentially tens of thousands of dollars, even for a visiting position. In that context, taking on a job that might significantly slow your progress, all to avoid a few thousand dollars of debt, seems very shortsighted.
Obviously not everyone winds up with a full-time position, and an extended job search can sometimes result in a Ph.D. going "stale." Locking yourself into a low-income trap indefinitely in the hopes of somehow gaming the system and choosing just the right time to go on the job market seems like a bad strategy, however— you're taking on a huge, known risk (hurting your long-term income prospects) for a vague and uncertain reward. Hence I conclude that the overriding priority, all things being equal, should be to finish, because that is your best chance of finding a real full-time job.
And if you don't find a job? Then that pushes forward the day that you can definitively give up and seek work outside of academe. I personally laid the groundwork for this in grad school, because I viewed adjunct teaching (rightly or wrongly) as a form of exploitation that more often |
to Master Chief's. America was facing the start of its "war on terror" and had just been through 9/11, while Superman became popular in the US after [the second world war]. I think young Americans needed a hero, a fantasy in which everything works out against all odds. Master Chief was in the right place at the wrong time.
I think the fact Xbox was American was a big factor in its ability to get a foothold in one of the main world games markets.
It's interesting to look back, though, and realise that it was far from a perfect launch. The game line-up was pretty poor – only Halo and Project Gotham really stood out. And Halo had no online multiplayer mode – it had to be set up via a LAN connection to allow 16 players to take part, with four machines running four-player splitscreen – a pretty obtuse set-up. When you were researching your history of the Xbox, did you find out why the machine didn't launch with Xbox Live? If online connectivity was part of the vision form the start, which Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer would have us believe, why didn't Xbox Live turn up until later in 2012?
It's important to remember that general broadband availability was in its infancy in 2002. There were only 700,000 households in the US with broadband in 2000, and predictions at the time of launch were that there would be 12.6m by 2006. There was no such thing as mass penetration; we were all using dial-up at home.
Xbox, in many ways, was a console ahead of its time, and banking exclusively on broadband was probably the greatest risk Microsoft took with the machine. Sega's Dreamcast came out in the west in 1999, but shipped with a dial-up modem as broadband was seen as a future technology. Microsoft refused to use anything other than broadband for Xbox, though, as the vision for Live was a system that allowed downloadable patches, new maps and other pieces of content, voice communication and lag-free action gaming in intense real-time genres such as first-person shooting. Gates was a hugely believer in the internet – Microsoft still is, obviously – and Xbox essentially shipped with an online component that very few people could actually use as a result.
I didn't specifically ask why Live launched after the console itself, but I'm going to assume it wasn't ready. The entire Xbox development period was a horrific crunch for Microsoft, and I'd guess someone just took the call to move Live into "phase two" as broadband penetration wasn't extensive.
Halo was originally intended to be a PC and Mac title, with large teams of players on each side, but Microsoft bought Bungie specifically for the game in the run-in to Xbox's launch. The first Halo as it appeared on Xbox was never designed for online play as Live didn't even exist. I think the simple answer would be that Gates and Ballmer were totally commited to broadband gaming with Xbox, and that was the reason Halo launched without full online play.
Halo Xbox
Microsoft released a 10-year anniversary edition of Halo towards the end of 2011 that featured online competitive play and online co-op for the first time, which was a big deal. Halo was the first shooter I ever played cooperatively, and I know for many fans it was a real dream to be able to play it online with friends using voice comms. The original game was only playable via LAN or split-screen, as you say.
What do you think were the other key games for the console though? I guess it was Project Gotham, Splinter Cell, Knights of the Old Republic. But did any third-party publishers really exploit the hardware fully? The 233 MHz NVidia GPU and Intel Pentium III CPU were technically in advance of the PS2, but it just felt a lot of the time that publishers were doing as little as they could in the conversion process.
I think a lot of developers and publishers aimed for the lower PS2 specs when they developed cross-platform titles. Xbox didn't really get going as a truly competitive entity until Xbox 360, I'd argue.
That doesn't mean people didn't produce good content for Xbox, though. Splinter Cell's a great example of how a publisher was able to create something technically exceptional by focusing on the increased Xbox specs. I remember seeing it for the first time at E3 with a colleague who was big on PC games, and the sight of Sam Fisher crawling down a vent with a rotating fan causing real-time shadows on his back was enough to make him buy an Xbox. PS2 couldn't handle anything like it.
But yes, I'm sure companies were putting games onto Xbox as an afterthought to PS2. I worked on an Xbox magazine at the time, and sometimes it was tough to fill the pages. There just weren't that many games compared to PS2. To my mind, though, the third-party games that made a mark through exploiting the extra grunt were BioWare's Knights of the Old Republic; Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive 3; Ubisoft's Splinter Cell; Starbreeze's The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay; and Namco's Soul Calibur 2, which was, amazingly, at 720p. I'm sure there were more, but those are the ones that spring to mind and using Xbox's technical specs to good effect.
Being on an Xbox mag, do you feel the console really had an identity through its games at that time? A few years before, I was on a Dreamcast mag, and its big games – Sonic, Jet Set Radio, Chu Chu Rocket – were unmistakably Sega. I think in its early days, Xbox suffered from the same problem as the 3DO – it lacked those first-party and second-party relationships that Sega, Nintendo and Sony all achieved. In the end, does Xbox have a legacy of its own, apart from Xbox 360?
I think it struggled, especially with third-party content, but it certainly does have a legacy and it did have a distinct feel at the time. Xbox was for grown ups, for early adopters willing to pay for the best visuals and hardware. Halo and Project Gotham Racing are indicative of Xbox's essence. The first-party content really made it.
There was also a large mod scene around the hardware itself, which never really appeared around PS2. Dreamcast had it to an extent, but because of Xbox's hard drive and relatively open systems it could be converted with new user-made dashboards to create a powerful media centre, and it had loads of emulators. You could play Mario Kart on an Xbox if you knew how. Xbox felt quite underground to us when we worked on the magazine. We ran articles about BIOS flashing and other community modding topics you didn't really find on the Japanese machines.
Even in the early days, there was a lot of power in the brand. We paid for one guy to get an Xbox tattoo in one issue; he had the logo put on his arm. He was a fully paid up member of the multiplayer community, and just lived for it. Xbox's legacy was all about bringing console community to the west, I think. There were some key games, but I definitely look on those years with rose-tinted specs thanks to the sheer daftness of it all.
• Microsoft has released its own timeline of Xbox history
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Mixed in with the rent-a-rioters who stormed the New Orleans City Council meeting over public housing were a few homegrown thugs who refuse to be weaned from the public teat without a finger-pointing, racial epithet-hurling fight.
Case in point: That angry lady in the BDS shirt shouting “I will not be treated like a slave!” and “Back up and Shut up! Shut up, white boy! Shut up, white boy!” at a citizen attending the council hearing. Watch closely and note that there is a child behind her being subjected to her diatribe against the man. She’s your tax dollars at work:
Uploaded by dollarsandsense123
Nice propaganda job by the photo caption writer, who whitewashed the angry racist rant. They were just, you know, “talking to” a man…at the top of their lungs:
So, does she look familiar? This Sharon Jasper is the same Sharon Jasper profiled in the New Orleans Times-Picayune sulking in her government-subsidized apartment with hardwood floors and HUGEtastic flat-screen television and complaining that it’s a “slum:”
Jasper moaned:
Sharon Jasper, a former St. Bernard complex resident presented by activists Tuesday as a victim of changing public housing policies, took a moment before the start of the City Hall protest to complain about her subsidized private apartment, which she called a “slum.” A HANO voucher covers her rent on a unit in an old Faubourg St. John home, but she said she faced several hundred dollars in deposit charges and now faces a steep utility bill.
Heaven forbid The Man expect her to pay her own damned security deposits and utility bills like the rest of us!
Sell the behemoth TV, for crying out loud.
More:
“I’m tired of the slum landlords, and I’m tired of the slum houses,” she said. Pointing across the street to an encampment of homeless people at Duncan Plaza, Jasper said, “I might do better out here with one of these tents.” Jasper, who later allowed a photographer to tour the subsidized apartment, also complained about missing window screens, a slow leak in a sink, a warped back door and a few other details of a residence that otherwise appeared to have been recently renovated.
Well, if “slums” come with TVs the size of my car, where can I sign up?
***
I’d ask the reporter who toured Jasper’s government-subsidized apartment if he saw what kind of car(s) she had (any SUVs? Suburbans? huge pick-up trucks?)–but then I’d be accused of, you know, “stalking.”
***
Go to The Mighty Favog’s blog here and here for great takedowns of this monstrous ingrate. More blogger reax here. And more from Rod Dreher.
Beth at My VWRC points out that Jasper “isn’t just some random ‘victim’ picked off the streets by activists. She IS an activist herself, according to none other than the New Orleans Labor Media Project, which is very much a part of the protests.”
Jasper is fighting back. She spearheads a tenant association that is working with the AFL-CIO’s Gulf Coast Revitalization Program to convince local authorities to rehabilitate rather than annihilate public housing stock. “We, the poor working class, are the people who helped build this city,” Jasper says, jabbing her finger into the air, as if she were about to pull down the menacing barbed wire barrier. “We have a right to return.”
“Working?” Laura at Pursuing Holiness notes that Jasper has admitted to being on the dole for 57 out of her 58 years.
“Right to return?” Taxpayers have a right to tell their government to return their hard-earned money being squandered by race-hustling grievance-mongers like the loud-mouthed TV lady. She should turn her jabbing finger towards herself and follow her own advice:
Shut up.
***
Louisiana’s GOP Governor-elect Bobby Jindal takes office Jan. 14. And not a minute too soon.A Terrier Oriole projectile was shot down by NATO warships off the coast of Scotland.
Terrier Oriole is an unguided two-stage rocket system which is used to test ballistic missile defence systems, under the name ARAV-B. The rocket was launched from a Scottish island and has been detected and destroyed by NATO warships.
Exercise Formidable Shield brought together eight NATO countries in the Outer Hebrides to test integrated air and missile defence capabilities through a series of live missile firings and demonstrations.
The exercise culminated with the launch of a Terrier Oriole ballistic missile target to simulate a medium-range ballistic missile, marking the largest and highest object launched into space from UK soil reaching an altitude of 320kms. To enable this firing to be conducted safely, QinetiQ put in place an air exclusion zone of 1.1m sq kms, approximately twice the size of Spain.
The United Kingdom hosted the event at its Hebrides Missile Test Range in Scotland.
During the demonstration, the vessels defended against simultaneous anti-ship and ballistic missile threats originating from multiple locations. The countries had to pass information over a total of 5.7 million square miles using a variety of platforms from different countries to identify, track and engage the threats.
During ex #FormidableShield USS Donald Cook fired a Standard Missile-3 Block IB and shot down a ballistic missile target yesterday pic.twitter.com/dx1VcC6Ofl — NavyLookout (@NavyLookout) October 16, 2017
The fleet fired more than 26 missiles, including the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile and the SM-3 in the US inventory and the Aster-30 missile used by France, Italy and the United Kingdom.The Obama Administration’s Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against ISIS has been losing momentum for awhile. Today, during House Armed Services testimony with top administration officials, the matter was barely discussed.
Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry (R – TX) says he believes the lack of talk about the AUMF is a sign that even the administration is “kind of moving beyond that” facing lack of support.
Legally speaking, a war authorization was supposed to come within 90 days of the war’s beginning, though the administration didn’t even offer a proposal until months later.
The bill was described by the White House as deliberately vague to give the president the ability to unilaterally do as he wishes. That cost him a lot of support from skeptics who wanted a AUMF with real limits, while hawks were still unhappy that the vague bill didn’t spell out how big the war would be.
In the Senate it seems like that bill may never get out of committee, and the comments from the House suggest they aren’t faring any better there. Either way, the war is likely to continue unauthorized.
Last 5 posts by Jason DitzNEW ORLEANS —In the span of 11 months, Perrish Cox went from the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison to the reality of playing this Sunday in the Super Bowl.
Upon hearing the argument presented by attorney Harvey Steinberg, a Douglas County jury ruled March 2, 2012 that Cox was not guilty of two felony sexual-assault charges.
“My life has done a 180 since that day,” Cox said Tuesday during Super Bowl Media Day at the Superdome. “When I woke up that day, I had no future plans. My job was football, but that was on hold. But since that day, it’s been step by step and a total blessing that I wound up where I am today.”
Cox is here as a reserve defensive back for the NFC-champion San Francisco 49ers. He also plays on most special teams. He had been a nine-game rookie starter for the Broncos in 2010, but his off-field legal troubles temporarily cost him his on-field job.
They also led to a sensational trial in which Demaryius Thomas went from Broncos star receiver to a star witness. Although Cox was cleared in a criminal court, the accuser has filed a civil complaint against Cox and Thomas.
“It’s still pending, but I’m not thinking about that,” Cox said. “Being here from where I was, it speaks for itself. My long-held dream was to make it here. I’m here.”
Cox was released by the Broncos before the 2011 season after a rough performance in the final preseason game at Arizona.
“Just by the feel of the way everything was going, I actually thought I was going to get released before then,” Cox said while wearing his 49ers’ No. 20 jersey. “If I had kind of a sluggish practice (in training camp), which I would have because I was learning a new position (of nickel back), I would come in and their attitude was “Clear your mind.” I would say, “Hey, nothing’s bothering me.’
“I still talked to some of them dudes. Champ (Bailey) is my brother. I felt bad leaving them.”
After he was exonerated, Cox wasn’t an unemployed NFL player for long. He was brought to San Francisco, where he met personally with 49ers general manager Trent Baalke, head coach Jim Harbaugh, defensive coordinator Vic Fangio and defensive backs coach Ed Donatell, who was a Broncos assistant coach during Cox’s rookie season.
“They said everybody has their bumps and bruises, it’s just how you overcome it.” Cox said. “From that day, nobody brought anything up about it, and they treated me like a brother and brought me in.”
Footnotes. Darcel McBath was part of the Broncos’ “strike three” second round in the 2009 draft, but he is now a standout special-teams player for the 49ers. The Broncos made second-round selections of Alphonso Smith, McBath and Richard Quinn in 2009. All were gone with “bust” labels by 2011.
“It doesn’t bother me,” McBath said. “People will say what they want. I know what kind of player I am, the player I’m going to be. I’m going to just keep working.” … Baltimore cornerback Jimmy Smith has battled multiple injuries in the two years since he was a first-round pick out of Colorado. Former Buffs offensive tackle Nate Solder also was a first-round pick of the New England Patriots, who lost in the Super Bowl last year. “We went to one bowl in Colorado,” Smith said. “But now we each have gone to the best bowl.”
Mike Klis: 303-954-1055, mklis@denverpost.com or twitter.com/mikeklisDo I need a permit?
Drones are currently regulated by the UK's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and split up into three different weight categories: 20kg or less, 20kg to 150kg, and above 150kg. For the lightest tier, you don't need a certificate or permit to start flying your drone. The only exception is for "aerial work," which refers to any flights where you (the pilot) is paid.
If your drone weighs 20kg or more, you'll need a permit from the CAA first. However, most hobbyist consumer drones -- be they toys or serious enthusiast models -- are significantly lighter than this, so even if you're attaching heavy camera gear you're unlikely to hit this higher weight bracket. To give just a few examples:
DJI S1000+: 4.4kg
DJI Phantom 2 Vision+: 1.2kg
Parrot AR Drone 2.0: 0.4kg
Blade 350 QX2: 1kg
Where can I fly my drone?
For all of these lighter drones, the CAA has outlined a few scenarios where it's not acceptable to take to the air. Some are fairly niche, while others are just plain obvious, but it's worth knowing about them so you're never caught red-faced by the authorities:
You can't fly your drone recklessly. Or negligently, or in any way that might endanger a person or property. It might sound obvious, but it's worth bearing in mind when you hand the controls over to your less-than-trustworthy housemate in the back garden. Any reckless, malicious or negligent flying could also break a number of traditional criminal offences normally handled by the police. Depending on the infringement, officers have the power to arrest you, or seize your drone as evidence and possibly prosecution. The Metropolitan Police, for instance, works alongside the CAA to tackle drone misuse.
You can't drop anything from your drone that might put someone in danger. So maybe hold back on those flyby water bombs. You should only fly a drone if there's a reasonable expectation the flight can be completed safely. Again, this might sound obvious, but it means being realistic about what's possible, especially in regards to your own flying skills.
You have to keep direct, unaided visual contact with your drone at all times. The CAA prescribes this as up to 400 feet (122 metres) vertically and 500 metres horizontally. Otherwise, you might not have the ability to avoid potential collisions. To go beyond these distances, you'll first need approval from the CAA. This requirement also rules out drone deliveries, at least until adequate 'detect and avoid' systems are approved in the UK.
The CAA has, however, published a small exemption for drone pilots using First Person View (FPV) systems. The extra guidance means that you don't need to keep direct, unaided visual contact at all times, provided you have someone else with you that can. Your drone must also weigh less than 3.5kg and you can't fly it higher than 1,000 feet (305 metres) from the ground. In addition, the rules set out below in our "What about if I'm filming" section then also apply, whether or not your drone has a camera on board.
You can't fly a drone in restricted airspace. Or near an Aerodrome Traffic Zone (ATZ), unless you've been given permission beforehand. If you're in a quiet, secluded space this probably won't be a problem, but if you're ever unsure it's always best to ask first.
What about if I'm filming?
If you're planning to fly your drone for filming or photography purposes, the CAA has some additional rules that you need to comply with:
For take-off and landing, your drone can't be closer than 30 metres to another person. This rule doesn't apply to you (the pilot) and anyone under your control -- in short, this exempts people that are aware of what you're doing and will listen to instructions.
While in the air, you can't fly your drone within 50 metres of another person, vehicle or structure that's not under your control. That's a considerable distance to maintain-- roughly five double-decker buses parked one in front of the other.
You can't fly within 150 metres of a congested area or a large group (1,000+) of people. This includes music concerts, festivals and large sporting events, as well as densely populated urban areas. Simply flying high isn't an option either -- as we mentioned earlier, your drone can't be higher than 400 feet (122 metres) from the ground at all times.
How about privacy laws?
If you're capturing videos or photos with your drone, those images will likely fall under the UK's Data Protection Act (DPA). The legislation includes a list of principles that apply to any collection of personal information, including drone footage. Unfortunately, none of them refer to UAVs directly, so working out what's applicable can be tricky. To help you out, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has published some tips to help you stay on the right side of the law and respect people's privacy. Here are the most important ones:
While filming, be honest and fair with people. It's a fairly broad principle of the DPA, but essentially it means you need to be up front with anyone who might appear in your shots. Wherever possible, you should notify bystanders before you start recording, especially if they're going to be identifiable in the final footage. It's not always easy to alert people though, so you might want to consider some kind of special clothing (the equivalent of a press badge or hi-vis jacket) or signage if you're shooting in a specific area.
Think about where you're shooting and the capabilities of your camera. If you're hovering in someone's back garden with a huge zoom lens, you're asking for trouble.
You should be able to switch your drone's camera on and off remotely. This means you'll be less likely to capture someone by mistake who doesn't want to appear in your video or photos. Doing so will also minimise the amount of data you need to keep secure.
Any data you collect needs to be stored safely. The images and videos you shoot are your responsibility, so the ICO recommends using encryption to keep them secure. Likewise, if you don't need the footage any more, it's best to just delete it.
The DPA also includes an exemption (section 32) for journalism, literary and artistic works. It's not a blanket protection, however, and comes with some additional criteria -- the footage must be intended for publication and be in the public interest, for instance. You must also "reasonably believe" that the very nature of your work makes it "incompatible" with the rules set out in the DPA. If someone were to ever file a case against you (a worst case scenario, of course) the ICO would judge your eligibility for themselves.
Want to know more?
To review the CAA's guidance for yourself, there are two documents you should check out: CAP 722, which outlines some basic guidance for using drones in the UK, and CAP 393, which covers the Air Navigation Order (ANO) 2009. For the latter, your starting point is Article 253 -- subsection three will direct you to the additional articles which apply to drones. For the DPA, this beginner's guide by the ICO is a good starting point, before moving on to the CCTV Code of Practice (page 29, section 7.3).
Otherwise, it's a matter of flying sensibly. The regulations in the UK are actually quite light, but if you're flying recklessly or disrespecting people's privacy, you'll no doubt find yourself in trouble sooner or later. Of course, if you're ever unsure about a particular place or the rules regarding both drone usage and filming -- it's always best to ask someone first.
[Image credits; Lima Pix, Flickr (header image), Andrew Turner, Flickr (first image in main body) Stefan Schubert, Flickr (second image in main body) Don Mcullough, Flickr (third image in main body) Gabriel Garcia Marengo, Flickr (final image in main body)]Workers walk outside the London Stock Exchange October 16, 2008. REUTERS/Andrew Winning
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Women might be on a more even footing at work but at home their careers tend to take a backseat to their husband’s job with women most likely to quit when both are working long hours, according to a U.S. study.
Researcher Youngjoo Cha, from Cornell University, found that working women with a husband who worked 50 hours or more a week found themselves still doing most of the housework and the care giving and were more likely to end up quitting their job.
An analysis of 8,484 professional workers and 17,648 nonprofessionals from dual-earner families showed that if women had a husband who worked 60 hours or more per week it increased the woman’s odds of quitting her paid job by 42 percent.
Cha said the odds of quitting increased to 51 percent for professional women whose husbands work 60 hours or more per week, and for professional mothers the odds they would quit their jobs jumped 112 percent.
However, it did not significantly affect a man’s odds of quitting his job if his wife worked 60 hours or more per week, according to the study published in the American Sociological Review in April.
For professional men, both parents and non-parents, the effects of a wife working long hours were negligible, according to the study called “Reinforcing Separate Spheres: The Effect of Spousal Overwork on Men’s and Women’s Employment in Dual-Earner Households.”
“As long work-hours introduce conflict between work and family into many dual-earner families, couples often resolve conflict in ways that prioritize husbands’ careers,” Cha, who used data from the U.S. Census Bureau, said in a statement.
“This effect is magnified among workers in professional and managerial occupations, where the norm of overwork and the culture of intensive parenting tend to be strongest. The findings suggest that the prevalence of overwork may lead many dual-earner couples to return to a separate spheres arrangement — breadwinning men and homemaking women.”Yes, you’ve read correctly. Many of the much awaited exclusives are now finally starting to be emulated by RPCS3. In this blog post, you’ll learn which games we know to have improved and how we’ve done it.
But first, check out this awesome teaser:
Table of Contents
SPU Improvements by Jarves
There were two main changes to the SPU emulation that brought us to this point of allowing so many newer titles to progress past ‘Intro.’ Let’s take a quick look at both individually.
SPU Interrupt Fix
Many titles in RPCS3 ‘hang’, but in the case of the titles mentioned above, they do not actually crash, and the fps counter would still change with just a black screen. This normally would be mistaken for RPCS3 just being slow and the game taking a bit to load, but opening up the debugger in RPCS3 tells a different story. The games would loop over the same code on both the PPU side and SPU side. In this case, they are waiting on something, but what?
‘The Last of Us’. More like – ‘The Last Loop That Will Ever Execute’
Moving the PC to address 0 of an SPU thread explains more. Most games will have just 0 (null) written there, but some actually have a branch there.
This small group of branches has a big impact on what happens on the SPU
SPU MFC Queue Stall Fix
See, the only reason there would be code there is because the game relies on what’s called an Interrupt. Basically what happens, is, when certain conditions are detected behind the scene of the SPU, the SPU abandons the current executing code and instead jumps to location 0 and executescode instead. So what sweeping changes were needed to support this? Well, none really, as I found out, most of the code was already in the emulator as is. In fact, the main issue was the internal check to make the jump happen in RPCS3 was wrong. A small, but welcome change nonetheless! But then I found that there was a bit more to this story after finding this.
This commit first requires a quick tutorial on how the Cell processor actually works:
For design reasons relating to performance and speed (explaining this more could be a blog post on its own!), the SPU, unlike the PPU core, doesn’t actually have direct access to main memory, and instead each core has their own tiny 256kb of Local Storage (LS) memory. In order for the SPU to access main memory, and get data in and out of their respective LS, memory transfers are ‘queued’ to what’s known as the Memory Flow Controller (MFC). The MFC is then responsible for the actual copying and transfer of memory. On top of that, there are multiple different types of transfers and the MFC can not only choose to execute transfers out-of-order, the SPU can request certain transfers are held, forcing something that would normally be in-order, to not be.
That last statement from above is key; the emulation of the MFC in RPCS3 has only ever supported in-order executing. Up until these new titles started booting did we finally see SPU code actually request a transfer be held, or stalled, so there was never a reason to change or implement it. I’ve not only fixed the emulation of MFC so it stalled, or held, certain requests by the SPU, I also added out-of-order execution when encountering these special transfer requests. This ended up bringing a slightly more accurate MFC emulation, along with killing some random crashes in these new titles.
After these needed SPU changes were made to get games booting, kd-11 tackled some of the graphic issues in them.
RSX Improvements by kd-11
It has been an exciting month since it was decided earlier on to finally present the SPU improvements code by Jarves. While this means that more games successfully boot, it also means rpcs3 graphics back-end is exposed to games utilizing more advanced techniques and new bugs were inevitably going to get introduced.
Before, I tackled any new games that would be bootable, I decided to take a look at games that were already relatively stable that presented similar looking bugs based on early game screenshots of God of War 3. It is usually a lot easier to debug a game that boots successfully since you can make progress a lot faster if the code doesn’t randomly crash every few seconds. For this task, I decided to look into Dark Souls 2 which had multiple problems from tone-mapping to depth precision.
1. Dark Souls 2
Earlier in the month, hcorion fixed a mouse bug that was keeping Dark Souls 2 from booting. The game was relatively stable but had graphical artifacts that I identified as being related to the HDR pipeline.
After pouring through traces for a few days, it became apparent that some instruction to clamp negative values was missing. Searching for this led nowhere until I found that instructions in the target shader differed very slightly with those from other shaders in that 3 extra unused bits were being manipulated. Quick tests showed that these bits could add extra precision and clamping modifiers and implementing this into the emulator fixed the random bright spots.
The next challenge was the missing shadows. Looking through the traces showed that a color texture was being bound for use instead of a depth texture which made no sense. It was then when I discovered there was a problem with render target address aliasing. It is not possible to determine via addresses or MRT configuration if a memory block will be used for depth or color if set to both. It is also valid to do so on the PS3. The value to be written is determined by other settings such as depth test status or color write mask. After tuning the checks to only always allow one type of target to exist, shadows were working, but flames and collectibles were visible through walls.
Looking through again showed the game was writing to addresses as color buffers in RGBA then binding the memory as the depth buffer. This is allowed since its all just bits to the RSX. This prompted the creation of an overlay pass system to handle data casts between incompatible types such as color to depth. With the depth working properly it was time to fix the final issue – depth was not working correctly. In fact it looked as though only 8 bits of precision were available which is very poor.
I recognized this error from previous work handling data casts between depth textures and RGBA color and it was reported in other titles such as God of War collection and Castlevania: LOS2. The issue came down to respecting texture channel swizzles where the components are shuffled around during readback. After setting this up, Dark Souls 2 was more or less looking great.
2. God of War: HD Collection
As a consequence of properly fixing the depth casting/interpretation as RGBA color, games like God of War Collection also got partially fixed and I embarked to fix the remaining glitches.
The major issue with flickering around some objects like flames or the blades of chaos were fixed by fixing the depth, but shadows were not working on OpenGL. Quick testing showed that face winding on OpenGL was broken and was promptly fixed.
God of War I: Before vs. After
3. Demon’s Souls and Vulkan ZCull
This took a few days to implement and tune for accuracy and it works very well, albeit a little slow and very demanding on system resources. Tuning in the near future will fix that issue as well. This finally resolved the “sun shining indoors” bug when playing Demon’s Souls using Vulkan.
Other fixes applied to Dark Souls 2 such as implementing precision modifiers also fixed the last remaining visual bugs on the game such as the Valley of Defilement being overly bright to the point where geometry can be seen popping into view and also the dark tone on the character creation and profile loading screens.
Demon’s Souls: Before vs. After
4. Uncharted
Testers had reportedly gotten Uncharted 1 to boot as well as its demo. There were many problems with it, including spamming the infamous “Texture upload requested but texture not found” error as well as broken HDR pipeline and misaligned screen-space effects. Luckily this one was not too difficult since most of the work was already done when investigating Dark Souls 2. A few texture cache fixes later and the game was graphically okay, with the exception of broken shadows, but that could wait since there were more pressing issues.
5. Ratchet & Clank
Ratchet & Clank HD I, II, III and IV games were also booting with the SPU fixes, but there was a minor problem where there was no display output.
To be more accurate, sampled clamped edge artifacts were all over the screen meaning that a texture was accessed outside its boundary in the vertical axis. The issue came down to a bad interpretation of the s1 data type when inserted via immediate commands.
Another issue was missing loading screens which were fixed by aligning data writes in the float3 format to 16 bytes (essentially float4 configuration).
Ratchet & Clank I, II, III HD games and Ratchet: Deadlocked/Gladiator rendered Intros, Menus and Ingame like this
6. God of War 3
This one hit the existing RSX emulation pipeline hard and highlighted so many bugs. First was to get bugs related to texture readback (Write Color Buffers) out of the way. With this fixed, nothing improved, but investigations led to the reimplementation of the pack and unpack fragment shader instructions.
This game uses a lot of tricks to achieve scaling on floating point textures which was not possible natively on DX9-class hardware. This requires packing bits into 8 bit values, writing to RGBA8, scaling down, then reconstructing the floating point textures again, averaging, then the cycle repeats until the proper value is written to the final 1×1 target. This still does not fix the final problem with the game which is that it exploits register aliasing, which is difficult to implement. As such, brightness calibration is still off.
On the PS3, one 128-bit register can hold 8 half-floats or 4 full single precision floats. Writing to a half value will modify some bits in the float value that occupies the same memory region.
Fixes for this will be coming soon to rpcs3 once the implementation is ready.
God of War 3 Demo: Before and After first batch of fixes
List of known Improved Games
Note: This is far from being a complete list of improved games. There are surely many other games that also improved from the aforementioned changes. Obviously, there’s no way for us to test even half of the huge library that is the PS3’s. It’s up to you to retest your games and find out |
found him sadly, most of the people were two bit conmen and life insurance fraudsters. The motivations for women are usually different, they want to escape a violent partner. And I think those people have more incentive to really stay gone rather than the average person pulling off life insurance fraud.
It seems like one big pro to the internet with disappearing is you can use it for misdirection.
Frank [Ahearn] calls that creating disinformation. He creates false leads, like having someone run a credit report suggesting that you’re looking for apartments in Chicago, when really you’re doing so through an anonymous LLC in Oregon. It’s really manipulating the digital footprint.
What else makes it easier?
Well, beyond these kinds of conveniences, anything that promises to make you anonymous online and is foolproof is obsolete within moments. Avoiding the internet is probably the way to go. You don’t have to have a smartphone; you don’t have to be online.
But it seems like a lot people can’t stay away from it.
People have done stupid things like Googling themselves. Like Patrick McDermott staged a drowning. McDermott was pretty high profile, he dated Olivia Newton-John, he had years of back child support due. Investigators found him because he’d been logging onto a site dedicated to finding him and they just followed the trail directly to where he was. The impulse that we can use the internet to keep tabs on ourselves or outwit law enforcement is kind of misguided.
There was the guy who’d been emailing his plan to fake his death with his family, and deleted the emails from his inbox, but forgot to clean out his sent mail.
Yeah, Raymond Roth was trying to commit life insurance fraud [with his son in 2012], and staging a drowning, too. These are not criminal masterminds. He thought he’d deleted all traces [of scheming] but he forgot about that sent box. Wow, bummer.
The technology question is a big question; it’s what everyone wants to know about disappearing. Disappearing seems more impossible now than ever, because of the way we live, because of the NSA, because we have surrendered all our privacy willingly by having smartphones in our pockets that transmit wherever we are. We’re checking in on Foursquare. We’ve given it all away, which is why I think disappearing seems all that more compelling and romantic to most of us.
In your book, you found that a lot of the death fraud industry is in the Phillipines, but the process there for faking your death seems so old school—a fake body, fake mourning, fake documents. No real technology involved.
It is very old school. There are supposedly deep web marketplaces for this stuff. There was a guy I didn’t include the the book, but he obtained his death certificate online either through a site out of the UK called Confidential Access, or Silk Road. But that site was busted a few years ago, I believe in 2012. So to the extent that there is even a thriving secret black market online, I’m just not sure.
And in the end the people who pull this off aren’t really using technology.
Use technology to get gone, but then stay as far away from it as you can. Take John Darwin, the Canoe Man. He staged his death [by kayaking accident in London in 2002] successfully for six years. The secret to his success was that he had a great disguise. We think about what identity means in the 21st century, we piece it together with these meta definitions, but Darwin told me, ‘no, the secret is grow a beard and look different.’ It’s cartoonish — it’s not the first thing we think about when disappearing — but getting a good disguise in London where they have more CCTV cameras than anywhere was essential.
So everyone still leaves a trail one way or another.
Absolutely. In 2010, Frank put out a book called “How to Disappear,” a bestseller about all the ways to create false leads and throw people off. But in recent years he’s revised it to say you will leave a digital footprint no matter what you do. You can be the Mother Teresa of online deception and you will still leave something behind. So rather than eliminate your footprint, his message is about stretching the footprint.
So he’ll pay a homeless guy to buy a phone in Times Square so it’s his face captured on all the CCTV cameras and not Frank’s. He’ll set up email coordinates with one online contractor in India to ping to a contractor in Uzbekistan. It’s just putting as many steps as you can between you and what you’re trying to obscure.
So, in the end it’s a double-edged sword, and the internet helps you disappear, but then you have to pretty much stay away from it.
Looking through the historic and contemporary cases, and talking to experts, the main reason people can’t seem to fake their deaths and stay disappeared is that they simply cannot cut ties with their former lives. They can’t stay away forever from their children. People think it’s a temporary fix and you can reintegrate back into your life eventually. But you can’t do that. You really have to go away.
We have so many more ways to stay connected, and a lot of people, if you’re not doing all your due diligence and research, think they can use this kind of burner phone and no one will find you, or use Tor on your computer and you’ll be good. It’s simply not the case. Technology qua technology is not the problem in staying gone. It’s the human insistence to stay connected. It’s a perennial human nature problem more than a technology problem.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.Venezuela’s socialist revolution was both highlighted and defended this weekend as the global summit of social, economic, and environmental justice movements known as the World Social Forum (WSF) came to a close. With some 40,000 activists gathered to discuss anti-capitalist alternatives to the world economic crisis, participants stressed the importance of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution and the leadership role played by President Hugo Chavez in proving that “another world is possible”.
“GREEN CAPITALISM” VS. DEMOCRACY & SOCIALISM
Having convened their forum in the context of Rio+20 – the United Nations (UN) summit on “sustainable development” to be held in Rio de Janeiro later this year – those gathered at the 2012 World Social Forum largely focused their discussions on the current debate between “green capitalism” and the wide array of grassroots justice initiatives that make up democratic alternatives including Venezuela’s Bolivarian Socialism.
World Social Forum supports Venezuela’s Revolution According to Venezuelan sociologist Edgardo Lander, professor at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) and participant in last week’s WSF, “the Rio+20 conference is to be held at a time of profound crises for capitalism, a time in which the severe problems of limited growth and the destruction of life-producing conditions on the planet have become ever more obvious”.
“Capitalism is attempting to reinvent itself with a new, green façade”, Lander said. “Green capitalism”, he explained, “is nothing more than a repetition of fictitious promises of market mechanisms and technological fixes, promises that do nothing to alter relations of power, nothing to change the logic of capital accumulation nor the profound social inequalities that exist today”. The Bolivarian Revolution, argued Lander, demonstrates that “if we don’t address social inequality, we don’t resolve anything”.
According to Joao Pedro Stedile, of Brazil’s Landless Worker Movement (MST), “green capitalism” is nothing more than “international capital looking to protect itself and prepare for a future period of renewed accumulation”. Transnational corporations, explained Stedile, “understand the great lucrative potential of natural resources – including land, water, and oil, among others” which is why they ignore the “resolutions of international institutions such as the UN” as well as the environmental protections enacted by national governments, “whose role and authority have been weakened as a result of neo-liberal globalization”.
According to economist Marcos Arruda, Coordinator of the Institute for Alternative Policies in the Southern Cone, most national governments today are limited by the “globalized capitalist economy” and thus “lack the political will to take on commitments to reduce carbon emissions, greenhouse gases, and deforestation, anything that would imply the obligation to produce concrete results”.
In response to these limitations, social forum participants have begun organizing a “Peoples’ Assembly” and global day of action against capitalism and in defense of social, economic, and environmental justice. Scheduled for June 5th, the international protest is set to coincide with the Rio+20 summit.
THE VENEZUELAN EXAMPLE
In addition to the limited “room to maneuver” granted to national governments by neo-liberalism’s grasp on local economies, WSF participants also questioned the failure of many social movements to have significant impacts on national policies. In contrast, the success of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution was cited by renowned author and intellectual Ignacio Ramonet to illustrate how new relationships between movements and leaders are needed to consolidate the “other world that is possible” proposed by the WSF.
Speaking to Argentina’s Pagina 12 from the halls of the WSF, Ramonet addressed the need for organized social movements worldwide to coalesce – within each specific country – around political programs and “leaders” that can help turn grassroots proposals into national projects.
“No one expresses social suffering better than a social movement”, explained Ramonet, “but if steps aren’t taken towards a political program all large crises end up serving the interests of the extreme right – which tends to show up in the form of movements and anti-system parties that promise radical, demagogical, transformative change”.
For this reason, argued Ramonet, progressive social movements “must possess the vocation to engage in (national) politics”, such as is the case of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution. Referring to the first election of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (1998) and the birth of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Republic (1999), Ramonet explained that “the political crisis that ended” Venezuela’s Fourth Republic (1958-1998) would not have resulted in profound change without “Chavez’s leadership”.
The aforementioned “crisis”, which involved the birth of numerous armed guerrilla movements (throughout the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s), a popular rebellion met with fierce government repression (the Caracazo, 1989), and the failed military uprising led by Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias (1992), ended with a constitutional assembly that drafted the country’s current carta magna (1999), approved by the Venezuelan people in a national vote (1999).
Asking if “such changes would have been possible without Chavez and all that he represents?” Ramonet said he asked himself the same question when considering the changes underway “with Ecuador and Correa, Bolivia and Evo, Brazil and Lula, Argentina and Kirchner”.
“Currently many social movements reject the idea of leadership…a type of infantile illness within social movements which will end when leaders arise and movementsmreach their adolescence, or maturity”, he remarked.
“I’m not talking about saviors”, explained Ramonet, “but democratic leaders that can understand said social movements, helping them to find solutions”.
“HANDS OFF VENEZUELA”
Apart from the overall support for and interest in the Bolivarian Revolution shared by those in Porto Alegre, specific steps were also taken to defend Venezuela’s socialist alternative during the social forum. The Social Movement Assembly of the Bolivarian Alternative for the People’s of the Americas (ALBA), for example, launched a coordinated effort to defend Venezuela in the run-up to presidential elections to be held later this year.
According to Osvaldo Leon, spokesperson for the Latin American Information Agency (ALAI) and WSF participant, grassroots movements from across the Americas used the forum to plan a campaign “to combat the great offensive currently being waged by the United States against Venezuela”. “Largely a media offensive”, explained Leon, “this offensive is aimed at creating the conditions to impede a new victory” for President Chavez in presidential elections scheduled for October 7, 2012.
The Social Movement Assembly, affirmed Leon, “will be carrying out actions to ensure the US keeps its hands off Venezuela, thus allowing the Venezuelan people to freely decide on the future of their country in upcoming elections”.The horrific bombings of the Boston Marathon produced inspiring images of a spirited, brave Boston refusing to be cowed. Some spectators surged forward toward the danger to apply tourniquets, offer first aid, share blankets, and later to give blood, for the victims.
President Obama followed the crisis from its first moments and came out promptly to caution against fruitless speculation as to the perpetrators as well as solemnly to vow that they will be held accountable. (He has a certain track record in that regard.)
The idea of three dead, several more critically wounded, and over a 100 injured, merely for running in a marathon (often running for charities or victims of other tragedies) is terrible to contemplate. Our hearts are broken for the victims and their family and friends, for the runners who will not run again.
There is negative energy implicit in such a violent event, and there is potential positive energy to be had from the way that we respond to it. To fight our contemporary pathologies, the tragedy has to be turned to empathy and universal compassion rather than to anger and racial profiling. Whatever sick mind dreamed up this act did not manifest the essence of any large group of people. Terrorists and supremacists represent only themselves, and always harm their own ethnic or religious group along with everyone else.
The negative energies were palpable. Fox News contributor Erik Rush tweeted, “Everybody do the National Security Ankle Grab! Let’s bring more Saudis in without screening them! C’mon!” When asked if he was already scapegoating Muslims, he replied, ““Yes, they’re evil. Let’s kill them all.” Challenged on that, he replied, “Sarcasm, idiot!” What would happen, I wonder, if someone sarcastically asked on Twitter why, whenever there is a bombing in the US, one of the suspects everyone has to consider is white people? I did, mischievously and with Mr. Rush in mind, and was told repeatedly that it wasn’t right to tar all members of a group with the brush of a few. They were so unselfconscious that they didn’t seem to realize that this was what was being done to Muslims!
It was easy for jingoists to find Chinese or Arabs on twitter gloating. But I saw much more of this kind of message:
#إنفجار_بوسطن Our religion doesn’t teach us to be happy on people’s’ miseries. — Zaynab AlAlawi (@ZaynabDAlAlawi) April 16, 2013
or there was this:
#إنفجار_بوسطنTerrorism has no religion whether it is in Boston or in Syria — Osama Alharthi (@osamahr) April 16, 2013
But there were positive energies as well. The Egyptian woman activist Asma’ Mahfouz, who was important in calling for the Tahrir demonstrations that kicked off the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, said that she admired the American sense of deep concern for the welfare of citizens, and the way authorities came out promptly to speak to the incident. She contrasted this situation to that in Egypt, where, she alleged, the authorities have less respect for the value of citizens’ lives. For a young Egyptian revolutionary, America is still an exemplary nation in some regards, and many in the world admire it even in the way it deals with adversity.
Similar sentiments were voiced by the journalist Fatima Naout, who said that when dozens of Egyptians died in a train accident, it took President Morsi 12 hours to come on television, and then he made only a brief statement of less than a minute. She also complained of innocents being arrested for sabotage and ultimately released, while what she called Muslim Brotherhood gangs attacked demonstrators with impunity. She said that the US is a nation of laws and upright judicial procedure, and Egypt still is not.
On the other side of the aisle in Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood members of the Senate (Majlis al-Shura) unhesitatingly condemned the bombings. MP Izz al-Din al-Kumi condemned all violence that harmed individuals of any nationality. He discounted a return to the ‘war on terror’ atmosphere of 9/11, saying that al-Qaeda had suffered too many blows any longer to be a viable organization. Dr. Farid al-Bayyad, another parliamentarian said, “Regardless of our differences with American policy, we roundly condemn these attacks.”
Some Syrians and Iraqis pointed out that many more people died from bombings and other violence in their countries on Monday than did Americans, and that they felt slighted because the major news networks in the West (which are actually global media) more or less ignored their carnage but gave wall to wall coverage of Boston.
Aljazeera English reported on the Iraq bombings, which killed some 46 in several cities, and were likely intended to disrupt next week’s provincial election.
Over the weekend, Syrian regime fighter jets bombed Syrian cities, killing two dozen people, including non-combatants:
What happened in Boston is undeniably important and newsworthy. But so is what happened in Iraq and Syria. It is not the American people’s fault that they have a capitalist news model, where news is often carried on television to sell advertising. The corporations have decided that for the most part, Iraq and Syria aren’t what will attract Nielsen viewers and therefore advertising dollars. Given the global dominance by US news corporations, this decision has an impact on coverage in much of the world.
Here is a video by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) on the dilemma of the over one million displaced Syrians, half of them children:
So I’d like to turn the complaint on its head. Having experienced the shock and grief of the Boston bombings, cannot we in the US empathize more with Iraqi victims and Syrian victims? Compassion for all is the only way to turn such tragedies toward positive energy.
Perhaps some Americans, in this moment of distress, will be willing to be also distressed over the dreadful conditions in which Syrian refugees are living, and will be willing to go to the aid of Oxfam’s Syria appeal. Some of those Syrians living in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey were also hit by shrapnel or lost limbs. Perhaps some of us will donate to them in the name of our own Boston Marathon victims of senseless violence.
Terrorism has no nation or religion. But likewise its victims are human beings, precious human beings, who must be the objects of compassion for us all.The Halifax Slasher was the supposed attacker in an incident of mass hysteria that occurred in the town of Halifax, England, in November 1938 following a series of reported attacks on local people, mostly women. The hysteria spread elsewhere and was partly blamed on a previous slashing event in the 1920s.
Background [ edit ]
The week-long scare began after Mary Gledhill and Gertrude Watts claimed to have been attacked by a mysterious man with a mallet and "bright buckles" on his shoes.[1] Five days later, Mary Sutcliffe reported an attack on herself. Reports of attacks by a'mysterious man' with a knife or a razor continued, and the nickname "the Halifax Slasher" stuck. The situation became so serious that Scotland Yard was called in to assist the Halifax police.[3] Vigilante groups were set up on the streets, and several people, mistakenly assumed to have been the attacker, were beaten up; business in the town was all but shut down. Rewards for the capture of the attacker were promised; reports came of more attacks in nearby cities.[1] The panic spread so much that vigilante gangs were roaming the streets of the town and after Hilda Lodge was 'attacked', Clifford Edwards, a local man who had gone to help, was later accused of being the slasher himself. Soon a mob had gathered and after they had started to chant for his death, police had to escort him home.[4]
In the evening of 29 November, Percy Waddington, who had reported an attack, admitted that he had inflicted the damage upon himself. Others soon made similar admissions, and the Scotland Yard investigation concluded there were no "Slasher" attacks. Five local people were subsequently charged with public mischief offences and four were sent to prison.[1]
On 2 December, the Halifax Courier ran this story:
Carry on Halifax! The Slasher scare is over... The theory that a half-crazed, wild-eyed man has been wandering around, attacking helpless women in dark streets, is exploded... There never was, nor is there likely to be, any real danger to the general public. There is no doubt that following certain happenings public feeling has grown, and that many small incidents have been magnified in the public mind until a real state of alarm was caused. This assurance that there is no real cause for alarm, in short, no properly authenticated wholesale attacks by such a person as the bogy man known as the 'Slasher', should allay the public fear...[3]
Halifax had suffered from slasher attacks before, when in 1927, James Leonard was convicted of stalking and slashing the clothes of six women in the town. He was given a six-month sentence, however, he was quickly ruled out of the 1938 attacks on account of his large nose, which none of the 1938 victims had described.
Timeline of purported attacks [ edit ]
16 November – Mary Gledhill and Gertrude Watts claimed to be attacked by a man with a mallet.
21 November – Mary Sutcliffe claimed to have been attacked.
24 November – Clayton Aspinall reported an attack
25 November – Percy Waddington was 'attacked'
25 November – Hilda Lodge "attacked", also Clifford Edwards attacked by a vigilante mob.
27 November – Beatrice Sorrel reported attack
27 November – Fred Baldwin attacked by a group of drunken vigilantes.
29 November – Margaret Kenny claimed an attack by a "well-built man with a broad face, wearing very lightweight shoes and what felt like a dirty macintosh". Mary Sutcliffe reported a second attack, and Winifred McCall claimed to be attacked. Attacks in Manchester and Bradford were also reported. Percy Waddington, who claimed to have been attacked, admitted he inflicted the damage to himself, effectively ending the scare.
30 November, 1 and 2 December – Claims of attacks in other cities including London were dismissed.[1]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Bibliography [ edit ]The head of Scotland Yard’s anti-slavery police unit has warned that London is now a global hotspot for modern-day slavery with victims forced to work in the construction and hospitality industries.
“Everyone realises now we’re never going to police our way out of this,” Detective Chief Inspector Phil Brewer told Thomson Reuters, revealing that the capital has seen a surge in cases of slavery this year.
In 2017 to the end of June police have had 820 cases referred to them which concern people forced to work against their will without pay, and often in dangerous conditions — compared to 1,013 in the whole of last year.
The Metropolitan Police needs staff working in restaurants, hotels and in industries like construction to blow the whistle on slavery cases, and said that charities can also help with finding victims.
Speaking on the fight against domestic servitude in Britain’s capital, Brewer said the practice is being fuelled by cultural factors which mean it is seen as acceptable in some communities to keep someone from a lower social group prisoner, even though it’s against the law.
“Labour exploitation in London is really misunderstood or not understood, it’s quite clear that it’s about what we don’t know rather than what we know,” he said.
One of the biggest challenges for the Metropolitan police is to make sure every officer in the force of 30,000 understands and reacts appropriately to modern slavery cases, said Brewer.
Along with police, government departments and local authorities are investigating whether people in the construction and hospitality industries are being forced to work as modern-day slaves.
Prime Minister Theresa May promised to lead the fight against modern-day slavery, with Britain passing the Modern Day Slavery Act in 2015, which introduced life sentences for traffickers and forced companies to disclose their efforts to ensure their supply chains are free from slavery.
According to government data, there are an estimated 13,000 victims of forced labour, sexual exploitation and domestic servitude in the UK.
In October, a new report to Parliament said that there are “too many gaps” in the action being taken to protect victims.
Warning that Europe’s “migrant crisis” was being used by traffickers to lure people into servitude, Britain’s independent anti-slavery commissioner Kevin Hyland said that African women trafficked into prostitution, and men from Eastern Europe “exploited in shocking conditions in car washes” were among those being forced unlawfully into slavery.via press release:
HUMANCENTiPAD IS APPLE’S REVOLUTIONARY NEW PRODUCT
IN THE 15TH SEASON PREMIERE OF “SOUTH PARK”
BEGINNING ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27 AT 10:00 P.M. ON COMEDY CENTRALâ
——–
“South Park: The Complete Fourteenth Season Uncensored” DVD And Blu-Ray
Arrives In Stores On Tuesday, April 26
——–
All-New Season 15 Episodes Available In HD Exclusively On xBox LIVE, iTunes, Sony
PlayStation Network, Amazon Video On Demand
New Episodes Also Available On SouthParkStudios.com
——–
NEW YORK, April 25, 2011 – The latest Apple product to hit the market is revealed in the 15th season premiere of “South Park” titled, “HUMANCENTiPAD,” premiering on Wednesday, April 27 at 10:00 p.m. on COMEDY CENTRAL.
Kyle is intimately involved in the development of a revolutionary new product that is about to be launched by Apple. Meanwhile, Cartman doesn’t even have a regular iPad yet. He blames his mother.
Launched in 1997, “South Park,” now in its 15th season, remains the highest-rated series on COMEDY CENTRAL. “South Park” repeats Wednesdays at 12:00 a.m.
Co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are executive producers, along with Anne Garefino, of the Emmy® and Peabody® Award-winning “South Park.” Frank C. Agnone II is the supervising producer. Eric Stough, Adrien Beard, Bruce Howell, Vernon Chatman and Bill Hader are producers. “South Park’s” Web site is www.southparkstudios.com.The concept of special economic zones to assist the development of a new industry is common worldwide. So why isn't there one yet for Bitcoin?
Despite the collapse of Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, digital currencies are one of the fastest growing, disruptive technologies of the past several decades.
But the only places in the United States that are speaking up about Bitcoin are those who want to add additional layers of regulations and red tape.
Remarkably, it's the two states that would benefit most from this innovation and from greater adoption of Bitcoin: the nation's financial center (New York) and the hub of innovation (California).
New York's top financial cop, Benjamin Lawsky, has railed against Bitcoin because of concerns about usage by criminals. He said that it is better to stop all possible money laundering before one knows it really exists than to let "1,000 flowers bloom on the innovation side."
Related: 'I lost money with Mt. Gox'
That line was immediately mocked by Bitcoin fans with analogies like "it's better to let 500 car companies die than to let one car be used in a getaway".
Meanwhile, California legislators are considering a bill that would legalize Bitcoin -- which isn't illegal in the first place. It's clear that the state wants more control over digital currencies.
Imagine if California required all makers of 3D printers to first install software to prevent it from printing firearms before making them legal to sell. It wouldn't. But by regulating digital currency, California may constrain it with far more rules than those governing cash or gold.
So shouldn't there be a pro-Bitcoin voice in the U.S. pushing for how digital currencies can create jobs? Not to mention the issue that Bitcoin should have equal treatment to other currencies?
Because there isn't, innovation is being driven offshore.
A company called Blueseed (in which the angel network I co-founded, BitAngels, invested $100,000) is bringing foreign high-tech rock stars who cannot secure H1-B visas to work on a ship in the international waters just off Silicon Valley.
Watch: Janet Yellen says Fed can't regulate Bitcoin
This is a place where Bitcoin innovation can also happen unfettered -- up until the point it touches a US jurisdiction, of course. But is making these future job creators live and work on a ship the best our nation can do?
That's why I am proposing that a state and/or city set itself up as a special economic zone for Bitcoin. Banks would be allowed to open accounts in this zone without fear of reprisal for violating unclear or not-yet-written regulations.
Incentives could be given to bring these companies -- who are in many cases operating in a constant state of trepidation in California and New York -- into their state to create new jobs. Excessive red tape should be streamlined or suspended.
Obviously, this freedom cannot be used to tolerate true criminal behavior, but that's what the FBI and Homeland Security are there for.
As law enforcers have testified in recent Bitcoin Senate hearings, they'll find the bad guys. A few criminals don't have to cripple Bitcoin for the law-abiding majority of digital currency users.
Where should we put this special economic zone? There is plenty of precedent for states striking out on their own when they sense a disconnect with federal laws.
Related: Silk Road heist could doom Bitcoin black markets
Gay marriage and legalized marijuana (highlighted by this year's Super Bowl states of Washington and Colorado) amply demonstrate this. As does gambling.
I live in Las Vegas. Nevada legalized casino gambling way back in 1931. Today, the industry is the bedrock that Las Vegas has built its economy upon -- along with the entertainment and hospitality and trade show businesses that followed.
That has helped the citizens of the city and state thanks to big tax revenue.
So why can't Las Vegas be a special economic zone for Bitcoin? All those California jobs that are just an hour away could be brought to a state that has been doing backflips to combat its high unemployment.
In theory, any state could qualify as a safe haven for Bitcoin, particularly ones with no or low taxes. (Wyoming, Tennessee and South Dakota, are you up to the challenge?) But good infrastructure, easy access to inexpensive air travel, and a culture of promoting business and personal rights over bureaucratic clutter make Las Vegas a prime candidate.
As a Las Vegas resident for the past seven years, I'll do whatever I can to help put the first special economic zone for Bitcoin in my hometown. After all, Las Vegas is where the company that makes the RoboCoin ATM is based. But it had to go to Canada to sell its first machine due to regulation in the U.S.
Fortunately, RoboCoin ATMs are now coming to the U.S. as well. But there's no good reason they shouldn't have been here first.
Michael Terpin is the co-founder of BitAngels, the world's first angel network for digital currency startups, and CEO of SocialRadius, one of the nation's first social media marketing firms and largest PR firms for digital currency companies.Most consumers have become price conscious due the events taking place around the world and the uncertainty that it has brought towards the outlook of our future. According to researchers more than half of the consumers 18 years or older will take advantage of the facility of discounting coupon codes. It is expected that web buyers will increase their use of promotional rebates over the years to come. Majority of the consumers will be motivated to acquire goods at discounted rates on the internet.
E-Commerce Profitability
Those web merchants that have ethically attempted their internet ventures have been rewarded for their efforts. Marketing promotional concessions has helped manufacturers and sellers to gain new customers. Many web buyers have been motivated to try out new goods or services and most have increased their purchases.
Collecting Consumer Information
Internet buying behavior is easily understood by sellers. Sellers learn of the various facets of one’s approach to consumerism. This allows them to understand which goods to promote to a buyer given their likely hood to purchase such items online.
They can also understand trends in consumerism based on the buyer’s lifestyle and region of residence. This enables them to identify which demographic of consumers are likely to prefer a certain good or service over another.
Building Relationships
Web coupons must not be compared to the ones available in print. As printable coupons only offer a discount while web coupons are more of a banner that provides a deal. Through online provisions for concessions sellers have been able to build a customer base by providing goods and services ethically as well as reliably. This has allowed for the development of client loyalty. Online discounts have been proven in client retention, loyalty and good will.
A lot of information can be gathered about web buyers through the understanding of their purchase patterns. The more sellers learn about the buying behavior of internet consumers the better the quality of goods and services they can provide. Along with this one does save more money acquiring goods and services via web. It’s a win win for both the seller and buyer. Visit RedeemACoupon.com for true value for money deals.
AdvertisementsOTTAWA — It will take years before the benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and its possible drawbacks, find their way into the Canadian economy.
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Hold on while my head stops spinning over the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal. Somewhere between Donald “This deal is bad” Trump and Maude “This deal is bad” Barlow there must be some stable middle ground. There is, but it may take a rhetorical Zoloft prescription to stop that woozy pre-election trade-deal eye-glaze among both Americans and Canadians.
Continue reading.
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One thing for sure is that much of what we gained from the North American Free Trade Agreement, which came into effect in 1995, will be superseded by the new 12-nation TPP — whenever member nations finally sign off on the pact.
That could still be a least a couple of years down the road, according to the Canadian government.
But if other international trade deals are any indication, don’t hold your breath — timing isn’t always everything when it comes to multi-national agreements. Nor are the details of these international negotiations usually readily accessible at the time they are inked.
After all, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, unveiled in September 2014 by Canada and the Europe Union, remains a work in progress, awaiting member ratification. And we’re still waiting for the influence of Canada’s free-trade pact with South Korea — this country’s first major foray into the Asia-Pacific market — to be felt, even though it officially took effect in January.
But the TPP represents a huge rewrite of international trade engagement for Canada. Business and industry groups — such as the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters — were quick to endorse the deal announced at the start of last week, despite few details on how their members would actually benefit from the TPP.
The full agreement is still under wraps, although Trade Minister Ed Fast promised last week to release a provisional copy of the deal in the next few days.
But some of the more contentious issues — lower thresholds for Canadian content rules in the auto industry and government concessions on financial assistance to the dairy and poultry sectors — had been telegraphed during previous TPP sessions.
Even so, the broad strokes delivered in Atlanta last week did little to calm concerns of many at the centre of the trade debate.
Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, the Canadian labour union, said “the TPP poses a significant threat to Canada’s auto industry.”
Federal negotiators “had their chance to champion the auto industry and failed,” he said in a statement.
Few others have openly balked at joining the new fold, which is nothing short of being the world’s biggest deal on exports — which includes the increased exchange of intellectual property and services of all kinds.
“Unifor aside, criticism has been muted,” acknowledged a government official close to the final talks this week in Atlanta.
“I think people recognize how important this deal is for Canada and that, at the end of the day, TPP strengthens our trading relationship with NAFTA partners and beyond,” the official said.
“It’s a new preferential trade zone and anybody who’s a Canadian exporter can take advantage of it. But it’s up to industry to decide what agreement they want to take advantage of.
I would suggest this is the biggest deal on the planet
“If there was a void, NAFTA (provisions) would still apply 100 per cent.”
The TPP “is a major deal for Canada. And not something that we should turn our back on by any means. I think we should embrace it,” said Lawrence Herman, an expert in international trade law.
Next to agreements under the World Trade Organization, “I would suggest this is the biggest deal on the planet.”
“The TTP will supersede all bilateral agreements we have, where there’s a conflict. We’ll retain our rights under the NAFTA where any NAFTA agreements are superior to the TPP provisions. And they haven’t set those out in any detail,” Herman said.
“But I think that most of the provisions in the TPP will be superior.”
For one, access to the U.S. procurement process will exceed the levels agreed to in NAFTA. “Canadian companies will obviously get additional preferential bidding opportunities for U.S. procurements,” Herman said.
Forget WTO, Herman added, TPP will become the “gold standard” of global trade.
Danielle Goldfarb, director of global commerce at the Conference Board of Canada, agreed this agreement is “a bit more ambitious in terms of its liberalization.”
But NAFTA “essentially remains in place unless these other aspects of the deal are more ambitious,” she said.
“So, if Canada and the U.S. have no tariff between them in a particular sector (now), then Canada and the U.S. will not have tariffs between them in that particular sector under the TPP as well.”
Still, she adds, the TPP “gets into all kinds of areas, like investment and services, data flows and e-commerce, and all kinds of labour mobility (issues) and so on — many areas that go beyond what already exists in NAFTA.”
David Watt, chief economist at HSBC Bank Canada, said the TPP represents “the next generation of trade deals that cover more than just trade.”
“NAFTA was a trade deal. It basically dealt largely with merchandise and trade. Now we’re seeing these trade deals evolve into issues of services, skills recognition, migration trends and things like intellectual property — which might not have been serious concerns in the past,” |
-Hansen Raymond-Schroeder-Weise Volpatti-Malhotra-Lapierre
There’s this perception that when Alain Vigneault modifies his lineup, it’s done haphazardly and at random. But I prefer to think of Alain Vigneault as an exceedingly well compensated Jugo Juice employee. Though it seems odd at first glance, there’s a method of this apparent madness.
We’ll break it all down after the jump
Rusty Legs
The first thing I notice about this new forward configuration, is that each of the top-three lines will consist of at least one player who was active and playing competitive hockey in a European league or in the AHL during the lockout. The first line will have Zack Kassian who has played nearly thirty AHL contests this season, the second line will have Hansen who lit up the SM-Liga during the lockout and the "third-line" will have Jordan Schroeder and Dutch League MVP Dale Weise who’ve been playing competitive hockey for months. I really have to think that the "rusty legs" factor is a major motivation behind splitting up the twins, and their signature triggerman Alex Burrows.
When a usually polished team like the Canucks allows a goal late in a period (like they did on Sunday) and then allow their opponent to carry play in the third period (like the Canucks also did on Sunday), you can pretty safely assume that fatigue and a lack of game readiness is, if not a primary culprit, then at least a factor. And I’d guess that part of the idea behind these new scrambled egg line combinations is to try more evenly distribute "game-ready" legs throughout the lineup.
Young Players
Is that 21 year old winger Zack Kassian lining up to play big minutes on Vancouver’s top forward line? How does that make sense, when Alain Vigneault hates young players forever and ever, and sucks at developing talent because of that mistrust-y hatred?
Before the season Tony Gallagher, Dan Murphy and Bob McKenzie, three guys who know a few people in the business, all suspected that Zack Kassian would get a serious look with the Sedin twins in the early-going this season. The Canucks however, started Zack Kassian on a quickly dismantled line with Andrew Ebbett and Mason Raymond. Rather than play too many shifts with those line-mates, however, Zack Kassian bounced around the lineup a bit and looked fast, tough and dangerous in the offensive zone in the team’s first two games of 2013.
Am I crazy then, or did the Canucks just make Zack Kassian – who has battled with consistency throughout his career, and again this season in Chicago – earn a spot on the top-line? He capitalized on some lovely Sedin passing on Sunday, and fought and injured a pretty tough guy in Ben Eager. The result: Kassian gets a shot in the top-line. Well doesn’t that make a whole lot of sense.
Jordan Schroeder meanwhile, will play with Weise and Raymond on what is, at first glance, a pretty odd looking line. I’d expect that line to be sheltered situationally (why else would Lapierre and Malhotra play together if not to soak up defensive zone draws), and to play maybe a bit over ten minutes at even-strength on Wednesday against the Flames (assuming the game is competitive). It’s really not a second line, that would be Alex Burrows, Jannik Hansen and Chris Higgins, but it’s very probably a Cody Hodgson-era type third-line. Anyway a top-nine shot still represents a pretty big opportunity for Jordan Schroeder and it will probably come with a good long look on the power-play as well.
One more note I’d make is that in addition to his "game-ready" legs, Dale Weise will bring some much needed size to the Raymond-Schroeder line. I still think I’d rather see Schroeder play with say Chris Higgins and Alex Burrows, but this makes sense to me, especially when you consider that Raymond and Schroeder displayed some chemistry in training camp scrimmages a week ago.
Patience
While the forward lines appear to be radically altered, the defensive pairings are exactly the same: Kevin Bieksa and Dan Hamhuis will stay together, Edler will continue to adjust to playing the right-side on a pairing with Jason Garrison, and Keith Ballard and Chris Tanev will round out the d-corps. If the Canucks wood with that lineup on Wednesday night, that means Alain Vigneault will have allowed Keith Ballard to have a turnover prone game on Sunday, without stapling him immediately to the bench.
Ballard has never looked comfortable in Vancouver’s system and the writing is probably already on the wall in terms of his future with the club. But he can still be useful for this season if he can figure out how to stay on the ice. Paradoxically he’ll need some rope from the coaching staff to do that…The Federal Trade Commission today said it issued a 10-page letter to eight leading players in the mobile communications arena requiring them to tell the agency how they issue security updates to address vulnerabilities in smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices.
+More on Network World: FTC: Best Practices for businesses facing Internet of Things onslaught+
Among the information Apple, Blackberry; Google; HTC America; LG Electronics; Microsoft; Motorola Mobility; and Samsung must provide include:
The factors that they consider in deciding whether to patch a vulnerability on a particular mobile device
Detailed data on the specific mobile devices they have offered for sale to consumers since August 2013
The vulnerabilities that have affected those devices
Whether and when the company patched such vulnerabilities.
The FTC has been critical of mobile communications vendors’ security practices in the past. In one report the FTC stated that companies, whose apps promise consumer safeguards for their data, follow through on those promises. “Specifically, the report recognizes that technology advances found in smartphones can offer the potential for increased data security and encourages all companies to provide strong protections for the data they collect.”
+More on Network World: Attention whitehats, The FTC wants you to lead new privacy, security push+
The same report urged consumers to “closely examine the apps’ stated policies on issues like dispute resolution and liability limits, as well as privacy and data security and evaluate them in choosing which apps to use.”
In the current letter to vendors the FTC said : The Commission is seeking to compile data concerning policies, procedures, and practices for providing security updates to mobile devices offered by unnamed persons, partnerships, corporations, or others in the United States. The Special Report will assist the Commission in conducting a study of such policies, practices, and procedures. The Special Report must restate each item of this Order with which the corresponding answer is identified. Your report is required to be subscribed and sworn by an official of the Company who has prepared or supervised the preparation of the report from books, records, correspondence, and other data and material in your possession. If any question cannot be answered fully, give the information that is available and explain in what respects and why the answer is incomplete. Describe in detail whether the Company provides notice to consumers regarding each of the following:
i.The period of time that a specific device model will be supported for operating system version or other feature updates that include security updates;
ii.The period of time that a specific device model will be supported for security updates, including the frequency or timing of security updates;
iii. When a specific device model is no longer supported for operating system version or other feature updates that include security updates;
iv.When a specific device model is no longer supported for security updates
Check out these other hot stories:
Ethernet: Are there worlds left to conquer?
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NASA, FAA showoff wireless aircraft communication technology
Meet EMILY, the robotic life-guard that may save you from drowning some day
NASA, FAA showoff wireless aircraft communication technology
“Massive” identity theft schemer gets 4 years in slammer
FBI: Ransomware threat at all-time high; protect company jewels
CIA: Learn how to make invisible ink, photos – from 1918
More protection needed to guard grid from electromagnetic storm threat
Headaches likely to grow over auto cybersecurity concerns
US Marshals set to auction fraudster’s $1.5M high-end auto collection
NASA gives solar ionic propulsion a monster boost
DARPA: Researchers develop chip part that could double wireless frequency capacity
Top 10 space junk missionsIt has now been close to two and a half years since Alliance was on top of the world of professional Dota. Early in 2013 the Swedish juggernaut featuring Henrik "AdmiralBulldog" Ahnberg, Jerry "EGM" Lundkvist, captain Gustav "s4" Magnusson along with Dota veterans Joakim "Akke" Akterhall and Jonathan "Loda" Berg became one of the first Western-based Dota teams to win a large-scale international event on Chinese soil. In the summer the Swedes blew through the competition at The International (TI) 2013, finishing with a 24-3 overall record at the event, winning the war over rivals Natus Vincere in the finals and cementing their place as the best team in Dota for the year.
The majority of the 2014 and 2015 seasons were not as kind. Filled with complacency, communication issues, roster changes and ultimately poor placements, Alliance fell from grace as one of the top title contenders. In August, Magnusson returned after a year stint with Secret, with Lundkvist coming back to the team in December. The question of whether Alliance is back began to be answered with the team's championship run at the 2015 World Cyber Arena finals, but the event's on-site problems marred the results. But now with a second consecutive win at StarSeries XIII, including a best-of-three win over Secret and a finals sweep of Evil Geniuses, there's no doubt about it.
"Well I suppose we can honestly say that we are back again," a smiling Berg told ESPN. "It feels amazing to be able to win something again, but other than that it just feels good to be able to compete at a top level with other great teams. Even though we wouldn't have won the tournament, this experience would have given us the confidence needed to know that we can beat anyone. Sure, a few years ago we did dominate the scene, but now we are maybe a bit reminded of how we did it."
Berg emphasized the impact of Alliance's recent win and overall importance of team chemistry.
Editor's Picks Dota 2 Shanghai Qualifier report A look at the eight teams that battled for the final eight regional qualifying positions upcoming Shanghai Major, including some surprises cropping up in the field of 16.
"We did win WCA about one month ago in China, when we just remade the team a week prior to the event," he continued. "That win pretty much secured our invite to the Major, but this win showed everyone that we deserved the invite over certain other teams that had to fight their way through the qualifier. It's obviously very nice to prove all the haters wrong, but even more than that I'm just truly happy that we are back together again. I feel like every player on the team makes the rest play better than we would have done on other teams, and that's something that is honestly quite hard to do. For example, I have an easier time focusing on my carry role with EGM back on the team, because he reinforces a lot of my ideas, and in the same way I usually support his ideas.
"Then again we are prepared for more hardship, and when stuff does not go as well as it does right now, well then you just have to remind each other that our true goal is to win another TI and you have to keep your eyes on that, even though it might feel like it's far away."
Alliance's run at StarSeries was capped with the previously mentioned win over EG, the team led by captain Peter "ppd" Dager that has been the one to beat in 2015. Dager's expertise in the draft phase has been crucial to EG's TI5 and DAC championships.
Akterhall explained Alliance's thought process behind the team's finals picks.
"During the draft we made sure to ban out the heroes that we thought that they were comfortable with and what we have seen them play before" Akterhall told ESPN. "For example, we didn't want them to have Faceless Void or when they picked Witch Doctor we banned out Treant one of the games because we've seen them play it before. It helped a bit that we faced and beat EG in the group stage because it made us confident enough to not switch up too much in the finals. We tried to use things that we had practiced before the tournament but at the same time we weren't afraid to pull out new unconventional picks like in the second game when we picked Night Stalker for S4 in the mid lane."
These wins are nice for Alliance, but the team has its eyes set on the next Major in Shanghai, and ultimately the chance of being the first Dota 2 team to win two TI championships. For Berg that's the only goal, but he knows it won't be getting any easier.
"I'm very happy with our performance at Starladder, and especially our games versus Secret, Liquid and EG means a lot to us as a team," he said. "At the same time this is only one tournament, and it's very hard to predict the future. We need to win a Major to secure a slot at TI, and we need to win one more TI to have as good of a year as 2013, so I suppose we are not quite there yet.
"I don't really think Dota is at the same place as it was two years ago," Berg continued. "There are just so many amazing teams that will fight us every step of the way. If a team wins a few LAN [offline] tournaments in a row, every other team will have their eyes on them, and that's quite scary. Before this tournament I think a lot of teams underrated us. I think it might be different for the future."The U.K. government announced nearly £300 million ($500 million) of new investment in large-scale science projects yesterday. The beneficiaries will be a new European neutron source soon to be built in Sweden, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope, and an exoplanet-hunting mission by the European Space Agency (ESA).
U.K. scientists had thought that their days of participation in large-scale projects were numbered when the current government, in its first spending review in 2010, slashed funds for capital spending in science projects by more than 50%. But since then the government has made a number of one-off spending commitments for research that now amounts to several billion pounds.
The largest part of the latest slice goes to the €1.8 billion European Spallation Source (ESS) in Lund, Sweden, which will produce neutron beams that are an extremely sensitive probe of materials, measuring how atoms are arranged and how they interact. Some neutron sources use a nuclear reactor to produce the beams, but ESS uses a proton beam colliding with a metallic target, a process known as spallation. ESS will be 30 times brighter than today’s top sources.
The United Kingdom had previously not committed to participation in ESS, although in January ESS began collaborating with ISIS, the current most powerful European spallation source, at the Harwell laboratory near Oxford. "The U.K. contribution to ESS is very important both financially and intellectually," says Jim Yeck, ESS director-general and CEO. "Access to ISIS combined with the experience building and operating a spallation neutron source that the U.K. team brings to ESS adds greatly to the success of the project."
The government has also decided to back SKA, the world’s biggest astronomy project, with £119 million. SKA will build thousands of radio dishes and other antennas all across southern Africa and at a second site in Australia to tackle a wide range of astronomical questions, from the nature of black holes and galaxy evolution to dark energy, cosmic magnetism, and the birth of the first stars. The U.K. contribution constitutes a significant portion of the €650 million first phase of construction, which will begin in 2018. “This is a really exciting announcement for the SKA and a solid proof that the project is now really underway. With such a major investment secured there is no stopping it,” says SKA Director General Philip Diamond in a statement.
Finally, the United Kingdom is staking a claim to building some of the instruments for PLATO, a mission to be launched by ESA in 2024 that will look for habitable planets around other stars. The country's £25 million contribution will allow 11 U.K. institutions to participate. PLATO will have 34 small telescopes and cameras to enable it to scan for planets around a million stars. “PLATO is the logical next step in our search for extrasolar planets. It will revolutionize our knowledge of rocky planets and will enable the first directed search for life around sunlike stars in the next decade,” says Don Pollacco of the University of Warwick, who will lead the U.K. effort.Thrustmaster: TX Racing Wheel, Ferrari 458 Italia Edition
THE ULTIMATE RACING SIMULATOR FOR XBOX ONE:
The first mass-market Force Feedback wheel featuring a brushless industrial motor. Features a detachable wheel and metal pedal set. Core product of the TX Racing Wheel ecosystem.
FORCE FEEDBACK BASE WITH BRUSHLESS INDUSTRIAL MOTOR
Brushless industrial motor
Ultra-smooth Force Feedback, with zero cogging
Super-responsive, realistic Force effects, with no latency
New optimized frictionless dual-belt mechanism
Fluid and smooth steering - ultra-quiet system
Ultra-precise wheel
H.E.A.R.T HallEffect AccuRate Technology™: contactless magnetic sensor, for precision that won't decrease over time. 16-bit resolution (65536 values on the wheel's steering axis)
Adjustable angle of rotation: from 270° to 900°
Internal memory and upgradable firmware
Xbox Guide button
Controller pairing LED for Kinect!
Patent pending
FERRARI-STYLE PEDAL SET
Metal pedals, with long range of travel
Brake pedal featuring progressive resistance
DETACHABLE 7/10 SCALE REPLICA OF THE FERRARI 458 ITALIA WHEEL
Realistic: 28 cm in diameter, with textured rubber grip
2 large, wheel-mounted sequential paddle shifters
10 cm tall, and attached to the wheel
100% metal
Super high-end tact switch (lifespan of more than 10 million activations)
Comprehensive driving controls
10 action buttons (including 1 on the base) replicating the controls found on the real wheel
Replica 2-position Manettino® dial + replica ENGINE START D-Pad
Detachable wheel featuring Thrustmaster Quick Release system: quickly switch from one wheel to another
ECOSYSTEM-READY
Compatible with other detachable Ferrari wheels already available on the market
(Ferrari F1 Wheel Add-On, Ferrari GTE Wheel Add-On, etc.)
Compatible with the T3PA* pedal set (Thrustmaster 3 Pedals Add-on)
Compatible with the TH8A* shifter (Thrustmaster TH8 Add-on) featuring 8-speed or sequential gearbox
** Sold separately
ALSO COMPATIBLE WITH PC
PC compatibility is ensured thanks to the Thrustmaster drivers available for download from the ts.thrustmaster.com website. With these drivers, you can also make sure that you always have the latest firmware version available for your wheel.The fitness industry has been trying for decades to make exercise less boring.
Johannes Scholl is betting virtual reality can keep people excited about working out.
Scholl's startup has developed a VR exercise machine that delivers a core workout by making it seem like users are flying and deep-ocean diving.
About 200 gyms and entertainment centres from London to Tokyo have installed the machines, which cost about $10,000 after including shipping and other costs. A cheaper home version for about $2,000 is under development and could be unveiled around the start of next year.
SUPPLIED Icaros uses the abdomen, back and leg muscles to tilt the device while 'flying' or 'diving'.
"There's no comparable thing you can do at a gym," says Scholl, who co-founded Icaros GmbH in 2015 with fellow industrial designer Michael Schmidt.
READ MORE:
* Virtual vs real: Which workout works the best?
* Exercising in a virtual world
* Fitness from your smartphone
BLOOMBERG Icaros GmbH’s Icaros virtual reality fitness machine.
MAKING EXERCISE FUN
The fitness industry has been trying for decades to make exercise less boring – from TVs embedded in treadmills to apps nudging users to stay on schedule – but technology has yet to find a cure for the monotony of working out. Scholl is part of nascent community that believes the addictive pull of video games combined with the immersive power of VR will do the trick.
VirZOOM transforms bike machines into VR controllers that let gamers fly horses and drive Formula 1 cars. A Helsinki augmented reality startup overlays digital images onto rock-climbing walls, letting climbers play games or battle each other while ascending.
More low-key solutions include home workouts built around VR archery, shooting and boxing games which enthusiasts say help people build upper-body strength and lose weight.
GO GETTERS
Proponents point to Pokemon Go as an example of technology spurring exercise. Less than a week after the app's release last July, gamers were zig-zagging through neighbourhoods and parks around the world and organising massive Pokemon-catching walking-tours in cities from Sydney to New York. The game persuaded the most enthusiastic users to walk 25 per cent more than usual, according to researchers at Stanford University and Microsoft.
Fitness experts are skeptical that high-tech gadgets can get people to exercise more – or stick with it.
Innovations such as underwater earphones and running shoes that automatically adjust tightness have largely failed to motivate the masses.
"A lot of this technology is being adopted by people who exercise already and not that much by people who are new to the game," says Remco Polman, head of exercise and nutritional studies at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane.
BEATING THE GIMMICKS
While Pokemon Go should be lauded for getting more people out and about, he says, gamifying exercise won't necessarily trick the brain into doing something the body resists. Rather than layering on gimmicks, he says finding a way to enjoy exercising itself – outdoors, for example – is key to sticking with it for a meaningful period of time.
"The problem with extrinsic motivation is that you only do it until the reward has been taken away," Polman says. "Once you collect all your Pokemons, then what's the reason to do anything more?"
Icaros's Scholl doesn't disagree and says some activities, like traditional sports, won't work well in the virtual realm and should be done outdoors. But he thinks VR fitness can take people where they otherwise can't go.
"I love road-biking and snowboarding, but I love to do that outside," said Scholl. "In VR, I love to do stuff which I always dreamed of but that I can't do in reality."
HOW IT WORKS
Icaros promotes a core workout, which improves balance and stability. Users place their knees, elbows and forearms into foam-padded cups, then don a VR headset and grab a handle with each hand. They mostly use the abdomen, back and leg muscles to tilt the device to navigate while flying or diving; a hand controller lets them fire at targets during the game.
Our reporter managed to work up a sweat after about 10 minutes on the medium setting, with the rigorousness roughly equivalent to a plank exercise.
Besides the home version, Icaros is already building the second-generation machine for professional gyms. Scholl says it will offer more intense cardio exercises and muscle-building and is based on the concept of exercising using animal-like movements.
"The machine you have now is much about balance and coordination and it's more like a yoga-like approach," Scholl said. "Whereas the next prototype will be about very active strengthening of the whole body."
SOFTWARE UPDATES
The company plans to add more software to the machine, including a new space-theme game later this month and support for outside developers.
Some gyms that have bought an Icaros are upbeat about the machine, if only for the media coverage it has attracted. Shuhei Miyajima, a personal trainer at The Body Ride gym in Tokyo, convinced his boss to buy an Icaros machine last August.
After an initial flurry of excitement, he says most gym members now have become bored of the two modes available – flying and underwater diving – and only use the machine once or twice a month. He says he's eagerly awaiting new software updates, but is still glad the gym bought it.
"Let's face it, working out isn't actually fun," Miyajima says. "But by just having this machine, it gets people inspired and excited because it's not the same old stuff."The publication and open exchange of knowledge and material form the backbone of scientific progress and reproducibility and are obligatory for publicly funded research. Despite increasing reliance on computing in every domain of scientific endeavor, the computer source code critical to understanding and evaluating computer programs is commonly withheld, effectively rendering these programs “black boxes” in the research work flow. Exempting from basic publication and disclosure standards such a ubiquitous category of research tool carries substantial negative consequences. Eliminating this disparity will require concerted policy action by funding agencies and journal publishers, as well as changes in the way research institutions receiving public funds manage their intellectual property (IP).
Disparity Without a Cause
In publicly funded research outside of computational science, the creation and dissemination of new tools, techniques, and methods requires detailed publication and disclosure of information necessary to satisfy peer review, experimental reproduction, and the ability to build upon another's work. Research tools created using public funds, such as animal models or cell lines, even those intended for commercialization, must fulfill disclosure and publication requirements (1).
Disclosure practices among scientist-programmers often do not meet these standards. Computer programs created in the course of research can range from single-command line scripts to multigigabyte code repositories. Many scientist-created programs are ad hoc efforts never intended for distribution or release, but all can be equally critical to research outcomes. Although it is typical to publish general conceptual and functional descriptions of new, major pieces of scientist-created software, it is not uncommon to withhold the program source code and instead release only the binary (executable) version of a program. Source code is the human readable form of a programming language and contains the complete set of instructions for how a computer processes input data. In the absence of source code, the inner workings of a program cannot be examined, adapted, or modified.
The consequences of relying on these black boxes in research computation can be far-reaching. Common implementation errors in programs, such as failing to convert units correctly or assigning missing values as zero, can be difficult to detect without access to source code (2). Recent retractions, resignations, and canceled clinical drug trials at Duke University involved unreleased and unreproducible code (3). Calls for greater focus on reproducibility in scientific research have mounted in recent years (4, 5), and the inability to reproduce many published computational results or to perform credible peer review in the absence of program source code has contributed to a perceived “credibility crisis” for research computation (6, 7). Source code withholding causes duplication of efforts by preventing sharing and reuse of validated computer code (8) and is incompatible with the stated goals of science funding agencies and policy advisory bodies (9).
How and why this unique disparity in disclosure practices persists within research computation is complex and goes beyond simple protectionism. Contributing factors may include the informal means by which most scientist-programmers attain their programming skills (10, 11). It is not uncommon for self-taught programmers to be insecure about publishing “ugly” code: programs that work but do not conform to accepted best practices, are inefficient, or are aesthetically lacking (12). Lack of awareness and education around issues of code dissemination among scientist-programmers may also contribute. Among the small number of programming courses geared toward scientists, issues of code publishing or software licensing are seldom addressed.
Systems of attribution and citation, frequently relied on as metrics for career evaluation and achievement, which have evolved to accommodate publication of traditional scientific methods and techniques, may not adequately assure authorship credit when source code is adapted by other researchers. Tendencies toward traditional IP protection regimes at institutional technology transfer offices (TTOs) can result in proprietary licensing and distribution schemes that discourage release of source code (13).
Public-funding and policy-setting agencies have yet to enumerate clear, comprehensive, and universal policies promoting the publishing and dissemination of computer source code. Some specific funding initiatives evaluate applicants, in part, on software sharing and dissemination plans [e.g., (14)]. Such grants are typically for, or specifically include, large software development projects, however, and thus fail to address the large majority of scientist-created code.
Most significant may be the absence of a universal disclosure requirement by the gatekeepers of scientific publishing. Of the 20 most-cited journals in 2010 from all fields of science (15), only three (16–18) (including Science) have editorial policies requiring availability of computer source code upon publication. This stands in stark contrast to near-universal agreement among the 20 on policies regarding availability of data and other enabling materials.Driverless cars in Singapore inched closer towards reality on Tuesday with the launch of ‘SCOT” by the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (Smart) and the National University of Singapore.
Singapore’s first locally-developed driverless car, short for ‘Shared Computer Operated Transport’, is initially retrofitted from a Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric car, and will ply the roads of the NUS campus as researchers seek to improve the technology.
Researchers revealed that the car features a low-cost remote sensing technology called LIDAR, which costs only a fraction of expensive 3-D laser sensors currently used in robot cars. LIDAR’s technology uses laser’s focused imaging and radar’s distance calculation capabilities.
“ SCOT is designed for public roads, is able to operate at a higher speed than current autonomous versions and is able to sense obstacles, and work well in poor lighting as well as in moderate rain
The researchers said SCOT is designed for public roads, is able to operate at a higher speed than current autonomous versions and is able to sense obstacles, and work well in poor lighting as well as in moderate rain.
Professor Emilio Frazzoli, SMART’s lead investigator for the Future Urban Mobility Interdisciplinary Research Group said in a statement that SCOT is a testimony of the researchers and students’ talent, innovation and dedication, considering that “we converted the electric car into a driverless car in just six months at no more than $30,000 for the sensors and onboard computer”.
SMART’s SCOT can drive even in tunnels as it does not rely on global positioning system. Frazzoli said the demonstration is a step towards making driverless cars a reality in Singapore.
“This (the project) will not only help us to learn and improve the system, but also provide a visible platform to increase public awareness and government support in our endeavour to create better transport solutions for urban cities,” NUS collaborator, Associate Professor Marcelo Ang said.
Ang is a faculty member with NUS Department of Mechanical Engineering and also Director of Advanced Robotics Centre at the NUS Faculty of Engineering. He said one of the aims of the project is to deploy a ‘mobility-on-demand’ system in controlled areas such as resorts.
He noted that the advantage of this is that unlike a rented car, the car does not have to be returned. In a country like Singapore, such systems can reduce transportation woes by reducing car ownership while providing one the freedom to have a car when one needs it, he said.Former Parramatta Eels forward Chad Robinson missing; family asks for help
Updated
The family of former NRL player Chad Robinson, who has not been seen since Saturday night, has made an emotional plea to the public to help find him.
Key points: Chad Robinson has not been seen since Saturday night
Family have taken to social media in an appeal for information
He was driving his silver Subaru Outback, which has damage to the passenger side
Mr Robinson, 36, was last seen at his home on Crestview Avenue at Kellyville about 7:30pm on Saturday.
Police said they held grave concerns for Mr Robinson's welfare due to a recent illness.
His sister Monique Brennan said his disappearance was totally out of character.
"We dearly miss our brother and really want to see him come home," she said.
"We love him and we can't imagine life without him.
"So, we just ask if anybody has seen Chad or seen his car, can you please come forward and assist us?"
Ms Brennan said her family had "absolutely no idea where he might have gone, other than the fact that he likes the outdoors, likes bushwalking, likes finding waterfalls or things like that, that's the only thing we have to go off".
"He's never left home and not come home," she said.
"He doesn't have a phone or any money so that is a grave concern to us."
Family 'desperate' to find Robinson's car
Robinson left home in his silver Subaru Outback with registration plates CME54F.
The car has distinctive damage along its passenger side and Ms Brennan said it would be the key to locating her brother.
"I'm hoping that someone might recognise the car, she said.
"I think if we can find the car it gives us some idea of where he may be.
"But without that … there's no phone or money, we have absolutely no trace of where he might be, so we're just desperate to find that."
Inspector Matt Harris from Castle Hill Police Station said officers were searching everywhere for Mr Robinson.
"We're not isolating our search to any particular area," Inspector Harris said.
"We've obviously got methodologies and strategies to help search for these people which are fully underway at the moment … we are not leaving any stone unturned for this fellow.
"Chad enjoys recreational areas, bush areas and so forth, it's possible he may have gone to one of those areas.
"But without phones and wallet, things such as that, we do have concerns."
Mr Robinson was wearing black shorts and a maroon T-shirt and no shoes.
He is Caucasian, between 180–190 centimetres tall, with a muscular build, fair complexion, brown hair and brown eyes.
Robinson was a forward for the Parramatta Eels between 2000 and 2008, but played for the Sydney Roosters between 2002 and 2004.
Topics: missing-person, nrl, rugby-league, sport, community-and-society, kellyville-2155
First postedFORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – A South Florida teenager charged with manslaughter in the accidental shooting death of his friend during what’s being called deadly gun play, made his first appearance in juvenile court Friday afternoon.
The 14-year-old boy was arrested by Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies Thursday afternoon and charged with manslaughter for the fatal shooting of his friend Charlie Martin, also 14.
During Friday’s court hearing, Broward Circuit Judge Michael Orlando ordered the teen be held at least until an August 13th hearing in order to give prosecutors time to decide how to proceed with the case. Prosecutors need to decide whether he’ll be charged and tried as an adult, according to the judge.
When the hearing was over, the teen’s attorney said he did not intend to cause any harm.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office said the teen lives at the home in Cooper City where the shooting happened.
According to a police report, the two 14-year-old boys and the victim’s 16-year-old brother were playing with the gun in the garage of the home when it went off.
Nobody else was home at the time.
The report states the boys found the teen’s handgun in a gun box that was inside a cardboard box. When they found the gun, the alleged shooter said he took the gun out and noticed the gun had a magazine in the wall of the gun. A second magazine was also in the gun box, the teen told police, which was loaded with ammunition. The teen said he took the first magazine out of the gun and saw it was unloaded. He then told police that he pulled the slide back on the gun and saw that it didn’t have a round in the chamber.
The teen told police he pulled the trigger several times and that the victim’s older brother took the gun from him and also pulled the trigger several times. The alleged shooter said the victim also played with the gun and pulled the trigger. The defendant told police that when he took the gun back from the victim, he pulled the trigger and the gun went off.
The victim was shot in the head.
He told police he had “no idea how a live round got into firearm.”
After police obtained the gun, according to the report, they determined the magazine was loaded with 14 rounds and the gun had one live round in the chamber. The empty magazine was found on the ground of the garage.
“It’s with a real heavy heart that we have this tragedy that youngster lost his life,” said Sheriff Scott Israel said Thursday. “Our deputies arrived at the scene and we come in contact with three juveniles. One of whom was tragically deceased. It looks like he died of a gunshot wound,” Sheriff Israel said.
Homicide detectives scoured through the home on NW 41 St. near Palm Ave. and Stirling Rd. Thursday and interviewed the boys for hours before arresting the 14-year-old and charging him with manslaughter.
The homeowner told CBS4 his family is going through a hard time and did not want to talk about what happened.
People who live nearby are torn up by the tragedy.
“For something to happen to a child is absolutely devastating. I feel for the parents, I feel for the community because this isn’t that type of place,” Karen Kriger said.
BSO, coincidentally, has been planning to have a firearms safety class next Tuesday in Cooper City. The class will focus on safety lessons for children ages 11 to 14. It will discuss topics like properly securing firearms and the dangers of guns.
The victim’s family set up a page to help raise money for funeral costs as well as money for the family to help deal with the tragedy. For information, click here.BJP MP Kirti Azad said on Wednesday that it was unfortunate he had been suspended by his party for “speaking the truth” about corruption in Delhi’s cricket body and said he will make “more revelations” in the coming days.
“What anti-party activity have I done?” the three-time Lok Sabha member from Darbhanga in Bihar asked as journalists sought his reaction after the BJP announced his suspension for anti-party activities.
He said he had never targeted finance minister Arun Jaitley, who for years headed the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA), “although much of the wrongdoing took place during his tenure”.
Jaitley headed the DDCA for over a decade until |
or all of them at once. To change this, initiate the Activities Window and you will see the workspace viewer icon near the bottom right corner of the Activities window. If you are viewing your workspaces one at a time you will see four small squares together. If you are viewing your workspaces all at once, you will see a single square. Figure 4 shows workspaces being viewed all at one. This, to me, is the most efficient way to view your workspaces. Why? Let me illustrate that for you.
Let's say you have four workspaces and you want one workspace dedicated to writing. So you want to open OpenOffice Writer in workspace number 2 (upper right workspace). All you have to do is open the Activities Window and click and drag the OpenOffice Writer icon to the desired workspace. Or, say you already have an application open and you want to move it to another workspace. Simple. Open up the Activities window and click and drag the open window to the desired workspace.
I hope you can see that GNOME 3 looks to be all about efficiency.
Installation
So...you want to give it a try? All you need to do is open up your Add/Remove Software tool, search for "gnome-shell" (no quotes), mark it for installation, and click Apply. I have had zero difficulty getting this installed on Ubuntu 10.04 and Fedora 13.
Final Thoughts
GNOME 3 has me excited about the desktop. That says a lot, because I have been through the gamut of desktops and back again. I have experienced every Linux desktop that has been available, and GNOME 3 proves there is still plenty of innovation left in the Linux desktop community.
I hope you are looking forward to September 2010 as much as I am. Although I have already been using this desktop for some time now and even in its "infancy," GNOME 3 is an impressive piece of work.For some background, I've been working with Django for a few years now and for the past year have been a developer on a rather large django application at work. I did a few projects with SQLAlchemy about 2 years ago when I was put on a project whose requirements seemed to imply the need for a database but had no web component. I know of and have used other python ORMs (notably SQLObject), but this post is about SQLA and Django's ORMs, and how I consider the differences between them to be important but also neutral.
I started a small project recently that was going to require some light querying, and have had aborted re-starts on the business logic layer using first Elixir, then SQLObject, and now going straight ext.declarative with SQLAlchemy. The project has relatively few tables, with only a couple one-to-many and a single many-to-many relationship; as such it probably represents a fairly standard use case of an ORM. I've learned a lot about these different projects in the process, but was finally able to formalize some thoughts I've had with respect to SQLA and Django's ORMs.
The major takeaway from all of it is that SQLAlchemy's ORM and Django's ORM solve different problems. They aren't completely different problems, but they are different enough that you should have a completely different approach using each.
SQLAlchemy is a toolkit for python programmers who want or need to use a database to write programs that do so. Django's ORM is a tool for python programmers to quickly model business-level data relationships and use a database for persistent storage. This is really an important distinction; the Django ORM interface is focused on the application's data model, whereas SQLAlchemy's interface is focused on the underlying data store. In Django, your application is first class; in Alchemy, it isn't. As an example, look at a simple usage of a many-to-many relationship in each:
Django: Book.objects.filter(author__age=27)
SQLAlchemy: session.query(Book).join(Book, Author).filter(Author.age==27)
Note that Django's API is entirely concerned with the relationship between the application-level abstractions 'Book' and 'Author', whereas the Alchemy version includes far more details about what is actually going to happen when executed. This example exposes the different assumptions the ORMs have to live with, as well: implicit within Django's design are decisions on the way connections are made to the database, how to evaluate queries (lazily or eagerly), whereas in SQLAlchemy these details are in plain sight.
There's a large degree of negative/positive choice tradeoff going on between the two ORMs that took a while to dawn on me. As an application developer first and a database administrator and tuner maybe 5th at best, I tend to lean towards Django's ORM as the type of thing I'd rather use. I see that as a result of familiarity, my own weaknesses, and also the strengths of the Django ORM to do a good enough job most of the time.
Of course, there are things you can't do easily with Django's ORM, like fetch all books with 2 authors, or fetch all authors whose first and last names are the same, that are relatively simple to do in SQLAlchemy. The conceptual leap, of course, is understanding how to answer these questions from the standpoint of your database, not your data model. There's a case to be made that, if you have not already made this leap, your ability to solve problems will be constrained by the tools the Django ORM gives you, and I can see some truth in the blame critics place on Django's ORM for keeping some folks unenlightened. I still think that in the end, the python programmer is better off having both of these projects to learn from, and the python world better for having both to choose from.
update: This post got a bit of action at reddit. The comments there rightly pointed out that the examples I pointed to above that were 'not easily done' via Django are fairly easy to do with the new aggregation features in Django 1.1. It was a mistake not to acknowledge the improvements in the Django ORM post-1.0. My main point wasn't to highlight a laundry list of things that are hard with Django or easy with SQLAlchemy; I'm not really qualified to do this, but I felt that a couple examples of this would perhaps illustrate the differences I saw better than mere exposition.
They also pointed to the fact that 'natural orm' features are available via SQLAlchemy. The code examples I included above are already using relations, and at least according to the latest documentation they are the canonical way to deal with these types of relationships in SQLA 0.5.x. However, the fact that there are multiple ways of doing this speaks to the main point of this post; that the focus of SQLAlchemy is to allow you to do whatever it is you want without touching raw SQL, and the focus of Django's ORM is to provide your application with an easy-to-use data model.
The fact that Django's ORM is heavily influenced by the relationships SQL is good at is to me an unavoidable impurity; you could provide a Django-orm style data model for a non RDBMS, but SQLAlchemy outside of that context is completely meaningless. Which is fine; the difference is neutral, and SQLAlchemy is meant to be the best there is within that context. In fact, I think it clearly is; the whole point is that Django's ORM is only incidentally playing in the same sandbox, and is focusing on solving a slightly different problem.ANALYSIS/OPINION:
People are leaving the Hillary-supporting states in droves
When I say the blue states are in a depression, I don’t mean the collective funk they are in because they lost the election to Donald Trump.
I’m talking about an economic depression in the blue states that went for Hillary. Here is an amazing statistic. Of the 10 blue states that Hillary Clinton won by the largest percentage margins — California, Massachusetts, Vermont, Hawaii, Maryland, New York, Illinois, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut — every single one of them lost domestic migration (excluding immigration) over the last 10 years (2004-14). Nearly 2.75 million more Americans left California and New York than entered these states.
They are the loser states. They are all progressive. High taxes rates. High welfare benefits. Heavy regulation. Environmental extremism. Super minimum wages. Most outlaw energy drilling. The whole left-wing playbook is on display in the Hillary states. And people are leaving in droves. Day after day, they are being bled to death. So much for liberalism creating a worker’s paradise.
Now let’s look at the 10 states that had the largest percentage vote for Donald Trump. Everyone of them — Wyoming, West Virginia, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Kentucky, Tennessee, South Dakota, and Idaho — was a net population gainer.
This is part and parcel of one of the greatest internal migration waves in American history as blue states especially in the northeast are getting clobbered by their low tax, smaller government rivals in the south, southeast and mountain regions.
By the way, pretty much the same pattern holds true for jobs. The job gains in the red states carried by the widest margins by Mr. Trump had about twice the job creation rate as the bluest states carried by Hillary.
The just-released 2016 edition of ALEC’s Rich States, Poor States, which I co-author with Reagan economist Arthur Laffer and economist Jonathan Williams shows a persistent trend of Americans moving from blue to red states. The best example is that from 2004-2014, the two biggest conservative states in terms of population size — Florida and Texas — gained almost one million new residents each. The two most populous liberal states — California and New York — saw an equal-sized exodus.
It’s easy to understand why people might want to leave gray and rusting New York. But California? California has arguably the most beautiful weather, mountains and beaches in the country and yet people keep fleeing the state that is supposed to be a progressive utopia.
What doesn’t make California and New York paradise is the high cost of living thanks to expensive environmental regulations, forced union policies, and income tax rates that are the highest in the nation at 13 percent or more. Florida and Texas are right to work states with no income tax. Is it really a shocker that people would choose zero income tax over 13 percent? New York politicians know that their record high tax rates
are killing growth, which is why the state is spending millions of dollars on TV ads across the country trying to convince people that New York has low taxes. Sure. And Chicago is crime-free.
Even when it comes to income inequality blue states fare worse than red states. According to a 2016 report by the Economic Policy institute, three of the states with the largest gaps between rich and poor are … those progressive icons New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Sure, Boston, Manhattan and Silicon Valley are booming as the rich prosper. But outside these areas are deep pockets of poverty and wage stagnation.
The lesson to be learned from the states is that the “progressive” tax and spend agenda has been put on trial. Not only do the policies lead to much slower growth, they also benefit the rich and politically well-connected at the expense of everyone else.
President-elect Trump is now promising that on a national scale, he will cut taxes, deregulate and cut wasteful government spending, In the presidential debates Hillary Clinton disparaged this agenda as “trumped up, trickle-down economics,” and then she asked, when has that ever worked? Actually in prospering red states like Florida, Tennessee, Texas and so many other states that voted Republican, that is exactly how they grow the economy.
• Stephen Moore is an economist with Freedom Works and a senior economic adviser to the Trump campaign.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Timothy Hill (WVVA)
A West Virginia state trooper, who killed a teen after allegedly harassing the young man for months, will not face charges for the deadly June shooting, according to the Bluefield Daily Telegraph.
A Mercer County grand jury failed to hand down an indictment against trooper B.D. Gillespie of the West Virginia State Police in the death of Timothy Hill, 18, who was shot twice and fatally wounded near Gillespie’s Mercer County home.
Hill was shot following a brief struggle with Gillespie, with the trooper claiming that the teen reached for his weapon.
According to Gillespie, he tracked Hill and two other men down after his wife claimed some men were tampering with his personal vehicle and state-issued cruiser parked in the driveway.
Following questioning, Gillespie let the other two men go, but said that Hill became belligerent leading to a struggle where he used pepper spray and his baton on the young man.
After Hill was reportedly subdued, with the help of a neighborhood man, Gillespie claimed that the teen attempted to grab his weapon, leading Gillespie to shoot him twice.
According to Hill’s mother, Gillespie had a history with her son, saying he had bullied him in the months prior, but never thinking it would lead to the young man’s death.
“I figured he would try to arrest him over something stupid once he turned 18, or try to beat him up,” Michelle Hill said. Her son turned 18 in May.
“That’s kind of what I was expecting,” she added. “I didn’t know he was going to kill my son right in front of my house.”
According to Hill’s aunt, Mary Chambers, Gillespie has a reputation in the neighborhood as a bully; using his position as a trooper to threaten neighbors over personal matters and sitting on his front porch using a radar gun.'Guilty as charged': President of fast food chain Chick-fil-A OUTS his company as ANTI-GAY marriage... and he's proud of it
Chick-fil-A COO Dan Cathy said in explosive interview that company is only supportive of heterosexual family values
Added that business is family-based 'and we are married to our first wives'
Company donated more than $3m between 2003 and 2009 to Christian organisations with anti-gay agendas
The fast food chain Chick-fil-A has long been suspected of having an anti-gay agenda, and this week, the company’s COO has decidedly come out on the side of the 'biblical definition of the family unit.’
Dan Cathy, the president of the multimillion-dollar empire said in an interview with the conservative p aper Baptist Press th at his company is ‘very much supportive of the family,’ but only when it involves heterosexual couples.
‘Well, guilty as charged,’ Cathy responded when asked about Chick-fil-A’s backing of ‘traditional’ families with a husband and wife.
Anti-gay: Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy's comments against gay marriage have caused a huge amount of criticism from consumers
‘We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives,’ Cathy continued, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The Atlanta-based business currently has 1,608 locations and boasts sales of more than $4billion. According to the paper, Chick-fil-A workers are trained ‘to focus on values rooted in the Bible,’ and the eateries nationwide are closed on Sundays.
‘We don’t claim to be a Christian business,’ Mr Cathy said. ‘Companies are not lost or saved, but certainly individuals are. But as an organization we can operate on biblical principles.’
The company, founded in 1946 by Cathy’s father, S. Truett Cathy, has come under fire for donating more than $3million between 2003 and 2009 to Christian organizations with a well-known anti-gay agenda, among them the Marriage & Family Foundation and the Family Research Council.
Activist business: It has been reported that Chick-fil-A has donated millions of dollars to Christian groups that oppose gay marriage
'Going forward': The Atlanta-based fast food chain released a statement on Facebook saying they will 'leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena'
According to a report from LGBT advocacy group Equality Matters, in 2010 alone Chick-fil-A gave nearly $2million to such causes.
CLUCKING MAD: ACTOR ED HELMS LASHES OUT AGAINST CHICK-FIL-A Ed Helms, known for his memorable roles in The Hangover and The Office, posted his two cents on Twitter today, writing: ‘Chick-Fil-A doesn’t like gay people? So lame. Hate to think what they do to the gay chickens,’ adding that the restaurant ‘lost a loyal fan.’
Other celebrities like Andy Richter took to the microblogging site to say: ‘Plenty of other chicken sandwiches out there, folks.’
Despite the food chain’s history of providing financial support to faith-based groups that oppose homosexuality, Cathy’s comments appear to contradict his previously stated position on the issue.
In a 2011 interview with the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Cathy said that his business ‘opted not to get involved in the political debate. It's never been our agenda.’
However, in last month’s radio interview on The Ken Coleman Show, Cathy stated in no uncertain terms where he stands on the issue of gay marriage.
‘I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say 'we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,’ and I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about,' he said at the time.
Cathy said this week that he realizes that their stance on same-sex marriage may not be ‘popular with everyone,’ but his company’s leaders intend to stay the course.
Chick-fil-A’s record of donations to anti-gay groups through the company’s charity organization, WinShape, has already prompted Northeastern University in Boston to abandon plans to open an eatery on campus.
The chain also faced criticism when it sponsored a relationship seminar in Pennsylvania that banned same-sex couples from attending, Philadelphia Magazine reported.
Change of heart: Northeastern University in Boston scrapped plans to open a Chick-fil-A on campus last yearOne critic of Rooney calls a statement by her 'un-American.' Navy nominee stirs controversy
A second female Defense Department nominee is in trouble over the issue of sexual assaults in the military — this time for a statement that one critic branded “un-American.”
Jo Ann Rooney, selected by President Barack Obama to be the next undersecretary of the Navy, toed the Pentagon line Thursday in voicing deep skepticism about a proposal by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) to remove the chain of command from decisions to prosecute allegations of sexual assault and other major crimes in the military.
Story Continued Below
But Rooney’s justification — laid out in written answers provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee ahead of her nomination hearing and first reported by POLITICO — veered off script.
( Sign up for POLITICO’s Morning Defense tip sheet)
“A judge advocate outside the chain of command will be looking at a case through a different lens than a military commander,” said Rooney. “I believe the impact would be decisions based on evidence rather than the interest in preserving good order and discipline.”
Decisions based solely on evidence, she suggested, would be a bad outcome. “I believe this will result in fewer prosecutions and therefore defeat the very problem that I understand it seeks to address,” she said.
Gillibrand, a member of the Armed Services Committee, pounced on Rooney’s statement, saying she was “extremely troubled.” And Gillibrand’s spokesman, Glen Caplin, suggested the New York Democrat might try to block or delay Rooney’s confirmation, saying the senator “will strongly consider all of her options going forward.”
( Also on POLITICO: Full defense policy coverage)
Rooney isn’t alone among Pentagon nominees to run into trouble over the handling of military sexual assault cases.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) continues to hold up the nomination of Lt. Gen. Susan Helms to be vice commander of the Air Force Space Command. Helms granted clemency last year to a military officer who had been convicted of sexual assault — an action McCaskill said “sent a damaging message to survivors of sexual assault.”
Air Force secretary nominee Deborah Lee James, meanwhile, dodged the issue last month.
She’s a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, which voted in favor of removing the command chain from sexual assault prosecutions despite a personal plea from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to conduct more studies on the issue.
( Also on POLITICO: Kirsten Gillibrand gains on chain of command changes)
Ten members of the panel endorsed the concept, while six abstained. James didn’t attend the meeting.
Rooney, who faced some tough questioning on Capitol Hill on Thursday, has also drawn contempt from the Service Women’s Action Network, a leading victim-advocacy group that blasted her remarks as “un-American.”
“Rooney implies that basing legal decisions on evidence is counter to good order and discipline,” SWAN Executive Director Anu Bhagwati said in a statement. “What is counter to good order and discipline is victims’ inability to access justice because legal decisions are based on commander bias rather than evidence.
“Diminishing the importance of evidence in criminal cases is, frankly, un-American,” Bhagwati added.
( Also on POLITICO: Chuck Hagel’s sexual assault panel may be too late)
A Navy official said on Thursday the service looks forward “to continuing to work with Congress throughout Dr. Rooney’s confirmation process.”
“The Navy remains committed to sexual assault prevention and response and has taken important steps in victim support and accountability,” said the official, who discussed Rooney’s statement on the condition of not being identified. “The Navy also maintains that our commanders should be involved in each phase of the military justice process.”
Rooney also defended herself during a fiery exchange with Gillibrand during her nomination hearing on Thursday, saying military commanders had non-judicial tools they could use to deal with allegations of sexual assault.
“They must look at the evidence, of course,” Rooney told senators. “They also have other tools.”
( Also on POLITICO: Military still secretive on sex crimes)
Gillibrand countered that under her proposal those tools “would remain within the commander’s purview,” asking, “In what world would you recommend that the decision to prosecute a serious crime … not be based on evidence?”
The senator has been working to drum up support for her legislation, which she plans to offer as an amendment to this year’s defense authorization bill. She told POLITICO last month that she counts 45 senators, including eight Republicans, on her side, plus additional commitments that she’s gotten in private for when the amendment reaches the floor.
Pentagon leaders oppose the Gillibrand amendment, arguing that military brass must have ultimate authority over their commands.
“The role of the commander is essential to any change we will be able to make on this issue,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey told senators during a June hearing.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story listed an outdated title for Rooney.
CORRECTION: Corrected by: Jessica Huff @ 10/11/2013 08:26 AM CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story listed an outdated title for Rooney.Ortega and the second or maternal family name is Gaona. This name uses Spanish naming customs : the first or paternal family name isand the second or maternal family name is
Amancio Ortega Gaona ( Spanish pronunciation: [aˈmanθjo oɾˈteɣa ɣaˈona], born 28 March 1936) is a Spanish billionaire businessman. He is the founder and former chairman of Inditex fashion group, best known for its chain of Zara clothing and accessories shops. As of late September 2018, Ortega had a net worth of $70 billion, making him the second-wealthiest person in Europe after Bernard Arnault, and the sixth-wealthiest in the world.[2] He is the head of the Ortega family.
Ortega is also the wealthiest retailer in the world.[1][3]
Early life and education [ edit ]
The youngest of four children, Ortega was born in Busdongo de Arbás, León, Spain, to Antonio Ortega Rodríguez and Josefa Gaona Hernández from the province of Valladolid, and spent his childhood in León.[4]
He left school and moved to A Coruña at the age of 14, due to the job of his father, a railway worker. Shortly after, he found a job as a shop hand for a local shirtmaker called Gala, which still sits on the same corner in downtown A Coruña, and learned to make clothes by hand.[5]
Career [ edit ]
In 1972, he founded Confecciones Goa to sell quilted bathrobes.[citation needed]
In 1975, he opened his first Zara store with his wife Rosalía Mera.[6]
In 2009, Zara was part of the Inditex group (Industrias de Diseño Textil Sociedad Anónima), of which Ortega owned 59.29%, and aside from over 6,000 stores included the brands Zara, Massimo Dutti, Oysho, Zara Home, Kiddy's Class, Tempe, Stradivarius, Pull and Bear, Bershka and has more than 92,000 employees.[7]
His public appearance in 2000, as part of the warm-up prior to his company's initial public offering on the stock market in 2001, made headlines in the Spanish financial press. However, he has only ever granted interviews to three journalists.[8]
In 2011, Ortega announced his imminent retirement from Inditex, parent company of the Zara chain, stating that he would ask Inditex vice-president and CEO Pablo Isla to take his place as head. In 2012 Ortega donated about €20 million to Caritas Internationalis, a Roman Catholic relief organisation.[9]
He purchased the Torre Picasso skyscraper in Madrid. He also purchased the Epic Residences and Hotel in Miami, Florida.[10]
As of 2016, he owned around 60% of Inditex, which is the holding company for Zara and related chains.[11]
In July 2017, for its second edition of the AEF awards,[12] the Spanish Association of Foundations awarded Amancio Ortega in the 2017 Philanthropic Initiative category.[13][14]
Personal life [ edit ]
Very private about his personal life, as of 2012 he had only given three interviews to journalists. He married Rosalia Mera in 1966, and divorced in 1986. Mera died in August 2013 at the age of 69. He married his second wife Flora in 2001. He has three children.[15] As of 2017, he lived with his wife in A Coruña, Spain.[10]
Ortega keeps a very low profile and is known for his preference for a simple lifestyle.[11] Until 1999, no photograph of Ortega had ever been published. He refuses to wear a tie and typically prefers to wear a simple uniform of a blue blazer, white shirt, and gray trousers, none of which are Zara products.[8]
See also [ edit ]
Bibliography [ edit ]
Blanco, Xabier; Salgado, Jesús (2004). Amancio Ortega, de cero a Zara: El primer libro de investigación sobre el imperio Inditex. Esfera de los Libros. p. 271. ISBN 978-8-497-34167-7.
References [ edit ]Police in Alabama have arrested four black men in connection with the beating of a white Alabama high school student who had posted pro-Blue Lives Matter Comments in support of cops.
In a statement, Sylacauga Police Chief Kelley Johnson says four recent Sylacauga High School students were arrested Tuesday following the September 30 attack against 17-year-old Brian Ogle.
Ogle's mother, Brandi Allen, says her son responded to students wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts at his school with Blue Lives Matter. He was hospitalized with serious head injuries.
Suspects arrested: Quartez Walker, 20 (left), and Bobby Brown, 19 (right), were arrested at Stillman College Tuesday in the September 30 attack on an Alabama teenager
'Accomplices': Daveon Nix, 20 (left), was arrested in Sylacauga, while La Noah Ealy Jr (right), 18, was arrested at Auburn University in Montgomery
Victim: Brian Ogle, 17, is being treated for injuries at a hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, after he was assaulted in the parking lot of an Ace hardware store in Sylacauga in September
Two of the four suspects, 20-year-old Quartez Walker and 19-year-old Bobby Brown, were taken into custody at Stillman College.
La Noah Ealy Jr, 18, was arrested at Auburn University in Montgomery, while 20-year-old Daveon Nix was arrested in Sylacauga.
Walker was booked on a first-degree assault charge and his bond was set at $20,000.
The other three suspects face charges of second-degree assault and are being held on $15,000 each.
Talladega County District Attorney Steve Giddens said Walker was charged with a more serious criminal count because he believes the 20-year-old man was the only one in the group who was armed with a gun, which he allegedly used to strike Ogle.
Suspect Daveon Nix is the son of a newly elected local councilwoman, Tiffany Nix.
Just days before her son's arrest, Councilwoman-elect Nix, representing Sylacauga District 2, addressed the subject of racial tensions in the city in general, and the attack on Brian Ogle in particular, in an interview with The Daily Home, saying, in part, that parents should set a good example for their children.
Mom: Daveon Nix is the son of Sylacauga Councilwoman-elect Tiffany Nix (pictured together). He has been charged with second-degree assault
Serious charge: Walker (left and right) was booked on a first-degree assault charge and his bond was set at $20,000. Prosecutors believe he was the only suspect who was armed
'If we’re upholding them in their wrongdoings, then we are as much to blame as they are,' she said at the time.
In the wake of the arrests, Brian Ogle's mother lamented that the bonds for her son's accused assailants were set too low.
'I mean, obviously, people get charged with lesser crimes every day and their bonds are way higher than this,' Brandi Allen told the station WSFA Tuesday.
In an interview with Al.com, Mrs Allen added that she thought the quartet of suspects should have been charged with attempted murder.
La Noah Ealy (left) and Bobby Brown (right) face charges of second-degree assault and are being held on $15,000 each
Mom's complaint: The victim's mother lamented that the bonds for her son's accused assailants, among them Bobby Brown (left) and Quartez Walker (right), were set too low
The mother said Brian's condition has improved enough to have him moved out of the ICU into a regular hospital room.
Police Chief Johnson said he does not expect any additional arrests in the case.
On September 30, police found Brian Ogle bleeding from his head near an Ace hardware store after his school's homecoming football game.
He was immediately airlifted to a hospital in nearby Birmingham to be treated for three skull fractures as well as injuries to his shoulders, the Daily Caller reported.
Brandi Allen told WBRC at the time she believed her son was a target because of videos he posted on his Facebook account which expressed support for the Blue Lives Matter movement.
Blue Lives Matter is a response to the Black Lives Matter protests which erupted nationwide in the wake of a spate of police-involved killings of African-Americans.
Ogle's (right) mother, Brandi Allen (left), says that she believes her son was targeted because of Facebook messages he posted in support of the Blue Lives Matter movement
Ogle was not shy about expressing his support for law enforcement and criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement, which was formed in response to police-involved shootings
Ogle's mother said that her son began to receive threats from people at school after he made the posts, though school administrators said there was nothing they could do
Ogle's Facebook account is replete with images and messages meant to convey support for law enforcement.
'Instead of us planning for his 18th birthday, we're here [near the hospital],' said Allen. 'Why? Because he made a statement that he backs the blue?
'I'm still trying to understand how someone, no matter the color of their skin, can do this to another human being.'
She said that her son began receiving threatening messages from schoolmates who were unhappy over his Facebook posts.
It is believed Ogle, left, pictured with his mother Brandi, right, was pistol-whipped
It is believed some of the threats Ogle received were from his school mates
Allen also blamed school officials for not adequately protecting her son after he had notified them of the threats he was receiving.
'My son took it to the principal at Sylacauga High School and I commend him for that. He showed her the threats that were being made to him, but she told him there was nothing she could do. I'm appalled,' Allen explained.FOXBORO — Matt Light had no problem with fans booing Patriots players when they knelt during the national anthem yesterday.
The former Patriots left tackle who was Tom Brady’s blindside protector on three Super Bowl championship teams said he walked away from the game “ashamed” after 16 Pats players took a knee.
“If you think that it’s OK to take a knee during our national anthem and disrespect openly the national anthem, you are wrong,” Light said. “I don’t care if you have a ‘but what about’ or a ‘it’s because of,’ that doesn’t’ matter.”
The anthem kneeling “would have never happened during my time,” Light said. “As a guy that’s been there and helped set up the Patriot Way so they can walk in there and do what they do, it’s beyond disheartening. It’s the first time I’ve ever been ashamed to be a Patriot. And I promise you I’m not the only one.”
No one on the Texans appeared to kneel, and given how tightly Bill Belichick has always run his ship, Light said he was surprised this would happen on his watch.
“Nobody can force anybody to do anything in a situation like that. If he chooses to do it he’s going to do it,” Light said. “But I’m going to tell you this much, with the amount of preparation and attention to detail and all the things that happen in that organization, I’m really surprised that it wasn’t dealt with so it didn’t get to that point.”
Light said of the protest, “We’ve never been those people. On the door going out it says ‘ignore the noise.’ It says ‘ignore the hype.’ It says ‘manage expectations.’ And it also says ‘speak for yourself.’ If that is not the Patriot Way anymore, then I am very disheartened and very upset. I’m also not saying that I’ll never be a Patriots fan. What I’m saying is I’m very ashamed.”
Light said he sat with a 91-year old veteran and the wife of a slain SEAL Team 6 member who was at her first NFL game.
“His wife had to sit at her first NFL game and watch what these men chose to do. Her husband died, gave his life up so that they could do that,” Light said. “That’s the reality that these so-called men don’t understand. Is it about their cause or is it about them? If it was about their cause, I could come up with a million different ways for them to really truly change things. If it’s about them, well … you see what happens. The collateral damage is widespread.
“They obviously didn’t think about anybody other than themselves.”Acadia: A New Sci-Fi Novel (Excerpt)
Enjoy the first chapter of a new novel from James Erwin, creator of Rome Sweet Rome. If you'd like to support it, Erwin has established a crowdfunding project where you can order DRM-free ebooks and hardcopies.
Kate’s alarm went off at six. She stretched, setting off a string of pops in her limbs and back. Frowning, she swung her legs and sat up. Her eyes half-open, she noticed that the usual warmth was missing from the light coming through her window. The light seemed thinner somehow, stretched and fading. She closed her eyes, a sense of foreboding descending on her. She stood and pressed her palm against the glass. She opened her eyes.
Kate’s window looked out over Lake Michigan, a finger of wooded land stretching out on her left into the dawn mist. She frowned. A cold tingling crawled up her back. In the distance, a pair of egrets burst up from the lakeshore.
“Goddammit, Virgil,” she hissed.
The window stuttered to a blinding white and went dark. The lights came up overhead. Kate held up her hand and walked to the bathroom.
“Kate, I-“
“Privacy.”
Kate walked back and stood in the center of the room, her arms folded. She kept her face still. She’d be damned if she made it easy for him. Easier than it usually was, anyway.
“I should have seen it. I am deeply sorry.”
Kate tried to keep her breathing steady but she knew Virgil would notice something. Something that told him he’d hit the mark.
“Kate, you know I do what I do out of the best intentions. It’s not always enough. I will remember this in the future.”
Kate’s lip twitched, in a gesture that wasn’t nearly as sardonic as she’d hoped. “You always keep your promises.”
“I always have.”
“Past tense? Keeping your options open?”
“Kate.” Virgil’s tone was warm, playful. But just back far enough from cheerful. Glad she’d let things go. Just enough reserve there to remind them both that they were both doing a job, that he was watching her. Kate smiled.
“They made you too perfect, Virgil.”
“That’s not a compliment, is it?”
“Could be if my coffee’s ready.”
“It’s not. I thought you would come out to the living room and look at today’s schedule before asking for it.”
Kate shook her head in mock disappointment. “Don’t fall apart on me, Virgil.” She scratched the back of her neck absently as she reflected that she’d never even gotten out her complaint. Virgil had shifted the conversation, ended it before it started with her full participation – and, dammit, yes, left her cheerful. She walked to the living room, more frustrated with herself than Virgil. Thinking about him was about the only hobby she had left.
It occurred to Kate that Virgil would know that. That a simple mistake, one easily explained away and just as easily shelved, would let Virgil test her while giving her something to focus on. If you |
the Tokyo Olympics" (which are to be held in 2020). Kojima also teased that a playable heroine could be joining Norman Reedus's side in the game, and that the title will introduce a completely new type of co-op gameplay never seen before, but will be playable in single player mode too.
Two pictures released during the event showcasing the studio's beginnings in a rental office can be found below:
Announced at this year's E3, Death Stranding will be Kojima's first game since his departure from Konami following the release of Metal Gear Solid V. It is a confirmed PlayStation 4 title, though the possibility of it making it to PC seems likely.
Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNTdus18zyMXiaomi launched a Spanish version of its site to start selling to the Western European audience, but perhaps you prefer the familiarity of Amazon. That's no problem, Amazon Spain now offers a selection of mid-range and entry-level Redmi devices.
The Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 is a best seller. You can have a 32GB model for 170, there's a 64GB option as well. The Redmi Note 5A Prime costs 160, but we think the Note 4 is a better deal.
A Redmi Note 5A, which is quite affordable at 130, though you might find the quad-core processor limiting.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A Prime Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A
Of the smaller models, the Xiaomi Redmi 4X costs around the same as the Note 5A Prime - 150 - and offers similar performance in a smaller package.
Finally, the Redmi 4a is the most budget-friendly option at 100. For just 10 more you can upgrade from the 16GB to the 32GB model.
Xiaomi Redmi 4X Xiaomi Redmi 4a
The Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 bezel-less flagship has been available for a few days now adn its price is 500 while the Android One-running Mi A1 is currently out of stock (but will cost 230 when it comes back).
Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 Xiaomi Mi A1
ViaGeorgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) signed a law last week that will soon require welfare applicants to pay for drug tests and pass them in order to be eligible for benefits.
In a release, Deal's office cited Florida's recent experience with the same requirement: "Florida passed similar legislation back in 2010 decreasing their welfare applicant pool by 48 percent and saving their state $1.8 million."
Deal's assertion is based on bad research by the Foundation for Government Accountability, a conservative think tank in Florida. The notion that drug testing reduced the welfare applicant pool is directly contradicted by the state government's evaluation of its own law.
"Florida's caseload had been declining consistently since December 2010," says a document from the state's Department of Children and Families, which administers the assistance program (formally known nationwide as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families). "On applying the previous rate of decline to a projection of the July-September 2011 caseload and factoring in the drug testing denials, we found that the projected caseload would have been lower than the actual caseload. Therefore we saw no dampening effect on the caseload for the one quarter (July-September) covered for this report."
The Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which successfully sued to halt the drug testing on constitutional grounds, obtained the state report, along with the latest numbers on the drug testing program. HuffPost confirmed the data (first reported by The New York Times) with Florida's Department of Children and Families.
From the moment the Florida law took effect in July of 2011 to when a federal judge suspended it with an injunction the following October, a total of 4,086 welfare applicants were drug tested. Of that total, 108, or 2.6 percent, tested positive for drugs, mostly marijuana. The rate of drug use among the general population is above 8 percent. So poor parents seeking assistance in Florida were singled out for drug testing, but it turns out they are actually less likely to do drugs than most people are.
Florida had to reimburse drug-free applicants for their tests, which at roughly $30 a pop amounted to $118,140 -- likely more than the state would have saved by not paying benefits to the 108 applicants who tested positive for drugs.
Tarren Bragdon, director of the Foundation for Government Accountability, claimed in October that the 1,597 people who filled out applications to qualify for assistance but did not pee in cups would have cost the state $1.8 million in benefits had they enrolled. Bragdon has termed these "drug-related denials," but he has admitted in an interview there is no reason to assume the applicants failed to follow through because they were on drugs. It could be that they found jobs, moved away, couldn't afford the tests or objected to the new policy.
Another problem with the $1.8 million figure is that applicants who actually test positive are banned from receiving benefits for a year, but ones who simply didn't finish their applications can apply again at any time.
Much of the money saved from not providing assistance to those people was lost when the state paid them anyway because of the October injunction. Bragdon claims the state has restored $1.1 million worth of benefits to people who were denied because of failed or skipped drug tests, but according to the Department of Children and Families (DCF), Florida paid out $594,918 in restored benefits and an additional $12,508 in drug testing reimbursements.
In an interview, Bragdon defended his research, but could not explain why he attributes dropping caseloads to drug testing while the state's DCF said the law had no such effect.
Bragdon's numbers have been wrong before. In his first analysis of the drug testing law, he assumed a year's worth of savings for each applicant denied, even though the average person on TANF in Florida receives benefits for less than five months. He also whiffed on the average monthly benefit amount, putting it at $134 instead of $250. He used more accurate numbers in his next report, but never corrected the first one, which claims the law would save $9 million per year.
Mary Scriven, the federal judge who stopped Florida's welfare drug testing law, mocked Bragdon's work in her order. "Though the State offers, as evidence of the cost savings, a pamphlet from the Foundation for Government Accountability," Scriven wrote, "the data contained in the pamphlet is not competent expert opinion, nor is it offered as such, nor could it be reasonably construed as such."
(Bragdon's organization subsequently called Scriven "pro-addict.")The Four Demandments of Flipamania:
Train
Say Your Prayers
Eat Your Vitamins
Believe in Yourself
Kids today need to have RNG, brother! And the only way we can instill them is through the Four Demandments of Flipamania! When Flip Flogan becomes the leader of the gambling world, you can be sure that your kids will get the finest education in true RNG! Only when you train, say your prayers, eat your vitamins, and believe in yourself can you become a true Flipamaniac in every sense of the word!
You see, when Flip Flogan becomes RNJesus, the Four Demandments will be taking Magic the Gathering over by storm! And there's nothing you can do to stop Flipamania from running wild like it has never ran before, brother!
WHATCHA GONNA DO WHEN RNJESUS FLOGAN KNOCKS SOME SENSE INTO YOU!!!??During Oculus Connect 3 in San Jose, CA, Oculus announced that, starting today, Oculus will cover royalty fees for all Unreal Engine titles shipping on the Oculus Store for up to the first $5 million of gross revenue per game.
Remember, Epic makes the Unreal Engine available to all developers to use for free, with a 5% royalty due on gross revenue from the resulting games. Now, Oculus’ generous arrangement makes the Unreal Engine and Oculus Store even more attractive for VR developers!
Nate Mitchell, VP of Oculus, notes: “We've been close partners with Epic since the very beginning, and we've used Unreal Engine for countless projects including Toybox, Dreamdeck, Farlands, Lost, Henry, and the upcoming Dear Angelica from Story Studio.”
Unreal Engine 4 is widely used by everyone from indie developers to the world’s top triple-A studios. It includes state-of-the-art support for visual scripting scalable to building complete games, and includes complete C++ source code via GitHub. Everyone can use it for free, and custom license terms are available as well.
Download Unreal now and get started!Sign-up for the Urban Milwaukee daily email
The latest annual State of Working Wisconsin report has some positive findings about recent trends for Wisconsin workers; however, it also shines a light on some ongoing challenges, and it concludes that Wisconsinites “all need stronger policy to support broadly shared prosperity.”
COWS (formerly known as the Center on Wisconsin Strategy) issues this report every Labor Day weekend. Because it’s an illuminating report, and Labor Day is an important holiday, I want to share the major findings – while minimizing my own labor this weekend. In that spirit, I am passing along several excerpts from the COWS press release.
On the plus side of the ledger, the report describes the positive effects in Wisconsin of the national economy’s gradual rebound from the Great Recession:
“The state has more jobs than ever before, unemployment rates have fallen to pre-recession levels, and workers that want full-time work are having an easier time finding it. Labor market opportunities are more clear and consistent than they have been in nearly a decade.”
In the words of Laura Dresser, COWS associate director and a co-author of the report: “Given the brutality of the Great Recession and the slow recovery from it, the progress on these key labor market indicators is very welcome news this year.”
Yet despite some recent positive developments for Wisconsin workers, the data in the report show that our state’s job growth has been well below the recovery in most other states, there are still very substantial racial and ethnic disparities, women still earn much less than men, and far too many Wisconsinites live in poverty. The following long excerpt from the press release sums up those challenges:
87,000 Missing Wisconsin Jobs: Slower Growth than the Nation – From January 2011 to June 2016, jobs in Wisconsin grew 7.1 percent while the national labor market grew 10.1 percent. If Wisconsin matched the national pace of growth, the state would have 87,319 more jobs. Unemployment Down but Opportunity Still Unequal – From a high of over 9 percent in 2009, unemployment in the state has been steadily falling and is now 4.2 percent, below the level before the Great Recession. However, opportunity has not yet extended to all. Wisconsin African American unemployment (12 percent) is 3 times higher than Wisconsin’s white unemployment rate (4 percent). That racial disparity in unemployment rates is the third highest in the nation. Long Term Wage Stagnation – Taking inflation into account, the median wage in Wisconsin grew by just forty cents since 1979, from $16.72 to $17.12 per hour in 2015 (2015 dollars). That’s an annual raise of less than 2 cents per hour. Gender Gap Closing (Slowly) – The gender gap has narrowed in the last few decades. In 1980, at the median, for every dollar a man earned, women earned 59 cents. By 2015, women earned 81 cents. The shrinking gap is the result of an increase in women’s wages and declining wages for men (with those declines concentrated in the 1980s and early 90s). Poverty-Wage Jobs in Wisconsin – One in four Wisconsin workers holds a poverty-wage job (wage under $11.56 per hour, not enough to keep a family of four out of poverty, even with full-time year-round work). Women and people of color are concentrated in these jobs. Importantly, forty percent of black workers hold poverty-wage jobs.
The State of Working Wisconsin is always an important reference, and you can find the full report here.
A report prepared jointly by COWS and the Wisconsin Budget Project on the subject of the income inequality in our state contains a number of recommendations for reducing the disparities and achieving the shared prosperity that is needed to for a prosperous Wisconsin. You can find that “Pulling Apart” report here.Tweet
Răscolesc în minte după o introducere pentru acest articol. Nu găsesc. Încerc să fiu serios. Încerc să analizez rațional. Nu pot. Nu pot să analizez o glumă, nici măcar dacă se numește “Master Plan General de Transport”. Nici măcar dacă e un document oficial al Ministerului Transporturilor. În definitiv același Minister din același Guvern a pus și orașul Sălaj pe-o hartă. Trebuia s-o iau în serios și pe aceea?
Poate mai bine încerc să fiu ironic. Să glumesc fin și inteligent. Însă cum să glumești fin despre o manea? Cum să faci analiză stilistică pe versurile lui Florin Salam? Cum să discuți cu profunzimea “Structurii revoluțiilor științifice” a lui Thomas Kuhn despre “Alchimistul” lui Cohelo?!
De exemplu, ce să le spun eu celor care de-a valma susțin că pe drumul expres se va circula cu 120 km/h? Oare sunt singurul posesor de permis auto din țară? Oare sunt singurul care a citit Codul Rutier care zice că pe drumurile expres viteza maximă admisă pentru autoturisme este de 100 km/h ( Codul Rutier, Art. 50, Pct. (1), lit. a) ). Și asta este cea mai mică problemă a acestui Master Plan, dar dacă el este fondat la un nivel atât de jos și de evident de lipsă de judecată și de realism, ce mai putem discuta inteligent despre el?
Pentru că în ansamblul său, desenul cu carioca pe hârtie denumit pompos Master Plan General de Transport nu este doar o glumă, este o insultă la adresa logicii, a României și a Uniunii Europene. Un plan nerealist, nefinațabil, fondat pe premize false și date eronate, care nu se va pune niciodată în practică. Să-l luăm în serios numai pentru că poartă semnătura unei companii altfel onorabile, AECOM? Cumva companiile mari și onorabile de la nivel mondial reușesc în timp ce toacă multe dintre milioanele și miliardele noastre să eșueze lamentabil în România: Bechtel, Colas, Impregillo și acum AECOM. Lista este desigur mult mai lungă, dar merită amintite exemplele de răsunet.
Și-atunci ce mai rămâne de făcut? Ținând cont de uriașa miză pentru noi toți, nu-mi rămâne decât să demontez planul din toate încheieturile și să arăt că oricum pui problema, acest plan nu se poate realiza și că oricum realizarea lui ar fi o imensă eroare. Într-atât este de prost acest așa zis plan. Nu pot însă să fac asta fără să mă simt precum unul dintre cei zece filosofi care încearcă să scoată piatra aruncată de nebun în lac.
PUȚINĂ ISTORIE
De unde ideea de Master Plan? Întâi din logică și normalitate: orice țară ar trebui să aibă o direcție strategică pe fiecare domeniu. Un plan de care să se țină peste timp, dincolo de cine e la putere. Sigur că planul strategic se ajustează în timp după realitatea care se schimbă, dar direcția principală rămâne aceeași peste decenii, fără schimbări radicale. În domeniul transporturilor, mai ales în cel al autostrăzilor, țările puternice din lume au astfel de planuri coerente de mai mult de jumătate de secol. Chiar și România are un plan făcut în 1969, care cu minime ajustări este perfect valabil și astăzi.
Dincolo însă de logică, România s-a remarcat în ultimii 25 de ani printr-o perpetuă bâlbâială în fața Uniunii Europene. Deși încă din 1994 (ca să nu zicem din 1969) România și-a asumat față de Europa construcția la profil de autostradă a rutei Nădlac – Sibiu – Pitești – București – Constanța, acest obiectiv nu a fost îndeplinit nici până astăzi. Apropo de această autostradă, doamnelor și domnilor politicieni, doamnelor și domnilor din Ministerul Transporturilor, CNADNR, CFR și așa mai departe, vă rog, nu-i mai spuneți Coridorul IV, că saracul nu mai există din 2007! Când spuneți Coridorul IV, înseamnă că scoateți România din UE, pentru că acel coridor a existat exclusiv ÎN AFARA UE. În interior ruta s-a numit “Axa Prioritară 7 TEN-T Core” până în 2013, iar din 2013 Uniunea Europeană, ai cărei membri suntem, l-a denumit “Coridorul Rin – Dunăre”. Și cu siguranță în 2020 denumirea se va schimba din nou, atunci când se va face o nouă redefinire de politică a uniunii. Măcar cu denumirile să fim în pas cu realitatea, dacă la construcție suntem oricum cu 20 de ani în urmă.
Așadar, exasperată de bâlbâiala noastră, Uniunea Europeană ne-a comunicat faptul că din 2014, dacă nu avem un Master Plan asumat, nu mai primim finanțare pentru transporturi. Atenție mare deci! Uniunea Europeană ne-a cerut să avem un plan, nu un ANUMIT plan. Uniunea Europeană nu poate legal nici să impună, nici să aprobe și nici să respingă Master Planul României, așa cum complet eronat s-a tot spus în ultimile săptămâni! TOT ceea ce poate face UE este să nu aprobe finanțările pentru proiectele care nu corespund priorităților continentale.
Așa că din primăvara lui 2012 România a lansat licitația pentru redactarea Master Planului General de Transport. Ceea ce se aștepta Comisia Europeană și oricine cu o minimă logică și rațiune economică, era ca acest Master Plan să formalizeze direcțiile strategice existente încă din 1969 și reconfirmate de România în mod repetat din 1994 și până la semnarea tratatului de aderare la Uniunea Europeană. Cu alte cuvinte, UE se aștepta să vadă în Master Plan autostradă de la Nădlac la Constanța și de la Lugoj la Calafat, plus desigur alte priorități românești racordate la aceste axe continentale.
MASTER PLANUL ULUIEȘTE COMISIA EUROPEANĂ
Ce-a ieșit din acest proces și ce s-a prezentat la Comisia Europeană în 16-18 septembrie 2014 pur și simplu i-a uluit pe oficialii de la Bruxelles. Desigur, aceștia n-au putut să le spună spună direct oficialilor români că sunt de pe altă lume. Și neavând nici abilitarea legală să respingă planul prezentat de România, Comisia Europeană nu a putut decât să facă niște recomandări.
Specialiștii în comunicare știu că atunci când cineva îți spune “Este bine cum spui tu, dar hai să încercăm și varianta mea” în traducere liberă asta înseamnă “Ai spus o prostie mare cât casa, hai să-ți spun eu cum trebuie să faci”. Exact în această cheie foarte dură de comunicare sunt scrise și cele patru recomandări ale Comisiei Europene, chiar dacă forma lor e una rotundă și oficială. Îmi permit deci să le traduc:
Recomandarea 1
COMISIA EUROPEANĂ: “Îmbunătăţirea metodologiei de elaborare a Master Planului, prin adăugarea unor scenarii alternative de testare a proiectelor de transport, care să includă criterii de selecţie ce vizează performanţa economică, apartenenţa la reţeaua TEN-T Core, precum şi criterii de mediu;
TRADUCERE LIBERĂ: “Ați ignorat cu desăvârșire prioritățile europene și interesul economiei”
Recomandarea 2
COMISIA EUROPEANĂ: Revizuirea valorilor estimate pentru fiecare proiect în parte;”
TRADUCERE LIBERĂ: “Ați măsluit cifrele ca să va iasă planul cum vă taie pe voi capul”
Recomandarea 3
COMISIA EUROPEANĂ: “Asumarea reformei feroviare, care presupune punerea accentului pe o reţea feroviară redusă, introducerea serviciilor competitive pentru pasageri, a unui sistem de responsabilizare pentru performanţă şi a unui program de creştere a eficienţei;”
TRADUCERE LIBERĂ: “Bugetul vostru de întreținere a căii ferate nu vă ajunge nici cât să aveți grijă de coridoarele reabilitate pe care vi le finanțăm noi. Ori vă reduceți rețeaua, ori măriți bugetul de întreținere”
Recomandarea 4
COMISIA EUROPEANĂ: “Acordarea unei atenţii sporite proiectelor care închid coridoarele europene de transport în actuala perioadă de programare.”
TRADUCERE LIBERĂ: “Terminați A1 Sibiu – Pitești până în 2020!”
Un aspect extrem de important este perceput în România complet pe dos: NU UE este obligată să ne construiască autostrăzi pe banii ei, ci noi, ca stat membru avem obligația să le facem. Noi, România, ne-am angajat prin tratatul de aderare să facem PE BANII NOȘTRI partea noastră de rețea TEN-T. Aceasta e obligația de stat membru în Uniune. Tot ce face Uniunea este SĂ ÎI AJUTE pe membrii care au dificultăți de finanțare ca să-și îndeplinească obligațiile și să nu fie sancționați. Pentru că dacă noi nu realizăm prioritățile europene, nu numai că pierdem banii de finanțare, dar vom fi și sancționați de Uniunea Europeană pentru nerespectarea angajamentelor. Adică pierderea va fi dublă, pentru că vom da bani de la noi, nu pe autostrăzi, ci ca amendă plătită Uniunii Europene.
GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT!
Ok, dar Master Planul e făcut de AECOM, o firmă de consultanță de prestigiu mondial. Cum să fie Master Planul greșit?! Ei bine, aici e toată subtilitatea măsluirii pe care o acuză și Comisia Europeană. AECOM nu a făcut studii de fezabilitate pe proiecte – nici nu putea de altfel – ci doar a asamblat și a analizat datele furnizate de Ministerul Transporturilor și de companiile de stat care gestionează transporturile, precum CNADNR în cazul autostrăzilor. Deci atunci când AECOM scrie că autostrada Comarnic – Brașov costă 1.1 miliarde EUR, nu e o cifră emisă de AECOM, ci sunt datele furnizate de CNADNR. Similar în cazul autostrăzii Sibiu – Pitești, acel 2.8 miliarde EUR este o cifră emisă de CNADNR, nu de AECOM. La fel este și cazul valorilor de trafic curente și previzionate, care sunt emise de CESTRIN, nu de AECOM.
Normal că dacă introduci într-un model matematic date eronate, rezultatele sunt eronate. Sigur că poți spune că ai folosit știința, dar de fapt ai măsluit experimentul ca să iasă rezultatul pe care l-ai dorit.
Că autostrada Comarnic – Brașov va costa MULT peste 1.1 miliarde EUR, asta știm încă din 2009, când costul de construcție estimat de Vinci era de 1.5 miliarde EUR, cu posibilitatea de adiționare pentru probleme speciale descoperite pe parcurs. Chiar și contractul actual, despre care deja se știe pe surse că de fapt nu se va semna și că vom avea cel de-al treilea eșec cu această austotradă, era de 1.2 miliarde EUR. Cât privește A1 Sibiu – Pitești am demostrat deja de câteva ori că nu costă mai mult de 1.8 miliarde EUR pe standardele de cost proprii ale CNADNR. Și până acum nimeni n-a demonstrat cu cifre și calcule că valoarea A1 Sibiu – Pitești ar fi mai mare. Numai faptul că cineva scrie cu pixul cifre pe hârtie sau face declarații apăsate și pretins atotștiutoare nu e dovadă de costuri.
Similar în cazul cifrelor de trafic previzionate, emise de CESTRIN nu de AECOM. Ruta Sibiu – Brașov are astăzi un trafic atât de redus, încât pe multe secțiuni nu se justifică nici măcar un drum național cu două benzi pe sens! Să susții că după construcția unei eventuale autostrăzi, fluxul de trafic se va muta pe Sibiu – Brașov – București înseamnă să fii rupt de realitate. Nu numai că transportatorii de marfă vor rămâne tot la DN 7, care traversează munții la o altitudine cu 600 m (!!!) mai mică decât cea a traversării A3 pe la Predeal, ceea ce înseamnă o mare reducere de combustibil și de uzură în transportul de marfă, dar nici măcar autoturismele nu vor opta pentru autostrada ocolită, înaltă și cu plată.
Avem chiar astăzi dovada vie în fața ochilor! A3 București – Ploiești este practic goală, deși e gratuită, mai sigură, mai frumoasă, mai confortabilă și mult mai puțin stresantă decât foarte aglomeratul DN1 București – Ploiești. Și asta numai pentru că este mai lungă cu 15 km decât traseul pe DN1. Acesta este comportamentul real al șoferilor. Nu e deloc greu de înțeles ce vor face șoferii când vor avea de ales între DN7 + A1 mai scurt și gratuit și autostrada Sibiu – Brașov – București mai lungă și cu taxă.
MASTER PLANUL ESTE NEFINANȚABIL
Singura finațare certă a realizării Master Planului este cea din partea Uniunii Europene. Despre finanțarea de la bugetul național nici n-are sens să discutăm, pentru că anul acesta Guvernul României a reușit performanța nu numai să taie investițiile de la bugetul național, ci să taie și cofinanțările proiectelor europene. Deci România nu-i în stare să finanțeze constant nici măcar acei 15-25% care-i sunt în sarcina ei pentru a primi 75-85% fonduri nerambursabile de la UE.
Iar finanțările UE nu merg după culoarea politică și ambițul de adolescent al politicianului român, fie el și Prim Ministru. UE prioritizează în mod serios resursle PUȚINE pe care le are. Pentru că UE are pentru rețeaua TEN-T doar puțin peste 10% din banii necesari! Restul banilor trebuie finanțați de statele membre, inclusiv prin atragerea de finanțări private. Și pentru ca cei 10% din suma totală necesară să poată fi investită eficient, UE planifică atent, din timp și coerent investițiile. Iar odată decis un plan, el nu se mai schimbă (în nici un caz radical) cel puțin pe parcursul unui exercițiu bugetar de șapte ani.
În transporturi, decizia FINALĂ (se aude MT? se aude CNANDR?) a fost luată exact acum un an la Tallinn, unde s-au reunit toți miniștrii de transport din Uniunea Europeană, INCLUSIV din România (Ramona Mănescu și Dan Șova) și au semnat acest plan 2014 – 2020. Ceea ce înseamnă că pînă în 2020 Coridorul Rin – Dunăre Ramura rutieră rămâne pe traseul Nădlac – Sibiu – Pitești – București – Constanța, iar Coridiorul Orient – Mediterana de Est Ramura Rutieră rămâne pe Lugoj – Drobeta Turnu Severin – Calafat. Aici și DOAR AICI UE ne acordă 85% finanțare nerambursabilă să facem autostrăzi. Vorbim de A1 Sibiu – Pitești, de A0 – Centura București, complet exclusă din Master Plan și de A6 Lugoj – Calafat.
În schimb, Sibiu – Brașov – Ploiești rămâne TEN-T Comprehensive, adică rețea neprioritară, pentru care UE acordă finanțare de maxim 20% și asta numai dacă există rezerve bugetare. Adică dacă nu există corioade nefinalizate. Asta înseamnă că autostrada Sibiu – Brașov – Ploiești nu va beneficia de nici un euro de la Uniunea Europeană atâta vreme cât A1 Sibiu – Pitești și A6 Lugoj – Calafat nu sunt construite. Simplu, clar, logic. Adică de neînțeles pentru autoritățile române.
Atunci cu ce bani se va realiza autostrada Sibiu – Brașov – Ploiești? Dar autostrada la fel de absurdă și cu bani aruncați pe fereastră Brașov – Bacău? Cu bani de la bugetul național? Va da România din bugetul de stat 5 miliarde de EUR pe aceste autostrăzi până în 2020? Aserțiunea este atât de nerealistă încât e ridicol să ne gândim măcar la această opțiune.
Așadar de la Uniunea Europeană nu, de la bugetul de stat nu. Atunci cu ce bani?
Mergem mai departe: zice Master Planul că vom construi Drumul Expres pe Sibiu – Pitești cu finanțare europeană. Cum se întâmplă concret acest lucru? CNADNR lansează proiectul și-l înaintează la către Autoritatea de Management POS-T (AMPOST). Aceasta la rândul ei, înainte de a-l trimite Comisiei Europene pentru aprobarea finanțării, îl trimite la JASPERS, organismul consultativ de pe lângă Comisia Europeană, a cărui consultare a devenit practic obligatorie la fiecare proiect. Acest organism studiază aspectele tehnico-economice ale proiectului, respectiv oportunitatea, conformitatea cu prioritățile și politicile europene, dacă proiectul este corespunzător necesităților imediate și în perspectiva a 15 ani, respectiv să nu fie nici sub-, nici supra-dimensionat și așa mai departe. În urma acestei analize, JASPERS emite un aviz pozitiv sau negativ, în baza căruia Comisia Europeană admite sau nu proiectul la finanțare.
Ce se va întâmpla concret în situația prezentării proiectului Drumului Expres Sibiu – Pitești? JASPERS va constata vârfurile de trafic de 39.000 de vehicule în Medie Zilnică Anuală (MZA), cu previziune de creștere la 45.000 de vehicule MZA în perspectiva a 15 ani, asta în condițiile în care construcția autostrăzii este recomandată de la 16.000 de vehicule MZA, iar de la 60.000 de vehicule MZA se impune a treia bandă pe sens. Așadar ce va spune JASPERS? Va spune că Drumul Expres este inadecvat și va recomanda regândirea proiectului ca autostradă. În caz contrar proiectul nu va fi finanțat de Uniunea Europeană.
O astfel de abordare a avut Uniunea Europeană în Grecia în cazul autostrăzii est-vest Via Egnatia, pe care inițial Grecia o dorea ca rută cu sectoare alternate de autostradă, drum expres și drum național. UE însă a gândit ruta în perspectivă de interes regional și continental și a condiționat finanțarea de ridicarea întregii rute la standard de autostradă.
Deci, Sibiu – Pitești va fi autostradă sau deloc, banii nu se vor putea folosi |
be supported until Realm hits 3.x.
Other Changes
Sync Breaking Changes (In Beta)
Underlying sync engine upgraded to version BETA-6.5.
Sync-related error reporting behavior has been changed. Errors not related to a particular user or session are only reported if they are classed as ‘fatal’ by the underlying sync engine.
Bug Fixes
Setting deleteRealmIfMigrationNeeded now also deletes the Realm if a file format migration is required, such as when moving from a file last accessed with Realm 0.x to 1.x, or 1.x to 2.x.
now also deletes the Realm if a file format migration is required, such as when moving from a file last accessed with Realm 0.x to 1.x, or 1.x to 2.x. Fix queries containing nested SUBQUERY expressions.
expressions. Fix spurious incorrect thread exceptions when a thread id happens to be reused while an RLMRealm instance from the old thread still exists.
Legacy Swift Version Support
We’d like to remind you that we will continue to support Xcode 7.3.1 and Swift 2.x as long as we can, but encourage all our users to migrate to Swift 3 as soon as possible.
Thanks for reading. Now go forth and build amazing apps with Realm! As always, we’re around on Stack Overflow, GitHub, or Twitter.Skip to comments.
Clinton And Wall St: Financial Industry May Control Retirement Savings
International Business Times ^ | 10/19/2016 | BY DAVID SIROTA AND AVI ASHER-SCHAPIRO
Posted on by AC Beach Patrol
While Hillary Clinton has spent the presidential campaign saying as little as possible about her ties to Wall Street, the executive who some observers say could be her Treasury Secretary has been openly promoting a plan to give financial firms control of hundreds of billions of dollars in retirement savings. The executive is Tony James, president of the Blackstone Group.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibtimes.com...
TOPICS:
Business/Economy
Government
News/Current Events
Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS:
economy
hillary
retirement
trump
There you have it pilgrims. And you think those in the GOPe with close establishment ties to Wall St are opposing due to the unacceptable lack of civility and foul mouth of Trump. Just to give you an idea of the windfall we're talking about. To give you some perspective, Wall St makes over $4 billion per year handling the retirement funds of only teachers in only one state. For Wall Street and the money shifters, it'll be QE ^ oo
To: AC Beach Patrol
She gets in they will be taking away peoples bank accounts at some point.
by 2 posted onby ColdOne ((poochie... Tasha 2000~3/14/11~ Because you'd be in jail!)
To: AC Beach Patrol
Bye bye, 401(k)s
by 3 posted onby COBOL2Java (It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled. - Mark Twain)
To: COBOL2Java
They have been hinting at it for a couple of years now. It's not fair that some people had the initiative to save something for themselves.
To: AC Beach Patrol
Why are we even worrying about stuff like this? You don’t have the faith in God that Trump is going to be our next POTUS??? Shame on you...
To: COBOL2Java
and IRA’a and Keogh’s!
by 6 posted onby Grampa Dave (We are not electing a saint. We are electing an ass kicker! Vote for Trump! Defeat Illiarily!)
To: ColdOne
When they take away the gold and silver, I plan to toss in the lead.
by 7 posted onby Mouton (The insurrection laws maintain the status quo now.)
To: AC Beach Patrol
A socialists dream obviously
by 8 posted onby Fiddlstix (Warning! This Is A Subliminal Tagline! Read it at your own risk!(Presented by TagLines R US))
To: COBOL2Java
Bye bye, 401(k)s My thunder has been spoiled! I was going to post: Bye Bye 401K.
by 9 posted onby Prolixus (Proud to be irredeemably on Hillary's "Enemies List")
To: Prolixus
“spoiled” should be “stolen” too much coffee today...
by 10 posted onby Prolixus (Proud to be irredeemably on Hillary's "Enemies List")
To: AC Beach Patrol
He says that 401Ks don’t invest in alternative investments like hedge funds, real estate, etc. But what he doesn’t say is the reason they don’t is that they are not allowed to by regulations.
The politicians and money guys have been itching to take away more of people’s money this way for a long time. Does anyone believe that they won’t spend their money and it won’t be there when they need it?
To: AC Beach Patrol
My friends in Argentina lost their retirement accounts this way. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/business/worldbusiness/22argentina.html
To: Grampa Dave
by 13 posted onby COBOL2Java (It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled. - Mark Twain)
To: pfflier
It’s why I cashed out ALL of my 401K’s and everything else they can touch. I’m a firm believer in 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing. And truth be told, I really didn’t take much of a hit. Last time, I yanked EVERYTHING out of the stock market. Everything. Call it dumb luck or call it the Lord watching out for me, but it was just before it came crashing down. But I’ve not gone back in, nor will I.
by 14 posted onby Mr. Douglas (Today is your life. What are you going to do with it?)
To: COBOL2Java
You don’t think your 401k is managed by “Wall Street” already?
To: Mouton
When they take away the gold and silver, I plan to toss in the lead.
^^This. ^^This. We’ve inched a long ways in that direction already, but to be clear, once that happens, the government will have gone into full USSR mode. At that point I invoke the money quote from the Declaration of Independence.
by 16 posted onby Mr. Douglas (Today is your life. What are you going to do with it?)
To: AC Beach Patrol
The deficit is eighteen trillion dollars, and there are sixteen trillion dollars in retirement accounts with that governmental string attached to them. It must tempt Congress to the point of salivation. It’s much easier to just steal the money from citizens than do the actual work of cutting budgets! The next financial crisis will be the catalyst for putting this into place. “Hey, Joe and Jane Citizen, the market is just soooo risky and you’re soooo stupid, so we’ll take over control of your retirement accounts and dole them back to you in amounts and time frames that we determine.”
by 17 posted onby LostInBayport (When there are more people riding in the cart than there are pulling it, the cart stops moving...)
To: babble-on
You dont think your 401k is managed by Wall Street already? "managed"? LOL We're talking about it being taken away from you! Gone! No longer there! Not yours anymore! Balance in the account $0!
by 18 posted onby COBOL2Java (It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled. - Mark Twain)
To: Mr. Douglas
So what have you invested in? Thanks
by 19 posted onby Grampa Dave (We are not electing a saint. We are electing an ass kicker! Vote for Trump! Defeat Illiarily!)
To: AC Beach Patrol
This proposal is very similar to W. Bush’s personal accounts proposal for a sliver of peoples’ Social Security contributions. Dems opposed it then, will oppose it now.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
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FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John RobinsonFor non-mathematicians the way to understand the shape of a wormhole is to start in two dimensions where we can represent space by a flat sheet. A wormhole is where two parallel sheets are joined together. This diagram (attempts!) to show how the wormhole joins the two sheets:
Start with the two sheets representing the two different regions of spacetime, then punch out a circular hole in both. Now bring the two sheets together and glue them along the edges of the holes. The bottom diagram is supposed to represent the two sheets brought together and glued along the edges of the circle.
When you've done this, you can start on the upper (blue) sheet, travel towards the wormhole and when you reach it you'll go though it and find yourself moving away from the wormhole on the lower (red) sheet. Incidentally, if you start in the blue sheet and look towards the wormhole you'll see light from the red sheet that has travelled towards the wormhole, through it onto the blue sheet, then away from the wormhole towards your eye. That's why Brian says the wormhole will look a bit like a mirror.
Anyhow, the point is that to a Flatlander living on either sheet the wormhole looks like a circle. If you now replace the 2-D sheets by 3-D spaces you join them in a similar way but this time by cutting out a sphere in each and joining them along the surface of the sphere. That's why the wormhole will look like a sphere. Sadly my drawing skills aren't up to drawing the 3-D diagram.
Actually the wormhole can be any 3-D shape. See https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/69521/negative-energy-and-wormholes/69539#69539 for how to make a wormhole in the shape of a cube. You could make the wormhole an arbitrarily thin disk, subject only to your generating system being able to generate enough curvature at the edge of the disk. This would resemble the conventional circular portal.
All very well, but what Brian actually asked was if any authors had treated wormholes properly in their books, and the answer is that yes, of course, many have done so. For example in Axiomatic by Greg Egan and Cosm by Gregory Benford and doubtless lots of others. Gregory Benford actually references Matt Visser, who wrote a non-non-nerds guide to wormholes back in 1989.The population of single homeless adults in the South Bay and Harbor Area is growing at a time when resources are shrinking, presenting a challenge for outreach workers, local cities and law enforcement officials.
On any given night, about 6,000 homeless people live on the streets of cities west of Long Beach and south of Los Angeles, which offer not only a temperate climate but among the most scenic coastlines in Southern California.
Countywide, there are about 16 percent more homeless people than there were two years ago, according to a census count by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
A regional planning body called the Los Angeles Continuum of Care organizes the annual distribution of roughly $70 million for the homeless from local, state and federal government agencies, but in the South Bay nearly all resources are geared toward women with children and domestic violence survivors, said Mark Silverbush, chairman of the South Bay Coalition for the Homeless.
“There aren’t many programs in the South Bay,” Silverbush said. “There’s not too much in the way of outreach. And, even if there was, there are no programs and no beds to connect them to.”
There are 184 emergency shelter beds available in the South Bay and Harbor Area on any given night, along with 756 transitional housing beds and 246 permanent supportive housing units mostly for those in sober-living recovery, according to the South Bay Coalition for the Homeless.
Because of a new federal mandate, programs will begin shifting their resources this year from transitional housing and support services to finding permanent housing for homeless individuals and families.
Toberman Neighborhood Center in San Pedro began a new program this year for families with children that focuses on making sure homeless kids are reaching healthy development goals, said program manager Christine Jordan. The organization’s main focus is providing food baskets, employment support services, gang intervention help, and finding shelter for children and their mothers. Unfortunately, fathers often have to stay in separate shelters from the rest of the family, Jordan said.
“We do mostly immediate crisis intervention,” Jordan said.
Harbor Interfaith Services in San Pedro is similarly focused on helping families and children, but the organization also provides thousands of food baskets a year to single people, as well as rental assistance and moving costs. Its shelter beds are primarily for women and children, but Executive Director Tahia Hayslet said her staff works to get anyone who comes in the door into a bed.
If someone walks in seeking shelter but there are no beds in the South Bay, “he might have to take a bus to Lancaster or Los Angeles to whatever agency has an available bed,” Hayslet said.
“If nothing is available, we’d give him a hotel voucher for the night and tell him to come back in the morning at 9 a.m. so we can start making calls again. There aren’t enough beds and there are times there’s nothing we can do, but our goal is to make sure they at least have a place for the night.”
The South Bay Coalition for the Homeless was created in 2010 to help combine resources and boost services for homeless and working poor individuals in the area. At the group’s monthly meeting last week, local providers heard about a public-private partnership to reduce homelessness that has found success in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health’s Self-Help and Recovery Exchange, or SHARE, created a program called Collaborative Housing, in which cheap houses are rented to homeless people who are then given support services to keep them there.
Participants must attend self-help meetings and must have at least $500 per month in income for rent. While there are 240 houses in this program across the county, the South Bay has very few, program coordinator Jim Sullivan said.
“The South Bay really lacks in resources so we really want more of these houses here,” Silverbush said.
The need clearly exists. Complaints about homeless people sleeping in doorways, vacant houses and behind businesses are up, according to law enforcement officials at several South Bay departments.
The reaction to the growing problem has forced some officers to step into the role of social worker.
“We are trying to identify our transient population. We are trying to find out who they are and what their needs are,” said Redondo Beach police Sgt. Dave Christian, a 25-year veteran of the department who has spent six months helping the agency to collect data on the beach city’s homeless population. “But it’s difficult because we don’t have the manpower.”
Despite limited staffing, the Redondo Beach Police Department has used questionnaires to collect health data on the homeless population within the city. The aim is to comb through the information in the coming months and begin directing homeless people to the services available in the area.
“The Police Department is trying to identify what services are needed and what service providers best provide those needs to the homeless,” Christian said.
Efforts similar to those in Redondo Beach, where officers distribute information about homeless services, also are underway in Torrance.
Back alleys, piers and vacant upscale homes in Hermosa Beach have long been popular with a band of a dozen or so South Bay homeless men and women, police Detective Mick Gaglia said.
“It’s a good place to get food and a few bucks,” Gaglia said. “People give them handouts and local businesses will hire them and give them little jobs like sweeping up.
“I think part of the reason we have seen an increase in our transient population is because we have so many service providers in the area, they can come here and get food, they can come here and get clothed,” Christian said.
Indeed, one 35-year-old homeless man named Travis Richards slowly walked The Strand in Hermosa Beach one recent afternoon, shoeless and holding nothing but a few cigarette butts.
A group of outreach workers from Los Angeles-based People Assisting the Homeless approached him to find out what he would need to get off the streets. Among their questions: Where are you sleeping right now? Do you have any income? Do you have a driver’s license or Social Security card? What do you need?
“I just need directions to the Social Security office,” Richards said. “I’m out of the hospital now. I got some junk food and cigarettes. I’m trying to find a lighter.”
Richards said he spends his evenings sleeping in Redondo Beach “on the sidewalk against the wall.”
He said he survives on South Bay streets by keeping a low profile from people who would beat him up, or police officers who sometimes tell him to move on.
The influx of more homeless people into the area has prompted a push-back from local businesses.
“A lot of them sleep on the beach. We do get some business that complain they like to hang out in front of the liquor stores,” Gaglia said. “A lot of them are trespassing, a lot of homeless people find vacant homes, construction sites, crawl spaces in between buildings.”
The very nature of the population, one that is constantly on the move, presents a complex issue for law enforcement.
“The majority of the homeless we encounter are encamped at Alondra Park at night and they head out during the day to the numerous faith-based organizations to get meals,” Gardena police Lt. Uikilifi Niko said.
Gardena police don’t encounter many homeless people in the area, but as they move through the region searching for a meal or panhandling, the homeless often have run-ins with the law.
In Redondo Beach, Sgt. Christian said, “We’ve seen increased calls for service related to the transient population so it’s something that has to be dealt with.”
Transients often commit crimes of opportunity, like rummaging through an unlocked car for spare change or small electronics, Christian said.
But often the infractions committed by the homeless are simple nuisances.
“Businesses in Torrance are saying that the homeless are camping around their businesses, they are defecating, urinating and leaving trash behind,” Torrance police Sgt. Robert Watt said.
Officers cite the homeless for the infractions, and those citations often turn into warrants because the transients either can’t or don’t show up for court. Many of the South Bay’s transients have warrants for their arrest but taking them into custody often creates a larger problem.
“We do run into homeless people with warrants, but where do you house them?” Watt said. “They have a lot of medical issues and we end up releasing them on their own recognizance.”A holiday wreath hangs over the front entrance of the FCC the week the agency is scheudled to vote to kill net neutraltiy. Alex Edelman/AFP/Getty Images
It’s not just Democrats who are fuming about the death of the internet as we know it. Republicans in Congress are starting—albeit super late—to speak out against the Federal Communications Commission’s plan to repeal the open internet rules, which is scheduled for a final vote on Thursday. If all goes as expected, the FCC will vote to allow internet providers to block, slow down, or charge websites trying to reach users, and the new rules could go into effect as early as January 2018.
In an interview with Slate last month, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, one of the two Democrats on the commission, argued that before the vote, there should be public hearings on net neutrality. She noted that past Republican FCC chairmen have hosted public hearings on net neutrality during their tenures. Rosenworcel further pointed to multiple serious snafus in the public comment process this year since Chairman Ajit Pai introduced his plan to rescind net neutrality in May.
She now seems to have Republican support for that. On Tuesday, Rep. Mike Coffman, a Republican from Colorado, tweeted a letter he sent asking Pai to delay rush the vote and “hold hearings on the net neutrality issue and to pass permanent open Internet legislation.”
The problems with the process so far include a deluge of comments issued with stolen identities, including those of dead people; a saturation of bots; comments from Russian email addresses that oddly overwhelmingly supported Pai’s plan to kill net neutrality; and a cyberattack on the FCC’s comment system that is currently under investigation by the Government Accountably Office. The FCC’s comment process is currently being investigated by New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who says his office has found 2 million comments sent to the FCC’s net neutrality proceeding using stolen identities.
On Wednesday, Coffman tweeted at Pai to say he’s “still awaiting a response to my letter yesterday on #NetNeutrality. My staff has called your @FCC office and received no answer.” Other Republicans have voiced opposition, too, but have offered less constructive prescriptions than Coffman. On Monday, Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, a Republican from Nebraska, likewise broke from the Republican pack to voice his support of preserving the net neutrality rules.
I recently urged Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to preserve the framework of net neutrality. The upcoming decision should not allow for corporate monopolistic domination, whether internet service provider delivery or content creators. #NetNeutraility — Jeff Fortenberry (@JeffFortenberry) December 11, 2017
And in November, shortly after Pai released his draft of the final rules, Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, said in a statement to the Bangor Daily News that she does not support Pai’s plan and that “internet providers must not manage their system in an anti-competitive way that limits consumers’ choices.” That same week, Rep. Dave Reichert, a Republican from Washington, said he supports net neutrality and that he hopes “any action taken will preserve these protections for online consumers and keep the Internet open, free from interference, and make sure it stays a source of innovation and job creation.” And Rep. John Curtis, a Republican from Utah, has also voiced concern over the FCC’s proposal.
But it’ll take a lot more than a few tweets and statements to journalists for Republican opposition to a net neutrally repeal to hold any sway. For one, the FCC will be voting this week to undo the rules, and the inertia is far too strong at this point to have any real chance of stopping that. Thirty-nine senators have now urged the FCC to not go through with its plan, but those were all Democrats.
It’s not that Congress is totally powerless here, though. “If Congress wanted the FCC to not go forward with its repeal, they could walk over there and tell them to knock it off until we have this thing resolved,” said Christopher Terry, a journalism professor from the University of Minnesota who specializes in tech and media policy. “The agencies are lapdogs to Congress; they have to do what they’re told.” He says that Rep. Greg Walden, a Republican from Oregon who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, “could call the FCC in front of his committee and say, Wait till we figure this out. But that’s like saying the moon could crash into the earth today. It’s possible it could happen, but it’s not going to happen.” The House Energy and Commerce Committee oversees telecom issues, but Walden has come out strongly in favor of the net neutrality repeal.
If the committee won’t take action, there’s also something called a congressional resolution of disapproval, where Congress can reverse or eliminate an agency’s action. Since Trump took office, Congress has reversed more than a dozen agency actions—but these were Obama-era rules. This is the opposite situation, since the FCC itself is overturning Obama-era rules.
Furthermore, on Wednesday, more than 100 Republican representatives sent a letter to the FCC in favor of its current trajectory to repeal the open internet rules. And even if Republicans in Congress did take up the issue, though, there’s a chance that they could order the FCC to enact rules that they say will protect “net neutrality” but actually codify some of the same things Pai is looking to do, like allow for throttling from internet providers and charging websites to access users.
Still, the more Republicans who support keeping the open internet rules, the easier it is for other Republicans to do the same. Most likely, the FCC’s net neutrality repeal vote will happen, only to get tied up in court. Even if that happens, the rules would likely still go into effect in 2018. But it does mean that they may eventually be overturned. Fingers crossed.How to Recycle a T-shirt Into Yarn
My son cleans out his dresser on a regular basis. He’s one of those neat-freaks (a trait he obviously did not inherit from me) and keeps his room super-organized! He had a pile of perfectly good t-shirts. I usually cut the shirts into pieces to use as rags for painting or staining but decided to go another route this time.
I figured I would make “yarn” from the shirts and today, I’ll show you how to recycle a t-shirt into yarn!
I started by cutting the hem off of the shirts.
Then, I started cutting a narrow strip and continuing in a circle up the shirt to the sleeves.
If you give knitted fabric a tug, it will naturally curl up on itself.
I rolled it into a ball and cast 15 stitches on size 17 needles.
I used a stockinette stitch to create a square which can now be used as a hot pad, a dish cloth, or a bath scrubbie! Just think of the possibilities… The wheels are turning already!! Any question on how to recycle a t-shirt into yarn? Leave a comment below!hdcmeta
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Performance
Generally, graphics-intensive games get a nice win, while (Gamecube CPU)-bound games (Zelda OOT from the 'bonus disk' is a good example) are the same - graphics wasn't on the critical path there. At higher resolutions, graphics becomes more important, so the relative improvement can increase there. In general, CPU usage is now much lower for the same workload relative to DX11/OpenGL.
Results below from a few games at 2.5x native resolution on NVidia and AMD hardware (and raw FPS data attached):
Requirements
- Windows 10
- Latest graphics driver, and a AMD 7000-series, Intel HD 4400, or nVidia 600-series GPU or higher.
- VS 2015 Redist
Note: This doesn't specifically improve shader compilation stutters the first time shaders are seen, it's only faster in the'steady state' - this could definitely be improved with the extra CPU cycles now available..
This is obviously 'as is', but please reply back with any bugs/issues seen. For more details, please see the Github readme. I hope to continue to improve the code, and pull requests would definitely be welcome.
Source:
Download here:
I've tried to make the code follow the contribution guidelines, and it should be a pretty conformant port of the DX11 backend, so hope for this to possibly end up in the main Dolphin branch. Open to any feedback on the initial code, and I'll try to submit a pull request in the next couple weeks if the code looks ok.
Changelog
v0.98 (1/24/2016)
- Fix issue on certain systems where frame-rate not properly uncapped (when vsync is disabled, and CPU set to > 100%)
- Integrate upstream changes
v0.97 (1/19/2016)
- Better tracking of CPU/GPU interactions, should resolve race-condition-induced corruption
- Small fix for a 'dirty' shutdown corruption shader caches (which used to possibly cause a crash on the next start)
- Includes all current upstream changes
- Misc behind-the-scenes refactoring/cleanup/fixes
v0.96 (1/5/2016)
- Fix for very large texture uploads (e.g. 4096x4096 custom textures)
- Misc behind-the-scenes refactoring/cleanup
v0.95 (1/3/2016)
- Prevent backend from showing up on systems without D3D12 support.
v0.94 (1/2/2016)
- Fixed bug in EFB depth buffer readback, could cause misc corruption issues.
v0.93 (1/1/2016)
- Fixed error in texture readback, was causing some misc corruption issues.
- Further refactored shader cache, and fixed some issues that were causing it to not cache shaders (causing constant regeneration).
v0.92 (12/30/2015)
- Fixed issue if game sets a viewport with non MIN_DEPTH/MAX_DEPTH depth. Caused incorrect results in MadWorld, possibly others.
- Lots of refactoring behind the scenes, based on pull request feedback. Nothing should have regressed (verified in local testing).
v0.91 (12/22/2015)
- Fixed full-screen operation when starting in full-screen mode (thanks rlaugh0095)
v0.90 (12/21/2015)
- Several rendering correctness bugs fixed. If you were seeing incorrect rendering before, there's a decent chance it has been fixed.
- Fixed full-screen operation
- Add clamp to texture copies to too-small destinations.. a'real' fix needs to occur above the VideoBackend layer, and is in progress here:
- Moved to new versioning scheme..
12/21/2015
- Further fix to multisampling. Not claiming anything this time :-).. fixes crash when (multisampled) Color EFB accessed (fixes crash in SMG).
- Fixes possible corner-case crash when games presents frames without first uploading any texture data.
- Fixed small bug that could cause unnecessary stalls/performance loss in certain cases.
12/20/2015
- Multi-sampling'really' fixed. Resolve issue in titles that sampled from depth buffer.
- Fixed texture upload race condition.
12/18/2015
- Multi-sampling fixed (though appears buggy on AMD hardware, YMMV)
- Per-pixel lighting fixed
- Fixed issue where CPU could get too far ahead of GPU, cause corruption.
12/17/2015
- Initial release Hi all, I've been experimenting with adding a DirectX 12 backend to Dolphin, and finally have something to release! It can be decently faster depending on the game/system/settings (up to 50%), binaries and source are below. It was a good way to get to know Dolphin's architecture better, and hope it might be interesting for others to try out.Generally, graphics-intensive games get a nice win, while (Gamecube CPU)-bound games (Zelda OOT from the 'bonus disk' is a good example) are the same - graphics wasn't on the critical path there. At higher resolutions, graphics becomes more important, so the relative improvement can increase there. In general, CPU usage is now much lower for the same workload relative to DX11/OpenGL.Results below from a few games at 2.5x native resolution on NVidia and AMD hardware (and raw FPS data attached):- Windows 10- Latest graphics driver, and a AMD 7000-series, Intel HD 4400, or nVidia 600-series GPU or higher.- VS 2015 RedistNote: This doesn't specifically improve shader compilation stutters the first time shaders are seen, it's only faster in the'steady state' - this could definitely be improved with the extra CPU cycles now available..This is obviously 'as is', but please reply back with any bugs/issues seen. For more details, please see the Github readme. I hope to continue to improve the code, and pull requests would definitely be welcome.Source: https://github.com/hdcmeta/dolphin Download here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gac7jufr9iob8tc/dolphin_dx12_v0.98.zip?dl=0 I've tried to make the code follow the contribution guidelines, and it should be a pretty conformant port of the DX11 backend, so hope for this to possibly end up in the main Dolphin branch. Open to any feedback on the initial code, and I'll try to submit a pull request in the next couple weeks if the code looks ok.v0.98 (1/24/2016)- Fix issue on certain systems where frame-rate not properly uncapped (when vsync is disabled, and CPU set to > 100%)- Integrate upstream changesv0.97 (1/19/2016)- Better tracking of CPU/GPU interactions, should resolve race-condition-induced corruption- Small fix for a 'dirty' shutdown corruption shader caches (which used to possibly cause a crash on the next start)- Includes all current upstream changes- Misc behind-the-scenes refactoring/cleanup/fixesv0.96 (1/5/2016)- Fix for very large texture uploads (e.g. 4096x4096 custom textures)- Misc behind-the-scenes refactoring/cleanupv0.95 (1/3/2016)- Prevent backend from showing up on systems without D3D12 support.v0.94 (1/2/2016)- Fixed bug in EFB depth buffer readback, could cause misc corruption issues.v0.93 (1/1/2016)- Fixed error in texture readback, was causing some misc corruption issues.- Further refactored shader cache, and fixed some issues that were causing it to not cache shaders (causing constant regeneration).v0.92 (12/30/2015)- Fixed issue if game sets a viewport with non MIN_DEPTH/MAX_DEPTH depth. Caused incorrect results in MadWorld, possibly others.- Lots of refactoring behind the scenes, based on pull request feedback. Nothing should have regressed (verified in local testing).v0.91 (12/22/2015)- Fixed full-screen operation when starting in full-screen mode (thanks rlaugh0095)v0.90 (12/21/2015)- Several rendering correctness bugs fixed. If you were seeing incorrect rendering before, there's a decent chance it has been fixed.- Fixed full-screen operation- Add clamp to texture copies to too-small destinations.. a'real' fix needs to occur above the VideoBackend layer, and is in progress here: https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/3355 - Moved to new versioning scheme..12/21/2015- Further fix to multisampling. Not claiming anything this time :-).. fixes crash when (multisampled) Color EFB accessed (fixes crash in SMG).- Fixes possible corner-case crash when games presents frames without first uploading any texture data.- Fixed small bug that could cause unnecessary stalls/performance loss in certain cases.12/20/2015- Multi-sampling'really' fixed. Resolve issue in titles that sampled from depth buffer.- Fixed texture upload race condition.12/18/2015- Multi-sampling fixed (though appears buggy on AMD hardware, YMMV)- Per-pixel lighting fixed- Fixed issue where CPU could get too far ahead of GPU, cause corruption.12/17/2015- Initial release
Attached Files
PerformanceNumbers.txt (Size: 328 bytes / Downloads: 578) Find DrHouse64
A woman yet a man, a man yet a woman Posts: 321
Threads: 16
Joined: Jun 2013
Performance enhancement sounds sexy, especially for Mario Galaxy.
Well if some day Dolphin officially have a DX12 backend, I guess I will considering Windows 10 upgrade. Great news and nice work!Performance enhancement sounds sexy, especially for Mario Galaxy.Well if some day Dolphin officially have a DX12 backend, I guess I will considering Windows 10 upgrade. From France with love.
Desktop : W10 / Core i5 4670k OC@4.2 GHz / Radeon RX 570 8Go / RAM 8 Go DDR3
Ultrabook ASUS : W10 / Core i5 5200U / GeForce 940m 2Go / RAM 12 Go DDR3 Find JMC47
Content Producer Posts: 6,137
Threads: 28
Joined: Feb 2013 IF you're interested in this not being unofficial, maybe open a Pull Request tagged RFC or WIP. I don't have Windows 10 to test this, but the gains seem non-trivial and make sense based on your graphs. OoT has zero GFX overhead, Crazy Taxi has very little, Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy are very heavy. Find delroth
Making the world a better place through reverse engineered DSP firmwares Posts: 1,356
Threads: 63
Joined: Aug 2011 How useful are performance comparisons when your code is littered with TODOs that might make things slower once implemented? I would take your graphs more seriously if they were done on games that never hit one of your TODO paths that has an equivalent implementation in our other backends. Blog
<@neobrain> that looks sophisticated enough to not be a totally dumb thing to do Pierre "delroth" Bourdon - @delroth_ that looks sophisticated enough to not be a totally dumb thing to do Website Find delroth
Making the world a better place through reverse engineered DSP firmwares Posts: 1,356
Threads: 63
Joined: Aug 2011 Also, looking at the code, my bet is that a lot of the benefits come from the queued command list implementation. I'm curious how D3D12 compares if you make the D3D code run in the same thread as the GPU emulation code like other backends do.
Not that it's a bad thing -- but if threading the GPU backend code has a big impact with D3D12 I wouldn't be surprised if it also did have the same impact on GL/D3D11. Blog
<@neobrain> that looks sophisticated enough to not be a totally dumb thing to do Pierre "delroth" Bourdon - @delroth_ that looks sophisticated enough to not be a totally dumb thing to do Website Find degasus
Developer Posts: 1,847
Threads: 10
Joined: May 2012
Please open the PR soon, so you'll get more early feedback
*very* *very* nice work
EDIT: Also, please visite us on #dolphin-dev @freenode on IRC. Most development talk is there, and currently we're only talking about d3d12 > Open to any feedback on the initial code, and I'll try to submit a pull request in the next couple weeks if the code looks ok.Please open the PR soon |
has seen a 40 fold rise in 16 years and Digiturk has a $560 million-a-year deal for exclusive rights to the Super Lig.
The Turkish league viewing rights are currently the sixth most valuable in Europe and rapidly catching up with the continents elite.
Digiturk has been pushing for overseas coverage of the Turkish League and recently struck a two-year deal with MP & Silva to distribute a weekly highlights package for the Turkish Super League.
The Bein Media Group owns Al Jazeera and operates in Europe, Asia and the United States with its Bein Sports channel.JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A former student who's made it big received a warm welcome back at his former Jacksonville schools Tuesday.
Students at Rufus E. Payne Elementary School in Northwest Jacksonville were treated to a visit by DeMarcus Walker.
The former Sandalwood High School and Florida State Seminole football player was selected by the Denver Broncos in the second round of the 2017 NFL draft. But he hasn't forgotten where he came from.
Walker told News4Jax that he figured the kids would be excited to see him, but he had no idea just how big their reactions would be. It was a happy homecoming they left many in tears, and Walker was happy to be back.
"I believe in y'all," he told the students.
Just 10 years ago, the Broncos defensive end was in their shoes.
"Trust me, I went through the same struggles that some of y'all are going through -- wearing the same pair of shoes the whole year," Walker said.
DeMarcus Walker speaks to Rufus E. Payne Elementary students
The 22-year-old now has a national championship from FSU and a multimillion dollar deal to pay for the Broncos.
"People, they count us out just because of the neighborhood we live in, the houses we live in, the school that we went to. And that doesn't mean anything. It's about what you do with your opportunity," Walker said.
His message struck home for so many of the students, not to mention himself. Walker said he couldn't have done it without his teachers, many of whom were there to surprise him.
On the field, Walker is a star. But for the children at Rufus E. Payne Elementary, he's a real-life super hero.
"The kids were emotional. You were emotional. Everybody was emotion," News4Jax told Walker.
He said, "That's a good thing, you know? It's tears of joy just showing that my hard work really offs and the influence that I put on these kids. and I'm not done. I'm not done."
Walker also visited Sandalwood High School Tuesday morning. He told News4Jax that no matter how big and famous he gets, he'll never be too big to come back to his roots and encourage others to follow their dreams.
Copyright 2017 by WJXT News4Jax - All rights reserved.It’s often the case that problems present us with a binary choice. If we take Option A, we do so at the expense of Option B.
But not when it comes to gender diversity.
Addressing the underrepresentation of women in tech presents no such zero-sum challenge. In fact, by building a more diverse sector everyone benefits - gender equality wins, and so does the bottom line.
The evidence is now confirming what many have suspected for some time: more diverse teams perform better, and companies which fail to embrace diversity are likely to be left in their wake. “Given the higher returns that diversity is expected to bring, we believe it is better to invest now, since winners will pull further ahead and laggards will fall further behind,” argued a 2015 McKinsey report, Diversity Matters.
However, when it comes to how we inspire the next generation of women in tech, the solution is more complex.
In an increasingly competitive job market, one would think that the range of career opportunities that the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) sector currently offers young women would cause a surge in interest.
But the numbers entering the sector each year remain significantly below target. Statistics released by the Office for National Statistics in 2015 found that only 14.4% of the UK’s STEM workforce is female.
Part of the problem lies in the way in which the industry is communicating with prospective female talent – not just in what it is saying, but also regarding who is communicating this message, and how.
What’s the message?
Last year, the humble hairdryer was propelled from mundane object to subject of global attention.
It owed its new notoriety to IBM’s now-scrapped #HackAHairdryer campaign. The campaign, which was supposed to spark a conversation about women in STEM by tackling misconceptions about gender and tech, encouraged women to post videos of hairdryers they had hacked.
The company’s motivation was commendable enough. However, IBM’s decision to use a hairdryer – out of any possible object – also risked perpetuating the very stereotypes the campaign sought to tackle.
“I leave hairdryer fixing to the men, I'm too busy making nanotech and treating cancer,” tweeted one woman in tech.
Hairdryer-gate holds within it an important lesson for all of us in STEM. It demonstrates how, if companies are to engage with women effectively and encourage them into STEM, they first need to understand their audience.
Were there any women in the room when IBM approved #HackAHairdryer?
This isn’t a flippant question. Women remain underrepresented in tech companies, especially at management level. Often decisions about how to communicate with a predominantly female audience are taken by rooms dominated by male executives – leading to unintended consequences.
Whether this was the case with IBM remains to be seen (currently, 29% of its workforce is female, and 25% of its worldwide management team, according to its figures). But it does raise an important point about the role of women in strategic decision making.
Consider Apple’s Health Kit app, which was promoted as providing every test about your body you could ever need. Everything except anything related to periods, one of the most important aspects of women’s health. Following criticism, the app was later updated to include period tracking.
How did Apple let this happen? Were there no women on the app’s engineering team?
Ensuring that women are included in these kinds of decision-making processes isn’t about tokenism. It’s about delivering better products. And that means it’s better for business, too.
The medium is the message
Having considered what kind of message the tech industry wants to convey to young women, the next question is how best to share it.
If the sector wants to demonstrate it’s forward thinking and responsive, it needs to use a medium which embodies those qualities – making tech the perfect choice.
It’s a no-brainer. The effective use of technology is a space in which the industry has a major competitive advantage, and using tech to engage with young women will enable it to connect with them in a more direct and meaningful way.
Part of the challenge of making the tech workforce more diverse is the historical difficulty of attracting minority groups into careers in the field. But technology is powerful as a democratising force, and its ability to transcend barriers of age, gender and social class makes it an ideal part of the solution to this problem.
So how can tech be used to encourage more women into the industry? One strategy is to use apps targeted specifically at girls interested in STEM.
To respond to this need, in February Stemettes launched OtotheB, an app which creates a global online platform for girls interested in STEM and entrepreneurship. Founded in 2013 by child maths and computing prodigy Anne-Marie Imafidon, Stemettes is a social enterprise inspiring girls into STEM careers.
OtotheB was developed following the success of last year’s Outbox Incubator, a residential business incubator for girls with STEM start-ups, and the clear demand the girls demonstrated for tools to help them navigate a career in STEM. The OtotheB app offers girls functionality such as being able to engage with inspiring women in STEM through Google Hangouts, and access to STEM events and giveaways.
In the same vein, this year Everywoman launched Modern Muse, a not-for-profit app offering girls access to female STEM role models.
In addition to using apps, big data is also being used deliver valuable insights crucial to building a more diverse tech workforce – such as identifying hidden talent. Speaking recently to Forbes, Kieran King, Global Vice President of Loyalty Strategy at Skillsoft, said,“Big Data can identify qualified candidates maybe outside of the traditional structure of where that leader might traditionally come from…so (it’s) very exciting to use data in that way because it opens up the candidate pool to a much, much broader canvas than ever before.”
Men need to be part of the conversation
Who conveys the message that tech needs more women is crucial to promoting greater diversity the field.
For young women, engaging with female STEM role models is vital to helping them to imagine themselves as women in STEM. However, it is key that the voices of men are also heard.
Writing recently for Huffington Post, Stemettes co-founder Anne-Marie Imafidon said, “Men's voices are needed to be part of the chorus which inspires the next generation of women in STEM; allowing young women to know that they are needed and welcomed by a diversity of people in the industry - not just women.”
If tech is to become more representative, it is going to require careful messaging, smart use of technology and a diverse range of voices to ensure that message is heard.
Unlike with the #HackAHairdryer campaign, it isn’t young women who should be encouraged to re-engineer their thinking when it comes to building careers in tech.
Shouldn’t it be the industry itself which re-examines how it communicates with the next generation of women in tech?
Jo Cruse is Stemettes’ Communications LeadOct-06-13 zluria : No comments yet on this crazy game? The insanity starts with 9. cxd5, and goes downhill from there. This game is an answer to anyone who says Kramnik is just a "pampered goldfish" :-) Oct-06-13 haydn20 : Holy simoly, I thought this was blitz between two patzers on the internet. E.g., 19...Nd7? when surely 19...Ba8 is winning. And what's with 6...g6 when the B is already well-developed. Could that really have been Kramnik playing 10. Nb3?! Oct-06-13
visayanbraindoctor : jamesmaskell: <Shomoev was well down on the clock early on and with 20 moves to time control was practically down to 30 sec increment. Kramnik didn't seen to be spending that much time at the board> I was also watching the video.
18. Qxc5 Ra6 19. Rb1 Nd7 20. Qe3+ Kf7 21. Bxd6
At this point Kramnik a rook down went away and upon returning seeing the expected Ra6 by Shomoev, the only move not to lose a piece, immediately moved 19. Rb1 while he was still sitting himself back in his chair. The rattled Shomoev then attacked White's Queen Nd7 which blundered away a piece back to Kramnik, completely missing 20. Qe3+. Vlad the Vluffer (",). Oct-06-13 goggi : 19...Ba8! 20.Qb4 (20.Nd4 Nd7 21.Qc2 Nf7!): http://www.chesspro.ru/chessonline/... http://www.chesspro.ru/details/supe... Oct-06-13 Overgod : This is objectively a lost game for Kramnik (if he played this against a Carlsen, Anand or Aronian, Nakamura or a Topalov or a computer). He can only bluff his way through like this against a 2500. Oct-06-13 fgh : <if he played this against a Carlsen, Anand or Aronian, Nakamura or a Topalov> Of course:
Carlsen vs Topalov, 2012
Troll. Oct-06-13
HeMateMe : This was a nasty beat down! Could be a great event. Oct-06-13
Marmot PFL : The Russians want Kramnik over 2800 again, and black wasn't going to win this event anyway. Oct-06-13 superstoned : Yes <Marmot>, must be a conspiracy! Oct-07-13 Overgod : <fgh: <if he played this against a Carlsen, Anand or Aronian, Nakamura or a Topalov> Of course: Carlsen vs Topalov, 2012
Troll.>
Umm, your point being? First of all, Kramnik is not Carlsen (nowhere near, in fact, according to the ratings). Second, Carlsen's game was more complicated and actually more uncertain, than Kramnik's game. Carlsen's sac was not as dubious as Kramnik's. Third, calling me a troll after posting a game, which clearly doesn't support your position, demonstrates the limitations of your mental equipment. How about I just call you a troll instead?
That will certainly strengthen my argument.
Troll. Oct-08-13
Natalia Pogonina : After Kramnik finished his R1 game the arbiter asked him if he had blundered both Ne4 and Ra6. Vladimir smiled and said he isn't yet a pensioner to overlook this. However, after 19...Ba8 White is objectively lost. Still, great practical chances and an exciting game as a result. :) Oct-10-13 devere : Coffee-house chess in the Russian Championship. The man who used to be called "drawnik" played with reckless abandon, and this time it worked. Oct-11-13
whiteshark : It works until it doesn't. Oct-17-13
Natalia Pogonina : Annotations by GM Naiditsch:
http://pogonina.com/index.php?optio... Oct-18-13 Andrijadj : It is sad, really, to downgrade or berate games like this or Carlsen-Topalov. You guys just sitting and playing around with your computers, and performing blunder checks and things, you're just missing the point. This is brilliant chess, triumph of invention and creativity. I, myself rarely play like this (of course, on a very, very lower level), I like to play simple positions and go for endgames because it's my strongpoint, but if you can't appreciate this-you simply do not love chess. It's not dentistry, you know. The objective of the play is not to find the first Fritz or whatever recommendation. It is to win-and Kramnik here (or Carlsen against Topalov) made a beauty of it. And you just scold it. Sad, really... Mar-18-14
GrahamClayton : "What was I going to play on 19...♗a8?. Honestly, I didn't have any clear plan. Probably I would play 20. ♘d4. I know that objectively Black is better, but, well, we can say I played in Tal's style" - Kramnik.In a surprise announcement last week, Marvel revealed Star Wars: The Last Jedi — DJ #1, a special one-shot written by Ben Acker and Ben Blacker (Star Wars: Storms of Crait) and illustrated by Kev Walker (Star Wars: Doctor Aphra). The comic is set for release on January 31, 2018, and will follow the mysterious new scoundrel DJ, played by Benicio Del Toro in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. All we know so far is that the story is set prior to the events of the film, and a still from the movie (see below) was unveiled as a variant cover. Being StarWars.com, we wanted to know more — so we fired off some quick questions over e-mail to co-writer Ben Blacker.
StarWars.com: Without spoiling anything, what can you tell us about the story?
Ben Blacker: DJ is a character new to the Star Wars universe, created by Rian Johnson for The Last Jedi. Our one-shot will show you what DJ was doing right up to the moment before we meet him in the film. You’ll definitely get some insights into DJ’s worldview, which is a more complicated and, in many ways, darker perspective than we’ve seen in the Star Wars universe.
StarWars.com: Considering we know so little about DJ in The Last Jedi, how did you approach crafting the story, and how did you collaborate with Lucasfilm to develop it?
Ben Blacker: There was a lot of back and forth with Lucasfilm about both the setting and the character. The story takes place on a planet seen in the new movie, so there was a lot of info to learn about that location and how it works. More conversation, however, went into DJ’s character and the way he interacts with the world. He isn’t a “man of action” like so many Star Wars characters. He’s crafty and more than a bit mercenary. Lucasfilm did a great job in sort of boiling down DJ’s worldview to one sentence and, hopefully, that character thesis statement comes across on every page.
And, as usual, Story Group was terrific about suggesting new alien species, vehicles, and the like that tie this story to the greater Star Wars universe.
StarWars.com: You’ve written all kinds of Star Wars characters at this point — young heroes in Join the Resistance, Luke and Leia in the upcoming Storms of Crait comic, and even the stormtrooper from A New Hope who bumps his head. Is it exciting to write a brand new character from a new film and really get to help define him?
Ben Blacker: Of course! Rian Johnson created him, and those are enormous shoes to fill. We’re happy just to occupy them for 30 pages. Hopefully, as with any character we didn’t create, we’re able to leave some small aspect that informs the way the character is approached for future writers.
Dan Brooks is Lucasfilm’s senior content strategist of online, the editor of StarWars.com, and a writer. He loves Star Wars, ELO, and the New York Rangers, Jets, and Yankees. Follow him on Twitter @dan_brooks where he rants about all these things.rating: 4.5
Monday 11th March 2013
On David Bowies sixty sixth birthday the world was thunderstruck to learn that rock musics greatest chameleon had been secretly working on an album for the past three years. The mournful nostalgia of Where Are We Now? broke the silence of a decades worth of apparent inactivity: The Thin White Duke, thought to be content enjoying his retirement away from the shimmer of the spotlight, was back.
Here well delve into and analyse each song on an album that is arguably one of the greatest comebacks in the history of rock music: bursting with lyrical artistry, simultaneously inventive and self-referential, and brazenly vibrant.
1. The Next Day
The opener, a scorching rock number, sets the tone for the album, and shows that the release of Where Are We Now? as the lead single was a clever misdirection. The barrage of trebly dissonant guitars and screeching riffs dont sound too far removed from Beauty And The Beast, the opening track from. Its a stormer of a first track, and a million miles away from the swirling introspection of Where Are We Now? Bowie wails and at times approaches hysteria as his dark lyrics, which according to producerreference a late medieval period European tyrant, allude to the hypocrisy of the church ("They can work with Satan while they dress like the saints/ They know that god exists for the devil told them so") and recall the bleak Orwellian post-apocalyptic imagery used on("He drags them to the rivers bank in the cart/ Their soggy paper bodies wash ashore in the dark...") Things build to a frenetic crescendo: a whirlwind of blazing guitars and pulsating beats, as Bowies lyrics invoke the sense of a man coming to terms with his own mortality ("Here I am not quite dying my body to left to rot in a hollow tree"), a theme that crops up continually on the album.5/5Russian man kills and eats drinking partner after running out of snacks at vodka party... and sells leftovers at market as PORK
Local man buys meat, but sickened by smell when cooked
Another cannibal also arrested in Russia killed string of people and ate their livers
A Russian man killed a drinking partner after he and his friends ran out of snacks at a vodka party - then sold the leftovers as pork at a market.
The 35-year-old admitted stabbing his fellow drinker, 41, to death before slicing flesh off the corpse, which he cooked and ate, police said.
The next day, the cannibal took more meat to a local market on Russky Island, Vladivostok, saying it was pork.
Gruesome: After snacking on his victim, the cannibal took more meat to a local market on Russky Island, near Vladivostok, pictured, saying it was pork
A local man bought the meat - but was sickened by the smell as he cooked it.
'He purchased some 'pork', but noticed as he cooked it, the smell was strange,' said investigative police spokeswoman Avrora Rimskaya.
'Despite this he ate the meat, and it tasted strange, too.
'The man then took the meat to the experts, who confirmed that it wasn't from an animal. Hearing this, the buyer immediately took it to the police.'
Officers went to his house where the suspect confessed to both murder and cannibalism, she said.
'We got short of snacks to eat with our vodka,' he told police.
In his fridge, police found a human head. The remains of the rest of the body were in a garden shed.
'The man is now in detention,' said Rimskaya.
She added that two other customers bought the human meat but did not complain to police.
In a completely separate incident, also in Russia, a cannibal serial killer who ate his victims' livers has confessed to a string of murders while being interviewed by police as a robbery suspect.
Twisted Aleksandr Bychkov, 24 - from Penza in central Russia - has originally been detained over a hardware store hold-up.
But as police quizzed him he confessed to at least six grisly murders where he chopped his victims into small pieces and ate their livers before burying their remains near his home.
'We can confirm that cannibalism took place,' one senior local police source told local media.OBJECTIVES:
There are no human studies assessing the effect of nutritional interventions on plasma brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) concentrations. The aim of this study was to assess the role of a nutritional intervention based on a Mediterranean diet (MeDiet) on plasma BDNF levels.
METHODS:
PREvención con Dieta MEDiterránea (PREDIMED) is a randomized clinical trial designed to assess the effect of a Mediterranean diet (MeDiet) on the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. For this analysis, 243 participants from the Navarra centre were randomly selected. Participants were assigned to one of three dietary interventions: control (low-fat) diet, MeDiet supplemented with virgin olive oil (MeDiet+VOO), or MeDiet supplemented with nuts (MeDiet+Nuts). Plasma BDNF levels were measured after 3 years of intervention. Multivariate-adjusted means of BDNF for each intervention were compared using generalized linear models. Logistic regression models were fit to assess the association between the dietary intervention and the likelihood to have low plasma BDNF values (<13 µg/ml, 10th percentile). Analyses were repeated after stratifying the sample according to baseline prevalence of different diseases.
RESULTS:
Higher but non-significant plasma BDNF levels were observed for participants assigned to both MeDiets. Participants assigned to MeDiet+Nuts showed a significant lower risk (odds ratios (OR)=0.22; 95% confidence intervals (CI)=0.05-0.90) of low plasma BDNF values (<13 µg/ml) as compared to the control group. Among participants with prevalent depression at baseline, significantly higher BDNF levels were found for those assigned to the MeDiet+Nuts.
DISCUSSION:
Adherence to a MeDiet was associated to an improvement in plasma BDNF concentrations in individuals with depression.Yohan Cabaye: Wanted by PSG boss Laurent Blanc
Magpies boss Alan Pardew has already admonished Blanc once this summer for seemingly speaking out of turn with regard to France midfielder Cabaye.
As manager of Les Bleus for three years before taking up his new role at PSG, Blanc is only too aware of midfielder Cabaye's qualities.
Commenting again on the 27-year-old this week ahead of PSG's opening Ligue 1 encounter at Montpellier on Friday, Blanc has even suggested Tottenham are interested in his services.
Quoted on le10sport.com, Blanc said: "He is a very good player. I have not changed my mind (about him).
"For now, he is at Newcastle. I have also read he is in Tottenham's plans.
"Newcastle, Tottenham or Paris - I hope he will still be at a big club in September."
Blanc, who has already spent £95million on transfers this summer, would again appear to be declaring his interest in Cabaye before the window closes at the end of this month.
Pardew, however, is unlikely to be impressed given it was only a month ago he last criticised Blanc for his remarks about Cabaye.
At the time, Pardew said: "I don't think that's right.
"He can get on the phone to me, or make a bid. I think that's the right way to do it.
"I think the way it's come out isn't perhaps respectful to Yohan."(CNN) It's a sight you'd expect to see in a colonial-era comedy act or a bad improvisation on the darkest corners of YouTube.
A video of a man wearing a turban and fake beard attempting a crude impression of an Indian was posted Wednesday on several verified social media channels operated by official Chinese news agency Xinhua News.
Entitled "7 Sins of India," the 3 minute 20 second clip appears intended to attack India's actions in an ongoing border dispute between the two neighboring countries.
But instead, Xinhua's video quickly provoked strong reactions in India, China and around the world, where it was widely described as racist.
#TheSpark : 7 Sins of India. It's time for India to confess its SEVEN SINS. pic.twitter.com/vb9lQ40VPH
Retaliation from across the border was quick -- Indian media released its own video Friday, an animation showing Chinese president Xi Jinping dancing to Gangnam Style while dressed as Winnie the Pooh.
Produced by privately owned media organization India Today the Bugs Bunny-style video follows Xi, dressed in military fatigues, as he attempts to get the attention of a chuckling Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Xinhua did not respond to a request for comment from CNN.
Why is Xi Jinping madly in anger with PM @narendramodi? Watch the latest episode of #SoSorry.https://t.co/bs7InEADOL pic.twitter.com/IEJ6Tb72p6 — India Today (@IndiaToday) August 17, 2017
The videos are the latest exchange in an ongoing border dispute between India and China, after China was accused of building a road in territory belonging to Indian ally Bhutan.
In the Xinhua footage, which is in English and part of a series called The Spark, host Dier Wang explains the border conflict between India and China and outlines India's alleged "seven sins" in the region.
Wang regularly mocks India throughout the segment, which then cuts to the "Indian" man, who gesticulates widely while reciting monosyllabic lines in English in a crude Indian accent overdubbed with a laugh track.
"It's not okay in the 21st century to have someone dress up in a turban, mock an Indian accent. Shocking from official agency," India Today's China correspondent Ananth Krishnan wrote on Twitter.
FYI @XHNews: It's not okay in the 21st century to have someone dress up in a turban, mock an Indian accent. Shocking from official agency. pic.twitter.com/1oC0MsOG59 — Ananth Krishnan (@ananthkrishnan) August 16, 2017
Yuen Ying Chan, honorary professor and former director of the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Center, told CNN the video was "despicable."
"It's disrespectful and it should be withdrawn and an apology's in order... They're trying to be cool, they try to make news interesting, they think it is cute," she said.
Sixth Tone, an English-language website affiliated with Chinese state-run news outlet The Paper, originally published an article criticizing the video but it was pulled down shortly after with no explanation.
"Xinhua may end up facing the same question that the video's presenter posed to India following Bhutan's alleged rejection of their support: 'How does it feel shooting yourself in the foot'," the article originally said.
Looks like @SixthTone (owned by state-backed The Paper) have had to pull their write up of the racist Xinhua video: pic.twitter.com/FFfAmTspm2 — James Griffiths (@jgriffiths) August 17, 2017
Border dispute tensions high
The Doklam dispute is the latest in a long-running series of territorial flare-ups between India and China.
In 1962, the two countries engaged in a bloody border war and skirmishes have continued to break out sporadically.
The current standoff, now entering its second month, centers on a thin strip of land in the junction with Bhutan. Though not a part of Indian territory, the area is close to the "chicken's neck," a strategic corridor that serves as a vital artery between Delhi and its far northeastern states.
The dispute began on June 16, when China accused Indian border guards in the northeastern state of Sikkim of crossing into its territory in southwestern Tibet, in an attempt to obstruct the construction of a new mountain road.
A Chinese soldier stands guard on the Chinese side of the ancient Nathu La border crossing between India and China in 2008.
India has not denied its troops were present in the area. According to a statement released by the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Indian personnel "approached the Chinese construction party and urged them to desist from changing the status quo."
This was followed by a formal compliant, or demarche, issued by the Bhutanese government that accused China of constructing a road "inside Bhutanese territory" in "direct violation" of its territorial treaty obligations.
India and Bhutan have maintained historically strong relations. Bhutan cooperates closely with India in determining its foreign policy, and the Indian army is involved in the training of its armed forces.
China, which does not have formal diplomatic ties with Bhutan, has repeatedly denied that it has violated any treaties and has called India's involvement in the issue "utterly unjustifiable."
A Chinese soldier gestures as he stands near an Indian soldier at the ancient Nathu La border in 2008.
Speaking to reporters on July 24, China's Defense Ministry spokesman Senior Col. Wu Qian promised to carry out further military drills in the region.
"We will preserve our sovereign territory and security interests at any cost," he said.
The dispute comes at a time of deteriorating ties between India and China over several issues, including Chinese investment in Pakistan, its naval presence in the Indian Ocean and India's unwillingness to join Beijing's signature One Belt One Road initiative.
'A lot left to learn'
Xinhua is one of China's largest state media organizations.
On Indian social media, the reactions varied from angry to amused while more than a few responded with racist abuse directed at the Chinese.
"Pretty rich of you to make fun of Indian accent, while the host here can't even pronounce simple English words," one user commented on the original Xinhua video.
Chan said Chinese state media had come a long way in recent years, but "there's a lot left to learn."
"China's the second largest economy in the world, they want to expand their soft power, this is extremely self-defeating," she said.The Nike Air Classic BW is often overlooked by other Nike models that are usually more hyped, but surely this time will be an exception. This Air Classic BW is inspired by the original Nintendo Entertainment System that was invented in the 1980’s. Featuring many attributes of the game console, this pair of Air Classic BW was released this week at certain Nike retailers. The two tones of gray used on this pair is split by a red stripe that goes around the whole shoe. The effort put into this shoe by Nike is evident by the detail that can be seen through all the references to the NES such as the select/start buttons on the upper and the repeating image of the control pad seen from the swoosh on one side to the swoosh on the other side. If you are interested, you might want to head quick to your Nike retailer because these will sell out quick. Via Premier/Proper.SAN JUAN ISLANDS, Wash. -- A million dollar home in the San Juan Islands is expected to hit the market later this month, and the sellers don't want a single dime for it.
Instead, they're asking for payment by Bitcoin, the digital, worldwide currency. If the sale goes through, it will likely be the first of its kind in Washington state, real estate experts said.
"It's just a better currency for today's transactions, which are all electronic. No one's using cash anymore," said real estate agent Matt Bohner, who will be listing the house. "The writing's on the wall that this is going to win out over time."
Bitcoin, a virtual currency developed in 2008, has risen to popularity in recent years. It isn't backed by a central bank or government and has fluctuated in value, but proponents argue it is a safe and easy way to tranfser funds without large bank fees.
A tech entrepreneur made a Bitcoin gift to a Washington college earlier this year, and a Lake Tahoe home recently sold for $1.6 million in Bitcoin.
The 3,500-square foot Orcas Island house should be listed for sale later this month, Bohner added.
"It is a beautiful place. We designed it ourselves and put a lot of work into it. It's paradise," said Danny Johnson, a virtual currency entrepreneur and professional poker player whose mother and stepfather built the custom home by hand. "(This sale) is the future. We want to try something new, be innovators."
The Washington State Department of Revenue, which collects real estate taxes, doesn't have any specific records that would track a Bitcoin sale, said Kim Schmanke, the department's Communications Director. Anecdotally, however, the office hasn't heard of a Bitcoin sale in Washington state.
"The state doesn't accept Bitcoin, and we haven't heard of any counties moving in that direction for property taxes either," Schmanke said by email. "So it'd be safe to say any real estate taxes or property taxes need to still be paid in... regular US currency."
Tacoma-based MerchantCoin, a point-of-sale service dealing in virtual currency, will handle the transaction once the home is sold, company representatives said.
"When you try to explain Bitcoin you get into this technical jargon. It's a learning curve. It's no different than, 'how do I set up my internet with just a 14.4k modem,' in 1994 " said Zachary Lark, one of MerchantCoin's founders. "But it is the future of digital payments. It is a way that consumers and merchants can escape the grasp of credit cards and bank fees."
Johnson said he wasn't sure his family would accept traditional currency for the home - if given the option.
"I'm sure we could negotiate a portion of it (for cash), but by and large we want crypto-currencies," Johnson added. "Unless it was some large sum above the listing price, I believe we'd like to get behind the Bitcoin curve."Nations with cannabis programmes should respond to a lack of research. Canada can be a leader, say Jonathan Page and Mark Ware.
When it comes to medical cannabis, Canada is both a leader and a laggard. Policy-wise, Canada is ahead of many other countries, having had federal regulations that allow patients to access herbal cannabis (dried leaves and flowers) with a doctor's authorization since 2001. Based on this early entry into medical cannabis, one would expect Canada to be at the forefront of research. Alas, this is not the case. As the number of patients accessing cannabis-based therapies has increased, research has not expanded. The opportunity to inform medical cannabis policy is slipping away.
The Canadian medical cannabis system continues to grow and evolve. The government, through Health Canada, has created a system to license producers to grow and distribute quality-controlled cannabis. Under this system, the patient population reached almost 24,000 in mid-2015, and around 4,000 doctors have prescribed cannabis. One would think that long-standing federal regulations and a large number of patients would mean that cannabis research is underway at many institutions in Canada. However, in the 14 years since the implementation of the first patient access programme, there have been only two federally funded clinical studies — a 2010 report that examined the use of smoked herbal cannabis to treat neuropathic pain1 and a multicentre cohort study exploring one-year safety data2. These studies were funded by Health Canada's Medical Marihuana Research Program, which was scrapped in 2006 as part of federal budget cuts. To our knowledge, no university laboratory in Canada has been licensed to grow cannabis for research purposes. The regulations that give patients access make no specific allowances for research.
“Physicians bemoan the lack of clinical data and the fact that herbal cannabis is not an approved drug.”
Patients, doctors and producers have all expressed frustration with the regulations. Groups such as the Canadian Medical Association have made repeated calls for clinical trials and evidenced-based treatment guidelines. Physicians bemoan the lack of clinical data and the fact that herbal cannabis is not an approved drug; some also harbour suspicions that patients are seeking medical cannabis merely as a front for recreational use. Some cities are seeing a growth in the number of unlicensed dispensaries. And despite years of regulated access to the dried plant, access to cannabis extracts has only recently been mandated through a Supreme Court decision. Such uncertainties are not conducive to a well-functioning national medical cannabis programme that supports research and |
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The current policies do not favour growth. For instance, airlines can import fuel from abroad but there is no infrastructure for airlines to store fuel either at ports or at airports. Taxation on fuel is onerous, and no other country in the world pays tax on fuel. Why should fuel be the only commodity that pays a sales tax of almost 22 per cent ad valorem and is not declared as goods? Fuel is not even subject to Modvat as is the case with other products and commodities. Our fares are lower than Europe but with double the fuel cost.
Are you looking at any M&A opportunity in the food business or an investor in Britannia?
There is absolutely no question of getting an investor in Britannia. What we are doing in Britannia is strengthening our brands and strengthening the supply chain for those brands. Take manufacturing, for instance. In a few years, we will control 65-70 per cent of our own production by setting up greenfield units and taking equity in our partner production We looked at several food in the past and chose not to go ahead as we want M&As to add value. The important question is whether an acquisition is accretive to the return on investment and not merely an addition to turnover.
Do you think Bombay Dyeing should have capitalised on the retail apparel sector?
I don’t think anyone who ventured into apparel in a big way made money. More and more competition is continuing to emerge from smaller companies. The potential of good returns in apparel is very challenging; we did enter the business but decided not to pursue.
You are considered a difficult joint venture partner. You fought with Danone for Britannia. Do you agree with this assessment?
I just had one joint venture and that was with Danone. I joined Britannia in 1992 and Danone was my partner till 2009. Britannia took a decision to get into the dairy business in 2003 and for Danone dairy was its core business and they were keen to pursue it in India on their own. Biscuits, on the other hand, were not part of Danone’s core business and they had decided to disinvest. Britannia went into the dairy business with Fonterra and Danone decided to enter dairy on its own and withdrew from Britannia. Like most disengagements, this one too had its own challenges but in the end it was resolved amicably.
You have the image of a corporate samurai, considering your battles with the Ambanis and many others.
That’s history. I can only say if somebody challenges me and attempts to decide my destiny, it is something which I cannot and will not accept. I have only responded to a challenge and have never entered into a dispute unless I have felt wronged.
Which are the business houses you admire the most?
The Tatas and the Mahindras. I know Keshub Mahindra, who has been a mentor to me, since I was six. We used to ride together in the Mahalakshmi race course. Both the Tatas and Mahindras have done a terrific job. Both groups are very high on ethical values, which is a great achievement in these times.
You and Ratan Tata were part of the Prime Minister’s committee that made far-reaching recommendations on food security and unshackling Indian industry? Aren’t you disappointed that the situation remains as grim as ever on both the fronts?
I am extremely disappointed that very few of our recommendations have been implemented. We spent a lot of our time in understanding the context and making relevant and pragmatic recommendations. I met almost every stakeholder across ministries -- from the food secretary to officials in the ministries of agriculture, food, fertilisers, etc -- and all the information we gathered was from them. They are more aware and knowledgeable about the issues and problems than anyone else and yet the tragedy is that these issues and problems are not addressed or resolved. Our committee wrote about the need to set up cold-storage facilities and an efficient supply chain, which would have helped both the farmers and consumers. India still destroys 25 per cent of the food it produces and over 400 million Indians lack proper nutritious food. More wheat is eaten by rats in India than produced in Australia and more vegetables are wasted in India than are consumed in the UK.
We recommended modern efficient silos and storage facilities to be created but unfortunately wheat continues to be stored in the open or in inefficient silos where it rots. It is a travesty that despite an adequate quantity of food produced in the country, the standard of living of over 400 million Indians is one of the worst in the world. Our statistics on nutrition are so sad that we should hang our head in shame.
So, has the government lost the plot?
The barometer of India’s success should not come from the stock market or the wealth of a section of Indians. The real barometer for success is having access to quality food, education, health care, affordable housing and even something as essential as drinking water. Inclusive growth in reality, not in concept, is the key success factor. The saddest part is that everyone in the government and the bureaucracy knows what is wrong with the system, and what needs to be done and yet there is no action on the ground.Your tech company’s CEO is a bold, visionary leader recognized far and wide as an innovator in the industry. He or she never shies away from embracing Big Ideas or taking risks that most of us would dismiss as foolhardy. The press hangs on this charismatic technology guru’s every word, waiting to see what wisdom he or she will reveal next.
And the CEO of your tech company is, in all likelihood, a supervillain.
Look, the eerie similarities between the movers and shakers of Silicon Valley and the banes of the Superfriends’ existence have been staring us in the face for a while. Tech CEOs build wondrous gadgets? So do supervillains. Tech CEOs amass wealth and power that mere mortals can only dream of? That’s a move straight out of the supervillain playbook. And tech CEOs do all this from sprawling campuses, with the assistance of an army of eager employees? Swap in “lairs” and “henchmen” for “campuses” and “employees” and you may as well be describing the Legion of Doom instead of Google or Apple.
Consider the case of Jeff Bezos, recently profiled on 60 Minutes. The television news program portrayed Amazon’s CEO as a forward-thinking titan of digital industry; but as we watched the segment, we felt the unmistakable buzz of our Spidey Sense tingling. To answer the question on nearly everyone’s lips this week—Is Jeff Bezos a Comic Book Supervillain?—we broke out a list of six sure signs of supervillainy to see where the Amazon CEOs ranks among the Doctor Dooms and Sinestros of the universe.
Your CEO has a fascination with rockets
You'l never get away with this, Bezos! Richard Branson will save me!
Earlier this year, a Bezos-led expedition recovered rockets that were used to power Apollo moon missions—and that’s not the only time Bezos has dallied with rockets. His Blue Origin private firm wants to build reusable rocket-powered space vehicles.
Hey, we all need hobbies, right? And rockets seem like a perfectly harmless way to pass the time—unless, of course, it’s a rocket being built to destroy the Earth, like the one assembled in the Breakworld at the behest of Powerlord Kruun in Astonishing X-Men.
Still, we’re sure Bezos’s interest in space travel is perfectly harmless and not at all part of a plan to emulate the villainous Magneto, who lives in a satellite orbiting the Earth. Or is it?
Does this mean Jeff Bezos is a supervillain: Possibly.
Your CEO wants to control the media
More than a few eyebrows were raised this summer when Bezos ponied up $250 million to buy the Washington Post. Why would the CEO of an online retailer want to become a newspaper owner? Maybe the deal was the part of some grand vision to develop news content for Amazon’s assorted Kindle devices?
Both of these men are captains of industry and own newspapers. But only one is a supervillain—maybe.
Well, they asked the same question when Lex Luthor bought the Daily Planet and when Norman “Green Goblin” Osborn acquired the Daily Bugle. And neither of those cats bought newspapers because they wanted something to read on their Kindle Paperwhites.
Does this mean Jeff Bezos is a supervillain: It doesn’t mean he’s not a supervillain.
Your CEO has obtained his own island
Want your own island, Larry Page? Perhaps Arcade can offer some tips on real estate and villainy.
There’s nothing like having your own private retreat, away from the cares and worries of the everyday world and—more importantly—the prying eyes of any meddling superheroes who might foil your various plots. As Arcade needed his Murderworld, as Magneto needed his Genosha, today’s tech titan needs an island far from pesky laws that might otherwise hinder his or her schemes and plans.
Or so Google’s Larry Page would have us believe.
Jeff Bezos continues to operate out of the Seattle area which—as of the posting of this article—has yet to descend into a hellish dystopia ruled by the iron fist of a Doctor Doom–like strongman. But if Bezos starts calling fellow CEO Larry Ellison to inquire about what it takes to buy an island, we might want to keep the Bat Signal at the ready.
Does this mean Jeff Bezos is a supervillain: No island lair, no supervillainy.
Your CEO talks openly about an army of drones
Look! An Amazon Prime Air drone delivering a package or possibly mankind’s doom. Nah, it’s most likely a package.
“Mom! Dad! The Octobot is here with our Amazon Prime order!”
Sure, Jeff Bezos—those unmanned aerial drones you’re so excited about are just going to deliver packages to people. Because the whole point of having the capability to send a fleet of flying robots to people’s homes, is so they can get their hands on a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey that much more quickly. Why, it’s all perfectly innocent, these flying robots that can go anywhere in the country at your command!
Of course, New Yorkers who found themselves at the mercy of Doctor Octopus’s monstrous Octobots probably have a different perspective. After all, when you find yourself at the mercy of giant metallic robots, two-day ground delivery from UPS doesn’t sound like that big an inconvenience by comparison.
Does this mean Jeff Bezos is a supervillain: All signs point to yes.
Your CEO has amassed a fleet of boats for cryptic purposes
While Jeff Bezos may want to fill our skies with drones bearing packages—or death from above!—at least he has yet to park a fleet of mysterious boats off the shores of our major cities. The same cannot be said for his chums at Google, who have parked mystery barges in San Francisco Bay and outside Portland, Maine.
Google hasn’t exactly been forthcoming about the purpose of these barges, muttering some mumbo-jumbo about their serving as “an interactive space where people can learn about new technology.” If the new technology is “how to enslave humanity” and the interactivity involves battling Skrull sleeper agents, it’s a lesson we’re happy to skip, thanks.
Does this mean Jeff Bezos is a supervillain: No, but we’re keeping a close eye on you, Larry Page.
Your CEO is bald
Before follicularly challenged readers begin drafting angry emails complaining about cruel stereotyping of the ultra-high-foreheaded, they should ask themselves what Lex Luthor, the Kingpin, the Vulture, Red Skull, Deadpool, Bane, and countless others have in common. Other than a shared desire to bend humanity to their will, it’s their haircuts—or lack thereof. Your beef, friends, is with DC and Marvel, not with us.
The Kingpin, Jeff Bezos, and the Vulture—but don’t ask me which is which.
Now we’re not saying Jeff Bezos’s pleasingly polished pate is a sure sign of his impending supervillainy. But should he make his next televised appearance in a spandex unitard demanding that we “tremble before me, you pitiful fools,” let’s not pretend that the early warning signs weren’t gleaming at us in direct light.
Does this mean Jeff Bezos is a supervillain: Save us, Superman!
This story, "Jeff Bezos: Super CEO or Supervillain?" was originally published by TechHive.BREXIT AFTER-EFFECTS
The Great British public has decided that it wants to leave the European Union. This isn't something that any country has decided to do before, and the details of how a nation state goes about removing themselves from this political and economic supra-national union are only briefly covered in The Treaty of Lisbon that came into force in late 2009. As with anything that has never happened before there are swathes of uncertainty. No one really knows what will happen, and what happens to cricket in the United Kingdom is a long way down that list of what people consider to be important.
However, there are some very far reaching consequences for professional cricket in the United Kingdom.
The European Communities Act, 1972 means that workers from other member states of the European Union can live and work in the UK without any restriction. Players like Somerset's Roelof van der Merwe and Glamorgan's Timm van der Gugten, both Netherlands internationals, can ply their trade in county cricket. However, once the UK has left the EU, in theory, they become overseas players.
Right now, each county is allowed just one overseas player, increased to two for Twenty20 cricket, and they are subject to the sportsman's visa requirements. It is highly doubtful that a county would use up a treasured overseas spot on a Dutch or Irish player, they will instead want a big name. In theory, these players will disappear from the county game at some point over the next 18 months to two years.
There is that massive degree of uncertainty though. What the UK government will do with the EU with regard to access to the common market and if that deal will allow free movement of EU citizens will be debated over the coming months.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) will have a say, too. It is their policy that restricts counties to one overseas player so they could decide that EU passport holders don't count in that category. Again, the uncertainty is writ large but the fact remains that as and when the European Communities Act is repealed, the legislation that allows EU passport holders to work as cricketers in the UK disappears.
The other group of cricketers who could well find themselves ineligible to work in the UK are those that are here under the Kolpak ruling. In reality, they are under much more of a threat than those that have an EU passport. All this stems from a 2003 European Court case that was brought by Slovakian handball player, Maros Kolpak. He argued that as his country had a European Union Association Agreement - in effect a trade deal with the EU - saying that he couldn't play as he was a foreigner was a restriction of trade.
The European Court agreed, and as a result, cricketers from Caribbean countries, South Africans and Zimbabweans have been allowed to come to the UK to play as long as they renege their ambitions to play for their national team. Many decided that a steady income from the English county game was far more attractive than earning less for their country, and in purely economic terms it is very hard to argue against that logic.Vyst's Commentary
Where's the Wine?
An Interpretation of Puscifer's Sour Grapes (Where's the Line? Mix)
What Got Me Started On This
Having been an avid fan of the band Tool for some time and a frequent listener of Puscifer since its public inception, I was not really surprised when Maynard James Keenan, lead singer of Tool and mastermind of Puscifer, took on the role of a Reverend to recite a witty sermon in Puscifers song Sour Grapes (Where's the Line? Mix), which outwardly appears to mock the very position he is impersonating. He has done it before in Tool's Disgustipated and the original version of Puscifer's Sour Grapes, so to hear him do it was almost old news.
Maynard is also known as a creative and sneaky little fuck in terms of hidden symbolism (a good example is the Fibonacci nature of the lyrics in Tool's song Lateralus), making subtle and not-so-subtle jokes, and being sly with double meanings on words due to their unclear pronunciations within his lyrics. Thus again I was not at all surprised to hear the barely-hidden sexual and drug innuendos within the Sour Grapes (Where's the Line? Mix) and the stumbling over words making it not quite obvious whether he is saying “where's the line?” or “where's the wine?”
I was a little surprised, however, when I heard the following line near the end of the spoken section of the song:
“My friends, we need to hand out some spiritual pink slips and down-size Before we have to file Chapter 11 Verse 23 Skidoo, can I get an AMEN?”
I am also familiar with Maynard's occult and esoteric references within his lyrics and that the entire band of Tool is interested and, as far as I can gather, active in such things (the drummer Danny Carey being the most well-known of the four for this). It is not the first time these numbers 11 and 23 have appeared in Maynard's musical career, the most obvious example being the 11th track of Tool's most recent album 10,000 Days, entitled Viginti Tres. “Viginti tres” being Latin for 23. It is also worth pointing out that if you take the digits individually, 1, 1, 2, and 3 are the first four numbers of the Fibonacci sequence, which, as I have already mentioned, has already played a role in Maynard's lyrics in the past.
Having read Robert Anton Wilson's The Illuminatus! Trilogy and having parsed my way through Aleister Crowley's The Book of Lies, I was also aware of the connection between the number 23 and the word “skidoo”. Indeed, even the 23rd chapter of The Book of Lies is entitled “SKIDOO”. Being curious to any possible connections between the contents of the chapter and the contents of the lyrics, I went over to Crowley's book and took a gander at chapter 23. I did not find anything particularly pertinent to the lyrics (or to be more precise, I did not see any connections at the time) and I was not very impressed by this lack of revelation; however, seeing as I was already looking at the book, I decided to take a look at chapter 11 just for good measure.
The “revelations” this time were eye-opening. References from Maynard's lyrics to the contents of the chapter were as clear as day. I immediately went back and replayed the song and began to recognize more references to The Book of Lies and, later, to the Qabalistic Tree of Life. Over several months of periodic scrutiny I found myself looking at a nearly full interpretation of the hidden meanings within the song. While I may still be confused on a few points, I feel confident that I have a firm grasp at what Maynard intended to encode into the lyrics. The song is incredibly clever and I can only commend Maynard for his style of layering-on meanings. The following is my interpretation of and my attempt to decode Sour Grapes (Where's the Line? Mix).
Resources
Understanding Puscifer's Sour Grapes (Where's the Line? Mix) requires a copy of Aleister Crowley's The Book of Lies and a rudimentary understanding of the Qabalistic Tree of Life. Without these two things, there is no point in reading the rest of this essay, as it will not make any sense beyond sex jokes, religious buffoonery, and gibberish. To decipher the song, I recommend the following resources:
The Book of Lies by Aleister Crowley. A downloadable PDF can be found here. I recommend reading the entire chapters I mention as well as their commentary, as I am not going to copy and paste the whole things onto this page.
by Aleister Crowley. A downloadable PDF can be found here. I recommend reading the entire chapters I mention as well as their commentary, as I am not going to copy and paste the whole things onto this page. A diagram of the Qabalistic Tree of Life. Any number of them can be found via search engine, but I think this one is really nice.
A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism by Gareth Knight. This is book is awesome for someone illiterate on Qabalistic matters and I highly recommend it. Find it on Amazon here.
by Gareth Knight. This is book is awesome for someone illiterate on Qabalistic matters and I recommend it. Find it on Amazon here. Gnostic Media Podcast #51: “The Qabalah and the Mystery Schools”. This podcast in and of itself is not enough to get the required understanding to decipher the lyrics, but is nevertheless helpful.
The song itself! Here it is.
Also, as far as I have been able to search through the internet, I have not been able to find an official copy of these lyrics anywhere. This meant I had to transcribe them myself. I was not very happy to have to do this, as with Maynard playing a stuttering and nervous Reverend, there are many parts which are difficult to hear and others which are nearly impossible. I cannot be very surprised for this, however, as Maynard is known for these sly lyrical slip-ups. Thus I am relying on my own transcription, which I am including here:
1¶ 1 Where did I... where did I put my notes?
2 Why, I tell ya, if brain farts had an odor this booth would be uninhabitable,
3 We're on? Okay,
4
2¶ 5 Good evening and welcome one and all to Where's The (W)Line?
6 I'm Reverend Soquet, sometimes mispronounced "Suck-it", but it's okay.
7 We are here to, to share a snack and chitchat
8 about how much fun a religion can be
9 without crossing over the line into sin.
10 You just don't need to cross the line, as we will demonstrate.
11 We already have a bunch of people messaging in
12 via Tweeter and iFace and whatnot,
13 with questions for “Where's the Line?” with Reverend Soquet.
14
3¶ 15 Our first message in question is coming in
16 from Father Mother from Xenia, Ohio,
17 and he wants to know:
18
19 "How far can we go, Reverend? Can we touch the line?"
20
21 And the answer is no Father, no Father. To touch it would be to cross it.
22 Look people, it's very simple, it's very simple.
23 Y'all can have as much fun as your tummy can take, ya just can't cross the line of sin.
24 As tempting as that tasty plate of fresh-baked sin may appear,
25 Damnation and hellfire are saturating the very plate on which it is delivered unto to you.
26
4¶ 27 Um, do we have a second caller?
28 Okay, good. Sister Brother calling in from Ravenna, Ohio.
29 She wants to know,
30
31 "Reverend Soquet, can we sniff the line?"
32
33 Uh, and the answer is yes, Sister.
34 You can get right down on both knees and sniff that line.
35 You can back your donkey right up to the line,
36 And you can walk your doggy along the line,
37 Ya just can't cross the line HALLELUJAH.
38
5¶ 39 Our next caller is (in-er-uh?) Brother Ed and a Brother Ant from Cleveland, Ohio
40 They want to know what denomination I am.
41 Uh, Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist...
42 Uh, people, therein lies the problem.
43 The spiritual economy is going right down the shitter.
44 The operating costs of salvation are through the roof.
45 But most concerning, most concerning is this:
46 Are you (are?) confused in an hour of All, people
47 It's mixed messages!
48
6¶ 49 We need to down-size these factions,
50 Stop with the “My God's dick is bigger than your God's bologna sandwiches.”
51 My friends, we need to hand out some spiritual pink slips and down-size
52 Before we have to file Chapter 11 Verse 23 Skidoo, can I get an AMEN?
53
7¶ 54 Folks, I might need to cut this rant short.
55 My Spidey-senses are picking up the pungent scent of sin
56 At first I thought it might have been that divine scent
57 coming from the (fool/food/fooled/fool's?) court kiosk on 5th and Euclid,
58 but that was just a distraction.
59
8¶ 60 A den of sin is in full-swing somewhere near us now
61 And I must do my best to be there for The Fall and when they mutter,
62 “Where's the Line?”
63 Peace out, bitches.
(For a pop-up of these lyrics, click here )
The organization of the lyrics is completely my doing. I have included line numbers for easy reference and have grouped the stanzas into what I feel are the most meaningful chunks. The organization of the lengths of the lines themselves is arbitrary. I have left out Maynard's stuttering where I do not feel it was contributing anything of value and have put what I cannot quite make out in parentheses.
Interpretation
Before I start, I want to mention that my own understanding of the Qabalah and the Tree of Life is rudimentary, mostly stemming from the small amount of resources I just provided, as well as training in other “esoteric” branches (mainly Aikido/Shinto), which I felt gave me a quicker understanding of the principles outlined in these sources. Keep this in mind if I mess up a Qabalistic principle or symbol.
That being said, I will now get on with the interpretation.
The overall point being made by the good Reverend Soquet in this song, referring the symbolism of the Tree of Life, is that one should remain within the Sephiroth of the Supernal Triad (Kether, Chokmah, and Binah) and not cross Daath into the lower Sephiroth of Manifestation (all the Sephiroth below Daath). “The Line” to which he is constantly referring represents Daath and the “Sin” he talks about represents the lower Sephiroth of Manifestation.
And how do I come to that conclusion? I will attempt now to break it down by going stanza by stanza through the lyrics.
1st Stanza
The first stanza has no symbolic significance. It simply sets the scene of a goofy man in a radio booth. It immediately shows the man as a bit unorganized and nervous and, a surprise to anyone who has listened to Maynard's artwork for some time, provides a fart joke.
2nd Stanza
The second stanza is also devoid of symbolism. Lines 5 and 6 describe the scene further as a stuttering Reverend Soquet (sometimes mispronounced as an offensive sexual innuendo) hosting a radio show called “Where's the Line*?”. In lines 7 through 10, Reverend Soquet announces the purpose of the show, which is to explain why it is not necessary to “cross the line”. Lines 11 through 13 add to Reverend Soquet's goofiness and lack of hipness by not knowing the correct names of Twitter and Facebook, instead spitting out Tweeter** and iFace.
*If you listen carefully over the stuttering, it sounds quite a bit more like he's saying “Where's the wine?”. As Maynard is now well-known for owning a vineyard and producing wine, and as the title of the album is Blood Into Wine, this should not come as any surprise.
**It also sounds like Maynard may be saying “Tweaker”. I am tempted to lean to this transcription, as it is way more funny.
3rd Stanza
In the third stanza the first batch of symbolism shows up. The first caller to the radio show, Father Mother, initially sounds like a joke name for a Catholic priest. His question in line 19 appears innocent enough: “How far can we go, Reverend? Can we touch the line?” Reverend Soquet's harsh response is no surprise to anyone who has ever attended church: little sins are just as big as the big ones and dabbling in sin is just as contemptible as being a full-blown sinner.
However, when one turns to chapter 11 of The Book of Lies, something most interesting is found in the opening four paragraphs:
“Concerning the Holy Three-in-Naught.
Nuit, Hadit, Ra-Hoor-Khuit, are only to be understood
by the Master of the Temple.
They are above The Abyss, and contain all con-tradiction
in themselves.
Below them is a seeming duality of Chaos and Babalon;
these are called Father and Mother, but it is not so.
They are called Brother and Sister, but it is not so.
They are called Husband and Wife, but it is not so.”
Our first caller, Father Mother, is taken straight out of the chapter. In and of itself, this connection could easily be a coincidence. However, a quick glance at the second caller in the 4th stanza, Sister Brother, significantly lowers this chance. Tie this in which the specific pointing to chapter 11 in The Book of Lies at the end of the 6th stanza (confirmed by chapter 23, as I mentioned in the introduction) and it begins to look more and more like gold has been struck.
The 4th paragraph of Crowley's commentary on chapter 11 gives a clear picture of the symbolism at work:
“Chaos and Babalon are Chokmah and Binah, but they are
really one; the essential unity of the supernal Triad is here
insisted upon.”
According to the chapter itself, Father Mother, as well as Sister Brother, refer to Chaos and Babalon (even if “they are not really so”, the reference is still made). Crowley then states in his commentary on the chapter that Chaos and Babalon are equivalent to Chokmah and Binah, Sephiroth two and three on the Tree of Life. Chokmah and Binah rest right above Daath, the line which separates the Supernal Triad from the Sephiroth of Manifestation.
When Father Mother calls in to ask Reverend Soquet whether it is okay to touch the line, meaning Daath, the Reverend vehemently says no in line 21, for just as dabbling in sin is as despicable as wallowing in it, coming into contact with Daath is the same as subjecting oneself to the processes of Daath itself, which convert the original emanations of the Supernal Triad into the forms present in Chesed (the 4th Sephirah), which of course leads one down all the way to the bottom of the Tree of Life — creating a full-blown sinner.
To back this up even more, Crowley also mentions in the commentary that “The first part of the chapter describes the universe in its highest sense, down to Tiphareth”. When we look at the first part of the chapter again, it is clear that the “Holy Three-in-Naught” refer to the three Sephiroth in the Supernal Triad, even more specifically so as he mentions that these three are above the Abyss (the Abyss being synonymous with Daath).
The rest of the 3rd stanza (lines 22 to 25), as far as I am able to tell, are simply flavorful preacher language used to describe the lower Sephiroth of Manifestation.
4th Stanza
As was pointed out earlier, the second caller in the 4th stanza, Sister Brother, who at first appears to be another joke Catholic name, this time for a nun, is actually equivalent to Binah and Chokmah according to chapter 11 of The Book of Lies. The question in line 31 asks: “Reverend Soquet, can we sniff the line?” On the surface, this is obviously a cocaine-snorting joke. However, in reference to chapter 11 and in comparison with the 3rd stanza, it is clear this is a question relating to Chokmah and Binah's proximity to Daath. The caller this time asks Reverend Soquet if it is okay to sniff Daath, that is, to perform an action that involves getting really close to it but not coming into contact with it. Reverend Soquet reassures her in line 33 that anything at all is okay as long as contact is not made with the Line, for just the same as touching Daath exposes one to its processes in their entirety, not coming into contact with it does not activate it whatsoever, no matter how close one gets.
Reverend Soquet then makes a list of sex and drug jokes to describe various ways to asymptotically approach the Line in a permissable fashion.
For the record, this list consists of a blowjob joke coupled with the original cocaine-snorting joke in line 34, a reference to donkey-punching in line 35 (also note that "you can back your donkey right up to the line" is synonymous with "you can back your ass right up to the line"), and a reference to the doggy-style sex position in line 36.
5th Stanza
In the 5th stanza, the question comes from two callers, a Brother Ed and a Brother Ant. They inquire after Reverend Soquet's denomination in line 40. The Reverend becomes mildly irritated at this question, makes some economic metaphors of the spiritual condition in lines 43 and 44, then goes into what looks like irrelevant gibberish in lines 45 to 47.
When one flips through The Book of Lies, one will notice that every chapter begins with the word ΚΕΦΑΛΗ followed by one or two capitalized Greek letters. ΚΕΦΑΛΗ would be written somewhere near “kephale” in Latin letters and is the Greek word for “chapter” (literally it means “head”). In the ancient Greek number system*, the Greek letters themselves were used for numbers.
*Here's a handy chart on some vituperative Christian prophesy website.
If we take this into consideration and look at the first of the two callers, Brother Ed, we can see that his monosyllabic name is boldly displaying the letter E, which is written the same way as the capital Greek letter epsilon. Epsilon corresponds to the number 5. While this seems like a bit of a stretch, a quick look at chapter 5 of The Book of Lies shows that the wrong tree is not being barked up:
5
ΚΕΦΑΛΗ Ε
THE BATTLE OF THE ANTS
Brother Ed leads us to the proper chapter and Brother Ant confirms, indeed, we have found the right one.
In line 41, Reverend Soquet elaborates on the original question of his denomination by listing three different examples (“Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist...”) before trailing off. He then gets irritated, implying that even in asking this question that one misses the point. An interesting correlation to this is found in the latter half of the afore-mentioned chapter 5:
“Peace implies war.
Power implies war.
Harmony implies war.
Victory implies war.
Glory implies war.
Foundation implies war.
Alas! for the Kingdom wherein all these are at war.”
Peace, Power, Harmony, Victory, Glory, Foundation, and The Kingdom are the English translations respectfully for Chesed, Geburah, Tiphareth, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malkuth — the 7 lower Sephiroth of Manifestation, i.e. those which exist beyond the Line of Sin (Daath)! Crowley mentions at the beginning of his commentary on the chapter that ants were chosen for the title as “small busy objects” and explains the meaning behind the laundry list succinctly in the last paragraph:
“The rest of the chapter therefore points out the duality, and therefore the imperfection, of all the lower Sephiroth in their essence.”
Crowley states that the lower Sephiroth are inherently imperfect. Ants as “small busy objects” suggest creatures going about businesses of no ultimate importance, specifically businesses which are fundamentally in conflict (“at war”) due their dual, and thus imperfect, nature. Reverend Soquet lists the different Christian denominations in the same way, suggesting that it is a problem to even be concerned about denomination. They all inherently imply conflict, all having crossed the Line into Sin. Any positive aspects they provide lead to the same negative aspect: war. Interestingly enough, the two Brothers call in from Cleveland, Ohio, which can be literally read as “a land which is cloven” — a single unit divided against itself.
In lines 43 and 44, Reverend Soquet then uses some economic-sounding terms to create two very vertical images. Line 43 suggests the entire spiritual situation (the “spiritual economy”) to be going straight down, that is, straight down the Tree of Life, past the Line and into the world of sin, down to Malkuth, the 10th Sephirah. Line 44 suggests an increasing difficulty of returning back to the higher Sephiroth.
Lines 45 to 47 require turning back to chapter 11 for interpretation. When I first heard the Reverend mention the “hour of All” in line 46, I tried cleaning out my ears and replaying the song because I was sure I had heard the words incorrectly. All of what? However, after correctly identifying chapter 11 as a reference to the lyrics, it became clear that, indeed, he is saying All, as evidenced by the 5th paragraph in the chapter:
“The reflection of All is Pan: the Night of Pan is the Annihilation of the All.”
And with the 5th paragraph of Crowley's commentary on the chapter, we can easily figure out what these terms symbolize:
“Pan is a generic name, including this whole system of its manifested side. Those which are above the Abyss are therefore said to live in the Night of Pan; they are only reached by the annihilation of the All.”
Pan, which is equivocated with the All in the chapter, is explained as the “whole system [the Tree of Life] of its manifested side”, that is, of course, the lower seven Sephiroth of Manifestation. If there is still any confusion regarding this, Crowley makes it clear that anything above the Abyss is the Night of Pan, thus attributing Pan to the remaining seven Sephiroth below. The Annihilation of the All, which means to reject or to remove oneself from the world of manifestation, is to reach |
the original series, and there have been numerous TV and film adaptations in a number of languages. In Cannes this year, Alicia Vikander was announced as leading the voice cast in an upcoming feature-length stop motion animation. The latest small-screen adaptation – currently slated for two seasons of 13 22-minute episodes and due to air in spring 2019 – will have Egerton, soon to be seen reprising his role as Eggsy in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, voicing Moomintroll, the young, curious boy of the Moomin family. Pike will play the wise, caring protector Moominmamma, with Berry as Moominpap ‘We are thrilled with this stellar cast who have been carefully chosen to inhabit Tove Jansson’s much-loved characters,” said Gutsy Animations creative director and executive producer Marika Makaroff “They will speak to audiences young and old and for the family drama that we are creating, which doesn’t shy away from the depth and complexities of Jansson’s original work, they couldn’t be a more talented or suitable line up.” Moominvalley, being made using a 2D/3D hybrid techniques, is being produced by BAFTA-winning producer John Woolley (Shaun the Sheep) and Emmy-winning writing duo Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler (Peter Rabbit). Classical violinist Pekka Kuusisto and percussionist Samuli Kosminen, both from Finland, are creating the music for the series. Kuusisto’s father composed with Jansson in the 1970s and wrote the Finnish National Opera’s Moomin Opera in 1974.
The animation is being developed in association with Yle Drama and with the full support of Moomin Characters, the business set up by Jansson and her brother Lars Jansson to manage the Moomin brand. To this day Moomin characters is run by family members with Sophia Jansson, Lars Jansson's daughter and Tove's niece, as chairman of the board and creative director
“Tove gave the inhabitants of Moominvalley the values of tolerance, love, respect, friendship and bravery – which are needed in today's world more than ever,” said Sarah Jansson. “We’re very excited to have a wonderful cast and team who share these values bringing Moomin to life in a new way for fans young and old.”
An all-star cast has been assembled for the upcoming animated TV series based on the hugely popular Scandinavian children’s books, The Moomins. Rosamund Pike, Taron Egerton, Kate Winslet, Warwick Davis, Matt Berry, Richard Ayoade, Will Self and Akiya Henry will lend their voices to Moominvalley, being produced by Finnish studio Gutsy Animations. Steve Box, formerly of Aardman and an Oscar winner for co-directing Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit with Nick Park, will helm. The Moomins, created by Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson and first published in 1945 and now one of Finland’s biggest cultural exports, are a family of white, almost hippopotamus-shaped fairy tale creatures who have adventures in the fictitious Moominvalley. Nine books were released in the original series, and there have been numerous TV and film adaptations in a number of languages. In Cannes this year, Alicia Vikander was announced as leading the voice cast in an upcoming feature-length stop motion animation. The latest small-screen adaptation – currently slated for two seasons of 13 22-minute episodes and due to air in spring 2019 – will have Egerton, soon to be seen reprising his role as Eggsy in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, voicing Moomintroll, the young, curious boy of the Moomin family. Pike will play the wise, caring protector Moominmamma, with Berry as Moominpap ‘We are thrilled with this stellar cast who have been carefully chosen to inhabit Tove Jansson’s much-loved characters,” said Gutsy Animations creative director and executive producer Marika Makaroff “They will speak to audiences young and old and for the family drama that we are creating, which doesn’t shy away from the depth and complexities of Jansson’s original work, they couldn’t be a more talented or suitable line up.” Moominvalley, being made using a 2D/3D hybrid techniques, is being produced by BAFTA-winning producer John Woolley (Shaun the Sheep) and Emmy-winning writing duo Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler (Peter Rabbit). Classical violinist Pekka Kuusisto and percussionist Samuli Kosminen, both from Finland, are creating the music for the series. Kuusisto’s father composed with Jansson in the 1970s and wrote the Finnish National Opera’s Moomin Opera in 1974.
The animation is being developed in association with Yle Drama and with the full support of Moomin Characters, the business set up by Jansson and her brother Lars Jansson to manage the Moomin brand. To this day Moomin characters is run by family members with Sophia Jansson, Lars Jansson's daughter and Tove's niece, as chairman of the board and creative director.
“Tove gave the inhabitants of Moominvalley the values of tolerance, love, respect, friendship and bravery – which are needed in today's world more than ever,” said Sarah Jansson. “We’re very excited to have a wonderful cast and team who share these values bringing Moomin to life in a new way for fans young and old.”
An all-star cast has been assembled for the upcoming animated TV series based on the hugely popular Scandinavian children’s books, The Moomins. Rosamund Pike, Taron Egerton, Kate Winslet, Warwick Davis, Matt Berry, Richard Ayoade, Will Self and Akiya Henry will lend their voices to Moominvalley, being produced by Finnish studio Gutsy Animations. Steve Box, formerly of Aardman and an Oscar winner for co-directing Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit with Nick Park, will helm. The Moomins, created by Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson and first published in 1945 and now one of Finland’s biggest cultural exports, are a family of white, almost hippopotamus-shaped fairy tale creatures who have adventures in the fictitious Moominvalley. Nine books were released in the original series, and there have been numerous TV and film adaptations in a number of languages. In Cannes this year, Alicia Vikander was announced as leading the voice cast in an upcoming feature-length stop motion animation. The latest small-screen adaptation – currently slated for two seasons of 13 22-minute episodes and due to air in spring 2019 – will have Egerton, soon to be seen reprising his role as Eggsy in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, voicing Moomintroll, the young, curious boy of the Moomin family. Pike will play the wise, caring protector Moominmamma, with Berry as Moominpap ‘We are thrilled with this stellar cast who have been carefully chosen to inhabit Tove Jansson’s much-loved characters,” said Gutsy Animations creative director and executive producer Marika Makaroff “They will speak to audiences young and old and for the family drama that we are creating, which doesn’t shy away from the depth and complexities of Jansson’s original work, they couldn’t be a more talented or suitable line up.” Moominvalley, being made using a 2D/3D hybrid techniques, is being produced by BAFTA-winning producer John Woolley (Shaun the Sheep) and Emmy-winning writing duo Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler (Peter Rabbit). Classical violinist Pekka Kuusisto and percussionist Samuli Kosminen, both from Finland, are creating the music for the series. Kuusisto’s father composed with Jansson in the 1970s and wrote the Finnish National Opera’s Moomin Opera in 1974.
The animation is being developed in association with Yle Drama and with the full support of Moomin Characters, the business set up by Jansson and her brother Lars Jansson to manage the Moomin brand. To this day Moomin characters is run by family members with Sophia Jansson, Lars Jansson's daughter and Tove's niece, as chairman of the board and creative director
“Tove gave the inhabitants of Moominvalley the values of tolerance, love, respect, friendship and bravery – which are needed in today's world more than ever,” said Sarah Jansson. “We’re very excited to have a wonderful cast and team who share these values bringing Moomin to life in a new way for fans young and old.”
An all-star cast has been assembled for the upcoming animated TV series based on the hugely popular Scandinavian children’s books, The Moomins. Rosamund Pike, Taron Egerton, Kate Winslet, Warwick Davis, Matt Berry, Richard Ayoade, Will Self and Akiya Henry will lend their voices to Moominvalley, being produced by Finnish studio Gutsy Animations. Steve Box, formerly of Aardman and an Oscar winner for co-directing Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit with Nick Park, will helm. The Moomins, created by Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson and first published in 1945 and now one of Finland’s biggest cultural exports, are a family of white, almost hippopotamus-shaped fairy tale creatures who have adventures in the fictitious Moominvalley. Nine books were released in the original series, and there have been numerous TV and film adaptations in a number of languages. In Cannes this year, Alicia Vikander was announced as leading the voice cast in an upcoming feature-length stop motion animation. The latest small-screen adaptation – currently slated for two seasons of 13 22-minute episodes and due to air in spring 2019 – will have Egerton, soon to be seen reprising his role as Eggsy in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, voicing Moomintroll, the young, curious boy of the Moomin family. Pike will play the wise, caring protector Moominmamma, with Berry as Moominpap ‘We are thrilled with this stellar cast who have been carefully chosen to inhabit Tove Jansson’s much-loved characters,” said Gutsy Animations creative director and executive producer Marika Makaroff “They will speak to audiences young and old and for the family drama that we are creating, which doesn’t shy away from the depth and complexities of Jansson’s original work, they couldn’t be a more talented or suitable line up.” Moominvalley, being made using a 2D/3D hybrid techniques, is being produced by BAFTA-winning producer John Woolley (Shaun the Sheep) and Emmy-winning writing duo Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler (Peter Rabbit). Classical violinist Pekka Kuusisto and percussionist Samuli Kosminen, both from Finland, are creating the music for the series. Kuusisto’s father composed with Jansson in the 1970s and wrote the Finnish National Opera’s Moomin Opera in 1974.
The animation is being developed in association with Yle Drama and with the full support of Moomin Characters, the business set up by Jansson and her brother Lars Jansson to manage the Moomin brand. To this day Moomin characters is run by family members with Sophia Jansson, Lars Jansson's daughter and Tove's niece, as chairman of the board and creative director.
“Tove gave the inhabitants of Moominvalley the values of tolerance, love, respect, friendship and bravery – which are needed in today's world more than ever,” said Sarah Jansson. “We’re very excited to have a wonderful cast and team who share these values bringing Moomin to life in a new way for fans young and old.”
An all-star cast has been assembled for the upcoming animated TV series based on the hugely popular Scandinavian children’s books, The Moomins. Rosamund Pike, Taron Egerton, Kate Winslet, Warwick Davis, Matt Berry, Richard Ayoade, Will Self and Akiya Henry will lend their voices to Moominvalley, being produced by Finnish studio Gutsy Animations. Steve Box, formerly of Aardman and an Oscar winner for co-directing Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit with Nick Park, will helm. The Moomins, created by Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson and first published in 1945 and now one of Finland’s biggest cultural exports, are a family of white, almost hippopotamus-shaped fairy tale creatures who have adventures in the fictitious Moominvalley. Nine books were released in the original series, and there have been numerous TV and film adaptations in a number of languages. In Cannes this year, Alicia Vikander was announced as leading the voice cast in an upcoming feature-length stop motion animation. The latest small-screen adaptation – currently slated for two seasons of 13 22-minute episodes and due to air in spring 2019 – will have Egerton, soon to be seen reprising his role as Eggsy in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, voicing Moomintroll, the young, curious boy of the Moomin family. Pike will play the wise, caring protector Moominmamma, with Berry as Moominpap ‘We are thrilled with this stellar cast who have been carefully chosen to inhabit Tove Jansson’s much-loved characters,” said Gutsy Animations creative director and executive producer Marika Makaroff “They will speak to audiences young and old and for the family drama that we are creating, which doesn’t shy away from the depth and complexities of Jansson’s original work, they couldn’t be a more talented or suitable line up.” Moominvalley, being made using a 2D/3D hybrid techniques, is being produced by BAFTA-winning producer John Woolley (Shaun the Sheep) and Emmy-winning writing duo Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler (Peter Rabbit). Classical violinist Pekka Kuusisto and percussionist Samuli Kosminen, both from Finland, are creating the music for the series. Kuusisto’s father composed with Jansson in the 1970s and wrote the Finnish National Opera’s Moomin Opera in 1974.
The animation is being developed in association with Yle Drama and with the full support of Moomin Characters, the business set up by Jansson and her brother Lars Jansson to manage the Moomin brand. To this day Moomin characters is run by family members with Sophia Jansson, Lars Jansson's daughter and Tove's niece, as chairman of the board and creative director
“Tove gave the inhabitants of Moominvalley the values of tolerance, love, respect, friendship and bravery – which are needed in today's world more than ever,” said Sarah Jansson. “We’re very excited to have a wonderful cast and team who share these values bringing Moomin to life in a new way for fans young and old.”
An all-star cast has been assembled for the upcoming animated TV series based on the hugely popular Scandinavian children’s books, The Moomins. Rosamund Pike, Taron Egerton, Kate Winslet, Warwick Davis, Matt Berry, Richard Ayoade, Will Self and Akiya Henry will lend their voices to Moominvalley, being produced by Finnish studio Gutsy Animations. Steve Box, formerly of Aardman and an Oscar winner for co-directing Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit with Nick Park, will helm. The Moomins, created by Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson and first published in 1945 and now one of Finland’s biggest cultural exports, are a family of white, almost hippopotamus-shaped fairy tale creatures who have adventures in the fictitious Moominvalley. Nine books were released in the original series, and there have been numerous TV and film adaptations in a number of languages. In Cannes this year, Alicia Vikander was announced as leading the voice cast in an upcoming feature-length stop motion animation. The latest small-screen adaptation – currently slated for two seasons of 13 22-minute episodes and due to air in spring 2019 – will have Egerton, soon to be seen reprising his role as Eggsy in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, voicing Moomintroll, the young, curious boy of the Moomin family. Pike will play the wise, caring protector Moominmamma, with Berry as Moominpap ‘We are thrilled with this stellar cast who have been carefully chosen to inhabit Tove Jansson’s much-loved characters,” said Gutsy Animations creative director and executive producer Marika Makaroff “They will speak to audiences young and old and for the family drama that we are creating, which doesn’t shy away from the depth and complexities of Jansson’s original work, they couldn’t be a more talented or suitable line up.” Moominvalley, being made using a 2D/3D hybrid techniques, is being produced by BAFTA-winning producer John Woolley (Shaun the Sheep) and Emmy-winning writing duo Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler (Peter Rabbit). Classical violinist Pekka Kuusisto and percussionist Samuli Kosminen, both from Finland, are creating the music for the series. Kuusisto’s father composed with Jansson in the 1970s and wrote the Finnish National Opera’s Moomin Opera in 1974.
The animation is being developed in association with Yle Drama and with the full support of Moomin Characters, the business set up by Jansson and her brother Lars Jansson to manage the Moomin brand. To this day Moomin characters is run by family members with Sophia Jansson, Lars Jansson's daughter and Tove's niece, as chairman of the board and creative director.
“Tove gave the inhabitants of Moominvalley the values of tolerance, love, respect, friendship and bravery – which are needed in today's world more than ever,” said Sarah Jansson. “We’re very excited to have a wonderful cast and team who share these values bringing Moomin to life in a new way for fans young and old.”
An all-star cast has been assembled for the upcoming animated TV series based on the hugely popular Scandinavian children’s books, The Moomins. Rosamund Pike, Taron Egerton, Kate Winslet, Warwick Davis, Matt Berry, Richard Ayoade, Will Self and Akiya Henry will lend their voices to Moominvalley, being produced by Finnish studio Gutsy Animations. Steve Box, formerly of Aardman and an Oscar winner for co-directing Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit with Nick Park, will helm. The Moomins, created by Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson and first published in 1945 and now one of Finland’s biggest cultural exports, are a family of white, almost hippopotamus-shaped fairy tale creatures who have adventures in the fictitious Moominvalley. Nine books were released in the original series, and there have been numerous TV and film adaptations in a number of languages. In Cannes this year, Alicia Vikander was announced as leading the voice cast in an upcoming feature-length stop motion animation. The latest small-screen adaptation – currently slated for two seasons of 13 22-minute episodes and due to air in spring 2019 – will have Egerton, soon to be seen reprising his role as Eggsy in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, voicing Moomintroll, the young, curious boy of the Moomin family. Pike will play the wise, caring protector Moominmamma, with Berry as Moominpap ‘We are thrilled with this stellar cast who have been carefully chosen to inhabit Tove Jansson’s much-loved characters,” said Gutsy Animations creative director and executive producer Marika Makaroff “They will speak to audiences young and old and for the family drama that we are creating, which doesn’t shy away from the depth and complexities of Jansson’s original work, they couldn’t be a more talented or suitable line up.” Moominvalley, being made using a 2D/3D hybrid techniques, is being produced by BAFTA-winning producer John Woolley (Shaun the Sheep) and Emmy-winning writing duo Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler (Peter Rabbit). Classical violinist Pekka Kuusisto and percussionist Samuli Kosminen, both from Finland, are creating the music for the series. Kuusisto’s father composed with Jansson in the 1970s and wrote the Finnish National Opera’s Moomin Opera in 1974.The animation is being developed in association with Yle Drama and with the full support of Moomin Characters, the business set up by Jansson and her brother Lars Jansson to manage the Moomin brand. To this day Moomin characters is run by family members with Sophia Jansson, Lars Jansson's daughter and Tove's niece, as chairman of the board and creative director
“Tove gave the inhabitants of Moominvalley the values of tolerance, love, respect, friendship and bravery – which are needed in today's world more than ever,” said Sarah Jansson. “We’re very excited to have a wonderful cast and team who share these values bringing Moomin to life in a new way for fans young and old.”
An all-star cast has been assembled for the upcoming animated TV series based on the hugely popular Scandinavian children’s books, The Moomins. Rosamund Pike, Taron Egerton, Kate Winslet, Warwick Davis, Matt Berry, Richard Ayoade, Will Self and Akiya Henry will lend their voices to Moominvalley, being produced by Finnish studio Gutsy Animations. Steve Box, formerly of Aardman and an Oscar winner for co-directing Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit with Nick Park, will helm. The Moomins, created by Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson and first published in 1945 and now one of Finland’s biggest cultural exports, are a family of white, almost hippopotamus-shaped fairy tale creatures who have adventures in the fictitious Moominvalley. Nine books were released in the original series, and there have been numerous TV and film adaptations in a number of languages. In Cannes this year, Alicia Vikander was announced as leading the voice cast in an upcoming feature-length stop motion animation. The latest small-screen adaptation – currently slated for two seasons of 13 22-minute episodes and due to air in spring 2019 – will have Egerton, soon to be seen reprising his role as Eggsy in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, voicing Moomintroll, the young, curious boy of the Moomin family. Pike will play the wise, caring protector Moominmamma, with Berry as Moominpap ‘We are thrilled with this stellar cast who have been carefully chosen to inhabit Tove Jansson’s much-loved characters,” said Gutsy Animations creative director and executive producer Marika Makaroff “They will speak to audiences young and old and for the family drama that we are creating, which doesn’t shy away from the depth and complexities of Jansson’s original work, they couldn’t be a more talented or suitable line up.” Moominvalley, being made using a 2D/3D hybrid techniques, is being produced by BAFTA-winning producer John Woolley (Shaun the Sheep) and Emmy-winning writing duo Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler (Peter Rabbit). Classical violinist Pekka Kuusisto and percussionist Samuli Kosminen, both from Finland, are creating the music for the series. Kuusisto’s father composed with Jansson in the 1970s and wrote the Finnish National Opera’s Moomin Opera in 1974.
The animation is being developed in association with Yle Drama and with the full support of Moomin Characters, the business set up by Jansson and her brother Lars Jansson to manage the Moomin brand. To this day Moomin characters is run by family members with Sophia Jansson, Lars Jansson's daughter and Tove's niece, as chairman of the board and creative director.
“Tove gave the inhabitants of Moominvalley the values of tolerance, love, respect, friendship and bravery – which are needed in today's world more than ever,” said Sarah Jansson. “We’re very excited to have a wonderful cast and team who share these values bringing Moomin to life in a new way for fans young and old.”
An all-star cast has been assembled for the upcoming animated TV series based on the hugely popular Scandinavian children’s books, The Moomins. Rosamund Pike, Taron Egerton, Kate Winslet, Warwick Davis, Matt Berry, Richard Ayoade, Will Self and Akiya Henry will lend their voices to Moominvalley, being produced by Finnish studio Gutsy Animations. Steve Box, formerly of Aardman and an Oscar winner for co-directing Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit with Nick Park, will helm. The Moomins, created by Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson and first published in 1945 and now one of Finland’s biggest cultural exports, are a family of white, almost hippopotamus-shaped fairy tale creatures who have adventures in the fictitious Moominvalley. Nine books were released in the original series, and there have been numerous TV and film adaptations in a number of languages. In Cannes this year, Alicia Vikander was announced as leading the voice cast in an upcoming feature-length stop motion animation. The latest small-screen adaptation – currently slated for two seasons of 13 22-minute episodes and due to air in spring 2019 – will have Egerton, soon to be seen reprising his role as Eggsy in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, voicing Moomintroll, the young, curious boy of the Moomin family. Pike will play the wise, caring protector Moominmamma, with Berry as Moominpap ‘We are thrilled with this stellar cast who have been carefully chosen to inhabit Tove Jansson’s much-loved characters,” said Gutsy Animations creative director and executive producer Marika Makaroff “They will speak to audiences young and old and for the family drama that we are creating, which doesn’t shy away from the depth and complexities of Jansson’s original work, they couldn’t be a more talented or suitable line up.” Moominvalley, being made using a 2D/3D hybrid techniques, is being produced by BAFTA-winning producer John Woolley (Shaun the Sheep) and Emmy-winning writing duo Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler (Peter Rabbit). Classical violinist Pekka Kuusisto and percussionist Samuli Kosminen, both from Finland, are creating the music for the series. Kuusisto’s father composed with Jansson in the 1970s and wrote the Finnish National Opera’s Moomin Opera in 1974.
The animation is being developed in association with Yle Drama and with the full support of Moomin Characters, the business set up by Jansson and her brother Lars Jansson to manage the Moomin brand. To this day Moomin characters is run by family members with Sophia Jansson, Lars Jansson's daughter and Tove's niece, as chairman of the board and creative director
“Tove gave the inhabitants of Moominvalley the values of tolerance, love, respect, friendship and bravery – which are needed in today's world more than ever,” said Sarah Jansson. “We’re very excited to have a wonderful cast and team who share these values bringing Moomin to life in a new way for fans young and old.”
An all-star cast has been assembled for the upcoming animated TV series based on the hugely popular Scandinavian children’s books, The Moomins. Rosamund Pike, Taron Egerton, Kate Winslet, Warwick Davis, Matt Berry, Richard Ayoade, Will Self and Akiya Henry will lend their voices to Moominvalley, being produced by Finnish studio Gutsy Animations. Steve Box, formerly of Aardman and an Oscar winner for co-directing Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit with Nick Park, will helm. The Moomins, created by Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson and first published in 1945 and now one of Finland’s biggest cultural exports, are a family of white, almost hippopotamus-shaped fairy tale creatures who have adventures in the fictitious Moominvalley. Nine books were released in the original series, and there have been numerous TV and film adaptations in a number of languages. In Cannes this year, Alicia Vikander was announced as leading the voice cast in an upcoming feature-length stop motion animation. The latest small-screen adaptation – currently slated for two seasons of 13 22-minute episodes and due to air in spring 2019 – will have Egerton, soon to be seen reprising his role as Eggsy in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, voicing Moomintroll, the young, curious boy of the Moomin family. Pike will play the wise, caring protector Moominmamma, with Berry as Moominpap ‘We are thrilled with this stellar cast who have been carefully chosen to inhabit Tove Jansson’s much-loved characters,” said Gutsy Animations creative director and executive producer Marika Makaroff “They will speak to audiences young and old and for the family drama that we are creating, which doesn’t shy away from the depth and complexities of Jansson’s original work, they couldn’t be a more talented or suitable line up.” Moominvalley, being made using a 2D/3D hybrid techniques, is being produced by BAFTA-winning producer John Woolley (Shaun the Sheep) and Emmy-winning writing duo Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler (Peter Rabbit). Classical violinist Pekka Kuusisto and percussionist Samuli Kosminen, both from Finland, are creating the music for the series. Kuusisto’s father composed with Jansson in the 1970s and wrote the Finnish National Opera’s Moomin Opera in 1974.
The animation is being developed in association with Yle Drama and with the full support of Moomin Characters, the business set up by Jansson and her brother Lars Jansson to manage the Moomin brand. To this day Moomin characters is run by family members with Sophia Jansson, Lars Jansson's daughter and Tove's niece, as chairman of the board and creative director.
“Tove gave the inhabitants of Moominvalley the values of tolerance, love, respect, friendship and bravery – which are needed in today's world more than ever,” said Sarah Jansson. “We’re very excited to have a wonderful cast and team who share these values bringing Moomin to life in a new way for fans young and old.”
An all-star cast has been assembled for the upcoming animated TV series based on the hugely popular Scandinavian children’s books, The Moomins. Rosamund Pike, Taron Egerton, Kate Winslet, Warwick Davis, Matt Berry, Richard Ayoade, Will Self and Akiya Henry will lend their voices to Moominvalley, being produced by Finnish studio Gutsy Animations. Steve Box, formerly of Aardman and an Oscar winner for co-directing Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit with Nick Park, will helm. The Moomins, created by Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson and first published in 1945 and now one of Finland’s biggest cultural exports, are a family of white, almost hippopotamus-shaped fairy tale creatures who have adventures in the fictitious Moominvalley. Nine books were released in the original series, and there have been numerous TV and film adaptations in a number of languages. In Cannes this year, Alicia Vikander was announced as leading the voice cast in an upcoming feature-length stop motion animation. The latest small-screen adaptation – currently slated for two seasons of 13 22-minute episodes and due to air in spring 2019 – will have Egerton, soon to be seen reprising his role as Eggsy in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, voicing Moomintroll, the young, curious boy of the Moomin family. Pike will play the wise, caring protector Moominmamma, with Berry as Moominpap ‘We are thrilled with this stellar cast who have been carefully chosen to inhabit Tove Jansson’s much-loved characters,” said Gutsy Animations creative director and executive producer Marika Makaroff “They will speak to audiences young and old and for the family drama that we are creating, which doesn’t shy away from the depth and complexities of Jansson’s original work, they couldn’t be a more talented or suitable line up.” Moominvalley, being made using a 2D/3D hybrid techniques, is being produced by BAFTA-winning producer John Woolley (Shaun the Sheep) and Emmy-winning writing duo Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler (Peter Rabbit). Classical violinist Pekka Kuusisto and percussionist Samuli Kosminen, both from Finland, are creating the music for the series. Kuusisto’s father composed with Jansson in the 1970s and wrote the Finnish National Opera’s Moomin Opera in 1974.
The animation is being developed in association with Yle Drama and with the full support of Moomin Characters, the business set up by Jansson and her brother Lars Jansson to manage the Moomin brand. To this day Moomin characters is run by family members with Sophia Jansson, Lars Jansson's daughter and Tove's niece, as chairman of the board and creative director
“Tove gave the inhabitants of Moominvalley the values of tolerance, love, respect, friendship and bravery – which are needed in today's world more than ever,” said Sarah Jansson. “We’re very excited to have a wonderful cast and team who share these values bringing Moomin to life in a new way for fans young and old.”
An all-star cast has been assembled for the upcoming animated TV series based on the hugely popular Scandinavian children’s books, The Moomins. Rosamund Pike, Taron Egerton, Kate Winslet, Warwick Davis, Matt Berry, Richard Ayoade, Will Self and Akiya Henry will lend their voices to Moominvalley, being produced by Finnish studio Gutsy Animations. Steve Box, formerly of Aardman and an Oscar winner for co-directing Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit with Nick Park, will helm. The Moomins, created by Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson and first published in 1945 and now one of Finland’s biggest cultural exports, are a family of white, almost hippopotamus-shaped fairy tale creatures who have adventures in the fictitious Moominvalley. Nine books were released in the original series, and there have been numerous TV and film adaptations in a number of languages. In Cannes this year, Alicia Vikander was announced as leading the voice cast in an upcoming feature-length stop motion animation. The latest small-screen adaptation – currently slated for two seasons of 13 22-minute episodes and due to air in spring 2019 – will have Egerton, soon to be seen reprising his role as Eggsy in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, voicing Moomintroll, the young, curious boy of the Moomin family. Pike will play the wise, caring protector Moominmamma, with Berry as Moominpap ‘We are thrilled with this stellar cast who have been carefully chosen to inhabit Tove Jansson’s much-loved characters,” said Gutsy Animations creative director and executive producer Marika Makaroff “They will speak to audiences young and old and for the family drama that we are creating, which doesn’t shy away from the depth and complexities of Jansson’s original work, they couldn’t be a more talented or suitable line up.” Moominvalley, being made using a 2D/3D hybrid techniques, is being produced by BAFTA-winning producer John Woolley (Shaun the Sheep) and Emmy-winning writing duo Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler (Peter Rabbit). Classical violinist Pekka Kuusisto and percussionist Samuli Kosminen, both from Finland, are creating the music for the series. Kuusisto’s father composed with Jansson in the 1970s and wrote the Finnish National Opera’s Moomin Opera in 1974.
The animation is being developed in association with Yle Drama and with the full support of Moomin Characters, the business set up by Jansson and her brother Lars Jansson to manage the Moomin brand. To this day Moomin characters is run by family members with Sophia Jansson, Lars Jansson's daughter and Tove's niece, as chairman of the board and creative director.
“Tove gave the inhabitants of Moominvalley the values of tolerance, love, respect, friendship and bravery – which are needed in today's world more than ever,” said Sarah Jansson. “We’re very excited to have a wonderful cast and team who share these values bringing Moomin to life in a new way for fans young and old.”
An all-star cast has been assembled for the upcoming animated TV series based on the hugely popular Scandinavian children’s books, The Moomins. Rosamund Pike, Taron Egerton, Kate Winslet, Warwick Davis, Matt Berry, Richard Ayoade, Will Self and Akiya Henry will lend their voices to Moominvalley, being produced by Finnish studio Gutsy Animations. Steve Box, formerly of Aardman and an Oscar winner for co-directing Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit with Nick Park, will helm. The Moomins, created by Finnish illustrator Tove Jansson and first published in 1945 and now one of Finland’s biggest cultural exports, are a family of white, almost hippopotamus-shaped fairy tale creatures who have adventures in the fictitious Moominvalley. Nine books were released in the original series, and there have been numerous TV and film adaptations in a number of languages. In Cannes this year, Alicia Vikander was announced as leading the voice cast in an upcoming feature-length stop motion animation. The latest small-screen adaptation – currently slated for two seasons of 13 22-minute episodes and due to air in spring 2019 – will have Egerton, soon to be seen reprising his role as Eggsy in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, voicing Moomintroll, the young, curious boy of the Moomin family. Pike will play the wise, caring protector Moominmamma, with Berry as Moominpap ‘We are thrilled with this stellar cast who have been carefully chosen to inhabit Tove |
software they named also matches that identified by TalkTalk in its own website guidance on what to watch out for in a scam call.
In addition, a victim of the fraud shown the call centre script has confirmed it matched the one read out to her when she was conned out of £5,000.
Image caption One of the whistleblowers shared this screenshot of one of the scripts
TalkTalk was hit by a cyber-attack in October 2015, but that hack appears to be unrelated to the Indian fraud.
Instead, it is alleged the scam is linked to problems in a company hired by the British broadband provider.
In 2011, TalkTalk outsourced some of its call-centre work to the Kolkata (Calcutta) office of Wipro, one of India's largest IT service companies.
Last year, three Wipro employees were arrested on suspicion of selling TalkTalk customer data.
A source in Kolkata, who did not want to be named, alleges the same data was obtained by a criminal gang, with USB sticks full of data trading hands at parties.
The criminals then used the data to operate at least three call centres, according to the whistleblowers, where staff work in shifts earning about £120 per month to perpetrate an intricate but highly successful scam.
They say they phone TalkTalk customers, using the stolen data to convince victims they are genuine employees of the company.
They then convince the victims their computers are infected, and offer to fix the problems.
Through this, the whistleblowers say, the victim is tricked into installing a virus that gives the scammer complete control over their machine.
Image caption The leaked scripts indicate workers were told how to fool victims into believing them
The victims are then offered a compensation payment, for which they must log in to online banking, they add.
Thanks to the virus, the fraudsters are able to gain access to the victims' bank accounts when they log in.
They say they use various methods to spirit away the money: in some cases pretending to make erroneous overpayments, then convincing victims to repay the extra amount.
In other cases, victims have said the scammers were able to set up a new payee without their knowledge and transfer the money out of the account directly.
Why the whistleblowers appear credible:
Although the BBC cannot be sure of the whistleblowers claims, the following suggested they were telling the truth:
the three whistleblowers approached us seemingly independently of each other; the information they shared - including the scripts they were told to read out - correlated to a high degree
during extensive online conversations, they revealed in-depth knowledge of the scammers' techniques, much of which is not in the public domain and matches the experience of TalkTalk fraud victims
one of the whistleblowers shared a copy of his driver's licence, confirming his identity
the whistleblowers said they were ignorant of the full scale of the fraud, because the eventual bank account theft was handled by a separate, smaller team in a different office
at one stage, two of the whistleblowers attempted to share the information of UK victims they had called, and asked us to warn the victims before they fell for the scam
Dozens of customers are said to have been affected, and many have lost thousands of pounds as a result of the fraud.
Leigh Day solicitors is representing about 20 people who have between them lost almost £100,000.
Image caption The scripts suggest TalkTalk customers were told that inaction would cause their computers to stop working
Questions remain about the speed with which TalkTalk responded to the data breach at Wipro, which is believed to have been in late 2014.
It was only in October 2015, after the apparently unrelated cyber-attack, that TalkTalk began a "forensic review" leading to the arrests at Wipro.
"We are aware that there are criminals targeting a number of UK and international companies, and we take our responsibility to protect our customers very seriously," said a spokeswoman for TalkTalk.
"This is why we launched our Beat The Scammers campaign, helping all our customers to keep themselves from safe from scammers no matter who they claim to be, while our network also proactively blocks over 90 million scam and nuisance calls a month."
Wipro did not respond to requests for comment.
When contacted, the two companies named by the whistleblowers strongly denied any knowledge of criminal behaviour, and insisted their businesses were legitimate.
Geoff White is a freelance investigative journalist, who has also reported for Channel 4 NewsMicah Poag knew that nothing could stop him from seeing Game 7 of the NBA Finals in person, not even not having tickets. So he went anyway, and got right in using a forged press pass.
The Warriors fan and University of Texas sophomore told Vocativ it was easy, really. All it took was a little Photoshop skill and a lot of moxie. “I’m pretty good with Photoshop, so Friday night I went ahead and bought a plane ticket with the idea that I’d go to this game and make a press pass and see if it would work,” Poag said. “Saturday morning I woke up and made this press pass and spent so much time on it I almost missed my flight.”
Poag said he didn’t go off of any specific model; he simply Googled what press passes to sporting events look like and made a generic pass with Golden State’s colors, a picture of him in a suit, a barcode, and random numbers. Sunday morning, he got up and dressed how he thought a reporter would dress—in khakis and an Oxford button down, natch—and got an early start. “I got out of the house around noon to show up to the game extra early because that’s kind of when I knew I could get in. I was there about five hours early, and circled the stadium looking for points of entry.”
On his second pass around the stadium, he found an open door where a window washer had stepped out of the stadium. He walked up and started talking to the guy, when a security guard walked over. “I kind of stepped up and showed the guard my press pass real quick and she didn’t really say anything and sort of gave me a nod in, and I proceeded to walk past her. When I was about 15 yards past, I heard her say ‘Hey,’ but then I didn’t look back.”
After that, he waited. “I walked into the men’s bathroom and I took a stall and I literally pulled my pants down like I was taking a shit,” Poag said, “because no one is going to bother a guy taking a shit, and then I sat there for two hours.”
Micah said that at around 3 p.m. he saw fans were starting to be let into the stadium. So he emerged from his hiding place and once he saw he could give up the self-described reporter’s outfit, he put on his Warriors jersey, climbed up into the nosebleeds, and poached some seats. “I watched the game pretty casually, pretty easily.”
When the game was over, he said he tried to get on the court but was stopped because his press pass didn’t say “All Access.” He says not including that phrase was his only regret of the whole stunt, because if his pass had those magic words, he would have been able to get on the court. He also says he was probably able to get in without being questioned because he’s white and because he was wearing a suit.
“Looking the part is a huge part of it. I think it’s pretty easy when you’re a white kid dressed in khakis with a suit on,” Poag said. “I think if you’re confident it helps.”
Poag said he’d do it all over again if given the chance. And though his team lost, he said he didn’t really mind.Belfast's mayor Niall O Donnghaile to quit post early to avoid meeting Queen on Jubilee visit BelfastTelegraph.co.uk Belfast's Lord Mayor is to stand down from his office early to avoid meeting the Queen. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/belfasts-mayor-niall-o-donnghaile-to-quit-post-early-to-avoid-meeting-queen-on-jubilee-visit-28740665.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/migration_catalog/article25809255.ece/035cc/AUTOCROP/h342/Niall%20O%20Donnghaile
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Belfast's Lord Mayor is to stand down from his office early to avoid meeting the Queen.
Sinn Fein’s Niall O Donnghaile is to stand aside and let the DUP take up the First Citizen position in time for the diamond Jubilee celebrations at the start of June.
City Hall sources have confirmed that, for the first time, standing orders have been changed to allow the new Lord Mayor — tipped to be the DUP’s Gavin Robinson — to be elected at a meeting on Friday, June 1, ahead of festivities marking the Queen’s 60 years on the throne.
Normally, only special meetings are held on Fridays.
Jim McVeigh, Sinn Fein group party leader on Belfast City Council, said: “We knew that the Jubilee celebrations were coming up and had a discussion with the DUP about that. We were happy to come out of that role and they were happy to come in a little bit early because of the issue of the anniversary.”
But unionists have described the Sinn Fein move as a snub.
Buckingham Palace has declined to release dates for the Queen’s visit to Northern Ireland for security reasons.
However, last year Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said he would meet the Queen if he was elected President of Ireland.
By contrast, however, Mr O Donnghaile — an avid GAA fan and fluent Irish speaker from the Short Strand district of Belfast — refused to be drawn on the matter.
It is understood the decision to appoint a new Mayor a week early came after a mutual agreement between unionists and nationalists in Belfast.
In February, Sinn Fein, which is the largest party on Belfast City Council with 16 seats, backed plans to fund events marking the Jubilee — including the £56,000 council-run grant scheme to help community organisations in the city organise their own Jubilee events.
Mr McVeigh added: “We as republicans obviously are not keen to celebrate the Jubilee in any shape or form. But, we have supported the recent round of funding when it came before council and we are happy for unionists to celebrate if they so wish. But, it is not something that we would be involved in as republicans.
“This is as much about accommodating the unionists as about us not wanting to be part of the Jubilee celebrations. We are republicans and have no great love for the royalty in any shape or form. We do not want to be part of the celebrations. A unionist Mayor would love to be on that seat when a member of the Royalty or maybe even the Queen herself comes to Belfast.”
Last year, Mr O Donnghaile sparked a political storm after he refused to present a certificate to a 14-year-old Army cadet during a Duke of Edinburgh awards ceremony. He also caused outrage after removing royal portraits from his parlour.
This latest move has again angered long-standing unionists.
“It is definitely a snub,” said former Lord Mayor Jim Rodgers. “It is unfortunate in view of what the Deputy First Minister said last year — that he would meet the Queen.
“When I was Lord Mayor I met a wide range of people from both sides. I was criticised both publicly and privately for it — but I believe you have to lead to the city and you have to be above politics. Unfortunately this current Lord Mayor has been one of the most political that I can remember in more than 20 years in council.”
Meanwhile, the DUP’s deputy Lord Mayor Ruth Patterson said: “I thought that the current Lord Mayor would have learned a severe lesson from when he refused to present an Army cadet with a certificate last December.”
Belfast TelegraphMaxaki and LillRobban on their way to North America. Photo: Fragbite.se / Private
An exodus of Swedish CS:GO talent seems to be happening, and they’re all heading towards North America.
First, former Team Orbit member Pyth joined Luminosity and now his ex-manager Robert ”LillRobban” Jonasson is set to coach Ace Gaming and bring Andreas ”maxaki” Andersson with him.
– They contacted me after my ”open letter to CLG” on Reddit, but nothing is one hundred percent confirmed, Jonasson tells Aftonbladet Esport.
Robert ”LillRobban” Jonasson, former London Conspiracy– and Team Orbit manager, wrote a Reddit post regarding CounterLogic Gaming’s announcement of an open tryout. In the thread he mentioned a couple of talented European players, which led to former Copenhagen Wolves member Casper ”cadiaN” Møller being contacted by the organization.
”Asked if I was ready for a new task”
For Jonasson, the post also led to him being approached by Ace Gaming, who are currently 0-3 in the ESL ESEA Pro League. Plans started forming and now, if everything goes as planned, him and former Team Orbit player Andreas ”maxaki” Andersson will move to North America and represent the organization as coach and player respectively.
– I mostly wrote the post for fun, to show the community which unsigned talents were available in Europe. Then they contacted me and asked if I was ready for a new task on the other side of the Atlantic, Jonasson tells Aftonbladet Esport.
”Need to get them to play calmer”
The preparations are underway but nothing is one hundred percent locked down yet. But Jonasson already knows what he’s looking to improve in Ace Gaming.
– We need to work on the communication and getting them to play calmer. More methodical and less gambles, to get rid of the NA pug meta.
When it comes to European players leaving for North America, Jacob ”pyth” Mourujärvi to Luminosity and cadiaN seemingly on his way to CLG, he thinks the calmness and communication is what they can teach the North American players, but that the aim levels are similar.
How do you think maxaki will measure up against the top players across the Atlantic?
– With motivation and dedication he’ll be among the top players. And his European calling style will also be a big step forward for Ace.
”Goal is to have a top team next season”
What will be your goals for the team going forward, looking at ESL ESEA Pro League for instance?
– The goal is to have a top team for next season. This season is about finding our game and to evolve. We don’t have a placement in mind now.
When you wrote about your plans on Reddit, it was mentioned that Stephan ”vEz” Vezina has been suspended for cheating in the past. What are your thoughts on that?
– He got his punishment and is clean. I’ve told him that I’ll give him one chance. As long as he is permitted to play majors he’s ok for me, but of course it doesn’t look good.
Jonasson thinks that the deal with Ace will be confirmed later this week.You are tricked into publicly sharing more information about yourself than you really intended to. Named after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
In its early days, Facebook had a reputation for making it difficult for users to control their privacy settings, and generally making it very easy to "overshare" by mistake. In response to feedback from consumers and privacy groups, Facebook has created a clearer, easier to use privacy settings area.
Today, privacy zuckering seems to take place mainly behind the scenes, thanks to the data brokerage industry. Here's how it works: when you use a service (e.g. a store card), the small print hidden in the Terms and Conditions gives them permission to sell your personal data to anyone. Data brokers buy it and combine it with everything else they find about you online into a profile, which they then resell. Your profile may contain information about your sexual preferences, physical & mental health. In theory your profile could result in you being refused services such as insurance or loans. The industry is currently not well regulated and it is very difficult to opt out of having your data brokered. See stopdatamining.me for more information. Though commonplace and extremely troubling, state-level surveillance is not considered a dark pattern.
The infographic below gives further details about the data brokerage industry (2015, webpagefx).According to a theory supported by an Al Jazeera news report, the United States has stolen approximately 20 trillion dollars worth of gold and 30 trillion dollars worth of oil. This claim is also backed up by photos of American soldiers posing with Iraqi gold bars.
To get to the bottom of this, let’s dissect each individual claim:
1. $30 trillion worth of oil was stolen.
Mostly false.
After the conclusion of the Iraqi invasion, Iraqi oil was sold for the Development Fund of Iraq (DFI). However, in July 2010, the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) found that the US Department of Defense couldn’t account for $8.7 billion of DFI funds. The Iraqi parliament then requested the United Nations to help them get back the $17 billion of “oil money” that it said was stolen from the Iraqi people by the US.
2. $20 trillion worth of gold was stolen.
False.
The soldiers may have posed with the gold but they didn’t keep it! The soldiers are members of the 230th Finance Battalion who are assigned to seize Iraqi assets. These gold bars were transported to Kuwait to be analyzed for purity and value. Afterwards, they were sent to the Central Iraqi Treasury.
Also, take note that the value of all the gold ever mined in the world is at $8.2 trillion!
3. Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and is not involved in 9/11.
True.
After the US forces occupied Iraq, they couldn’t find any weapons of mass destruction. While the Bush Administration implied a link between Saddam and the 9/11 attacks, they never declared this outright.
4. Americans invaded Afghanistan after invading Iraq.
False.
It’s the other way around – the US invaded Afghanistan first.
5. The Americans invaded Afghanistan to get to the poppy fields and lithium mines.
False.
They invaded Afghanistan because the Taliban wouldn’t extradite Osama bin Laden to the United States and they wouldn’t expel al-Quaeda from the country.
Also, the massive lithium deposit in Afghanistan was only discovered years later in 2007. As for the poppies, considering America’s stand against the drug trade (with the War on Drugs back in 1982), America has no interest in the drug trade. If they were, the US would have stayed after the Soviet withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989.
Watch the Al Jazeera news report here:
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This report is from 2011. They never claimed that the United States stole Iraqi gold and oil. Instead, it highlights the $6.6 billion in funds that couldn’t be accounted for due to missing documents. Osama al-Nujaifi, the Iraqi Parliament Speaker, disputed the figure in 2011, saying that the Development Fund of Iraq lost $18.7 billion instead.
So you see, it pays to read through EVERYTHING before you read headlines and fall into the conspiracy theory trap!AOL’s Alto email app might have been around for a little over five years, but it arguably didn’t really make a splash until late 2015, when the mobile app hit the scene. Alas, all the praise in the world did not stop the Alto team from announcing that, starting November 9, the app can no longer be downloaded and folks can no longer create new accounts.
It’s a shame, too. When the Alto app first became available, one of its main features was its ability to pull specific details from your emails, such as flight and shipment information. That way, you can see when your flight departs or when your shipment will arrive as cards in your inbox messages. You could also sign into your Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud, and AOL Mail accounts.
As time passed, the team behind the app only added more features. For example, Alto was updated over its lifespan to include Slack and Amazon Alexa integrations, a built-in calendar, and a list view of all your photo and file attachments.
Yes, this sounds like a long list of features, and that’s because it is. However, another one of Alto’s significant features isn’t a feature at all – it’s the design. The app was designed in a way that made it very accessible to folks, yet powerful enough to remember about the tinkerers who like to play around with their email apps.
Unfortunately for fans, they will not get to tinker with Alto much longer. As previously mentioned, the app can no longer be downloaded from the Google Play Store and no new accounts can be created starting November 9. Starting December 10, the Alto team will discontinue support for the app.
There is some good news, however. In the announcement, the Alto team mentioned it will “be shifting its focus to something new and exciting.” Alto may have been shut down because the team behind it is trying to gel with Oath, but at least there will be something around the corner.
What that something is, we do not yet know, though I’m excited to find out.Where are we? Somewhere in Eastern Ukraine, July 18, 2014—the day after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down, killing all 238 passengers as well as the fifteen crew members on board. Later, Russian media would suggest that the shooting was an attempt to assassinate Vladimir Putin; that it was shot down by Ukrainians by mistake; that Ukrainian air traffic controllers had intentionally misdirected the plane over a war zone; that it was an attempt to smear the pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine. Other stories spread: the plane was filled with 100 AIDS researchers or already-dead bodies and explosives. Eventually, the news cycle moved on.
But, right now, it’s July 18 and we’re in a forest illuminated by the yellow of car headlights. Two men communicate in Russian over the phone. “Where is that motherfucker?” “What was going on yesterday?” A man is said to have received phone calls from strange numbers. A car cannot be found. It is in Russia. But last night, he had said he didn’t know where it was. Truth bleeds out; the camera is unsteady. Uncertainty permeates.
I used to think propaganda was about persuading people
“I used to think propaganda was about persuading people,” the journalist and writer Peter Pomerantsev states a few scenes later. “Now it doesn’t seem to be about that. It’s just about deconstructing the other sides, disrupting.” So begins The Sprawl: Propaganda about Propaganda, the designer and artist collective Metahaven’s 2016 film that contends with this new landscape of propaganda. At the same time, as the title explains, this is itself propaganda, made in 2016—a deconstruction as well as a disruption.
Here, archival footage (for example, of Ronald Reagan, described in the subtitle as an actor) is spliced with original footage (for example, a woman wielding a Katana sword). In other words, the poetic pervades the analytic, and the film, like its subject matter, escapes precise categorization. Following the scene in the forest, a shot of the moon contrasts with the artificial light from the car. A woman’s voice intones the second part of the Requiem, Anna Akhmatova’s epic poem depicting the suffering of the Russian people under Stalin. The film recalls the strategies of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement of Weimar Germany—the uncanniness of the contemporary is brought into sharp focus by the intrusion of the surreal.
That is to say, like with their other work, The Sprawl: Propaganda about Propaganda doesn’t re-present its subject matter with an imposed sense of clarity. Rather, it assumes its form; it intervenes in the very reality it depicts. From 2010 until 2013, Metahaven designed a line of scarves and t-shirts sold to support the whistleblowing site WikiLeaks. Later, in their book Black Transparency: The Right to Know in the Age of Transparency (2015), which was accompanied by an exhibition at Bureau Europa in Maastricht and Future Gallery in Berlin, they delved deep—and critically—into the various forms of information leaks and dumps that have so radically marked the last two decades.
Roughly nine months ago, I began a conversation with Daniel Van der Velden and Vinca Kruk, founders of Metahaven. We discussed The Sprawl: Propaganda about Propaganda, which had just been released and also exists in an online version, as well as Black Transparency: The Right to Know in the Age of Transparency. We talked about the spatial aspects of their research, the invocation of architecture in their writing, and their perceptions of the technological and geopolitical changes underfoot today. We resumed our conversation in December to discuss their most recent film—a work of fiction—Information Skies.
This interview has been edited and rearranged for length and clarity.
In the introduction to your book Black Transparency: The Right to Know in the Age of Mass Surveillance, you write, “This book is a tribute to the broken glass of the transparency movement.” Was there a particular moment or event that changed your perception of the ‘transparency movement’ and instigated the thoughts behind this book?
At a time when a documentary about Edward Snowden deservedly wins an Oscar, and the most vocal advocates of full exposure of the military-industrial complex have themselves become media celebrities, it seems important to remember where this all began. It began at a time when transparency had no marketing department. The shattering of the movement is about the rift, the disparity, between those who took part, and those who were seen.
In the book you analyze Le Corbusier’s League of Nations building in relationship to the spatial order of the League of Nations. In one of the maps included in the book, other major moments in modern architecture’s affair with transparency surface: the Farnsworth House, the Glass Pavilion, the Glass House, the Pompidou. It seems these are not mere metaphors for transparency in your writing. What role did these architectural objects play in your conceptualization of this project?
You are forgetting Blondie’s Heart of Glass! And, of course, WikiLeaks. The whole point of a transparency timeline is that all kinds of different things can be in it, from politics, to software, to pop music. Maybe there were two major moments for transparency: one where glass became applicable as a building material, which first precipitated, and then coincided with political beliefs in a world without secrets.
And then, a next major moment is the discovery of transparency as a concept, as a metaphor for openness. As a metaphorical quality of organization, something Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky had hinted at with the greatest possible caution when they discussed the Le Corbusier plan for a League of Nations campus in Geneva. They were unable or unwilling to develop this notion further even though the League of Nations itself, as an organization, would have been a perfect starting point. Ultimately it was software—not hardware—that made this happen. It was not until the geopolitical architectures of mass leaking had been tested and completed that the dream of a world without secrets really came about.
Black Transparency expands and complicates discussions of transparency in relation to governance, which are often reduced to quantifying the amount of info made available by the state. Method, you write, is of “decisive importance to transparency’s political impact.” I was wondering if you would give a few examples of these different methods, ‘black’ and otherwise, and what they imply about orienting politics towards a horizon of 'full transparency'?
No one knows what a horizon of full transparency looks like, and if it’s even desirable. It’s surely hard to get there, because the horizon always shifts. Any decision to attain a fully transparent political future will be one that is taken opaquely, and not by everyone.
Black transparency is about anonymously releasing secret information with the intent of triggering political shockwaves. In experimental network science, an event like that is called an information cascade. People begin to act on new knowledge as they see others doing the same. Information cascades are real, but ideas around them have taken on an ideological spin. The fall of Communism in Europe has been explained as an information cascade, where large amounts of people suddenly ‘knew’ that the Communist regime was hollow and dead, and acted on this information. Clay Shirky—one of the cascade’s chief ideologists—said about citizen protests in the German Democratic Republic: “Finally the people in Leipzig could see others acting on the knowledge that the GDR was rotten. This shared awareness is the step necessary for real public action.”
The story of the end of communism is a familiar tale, of people seeing a more advantageous option before them, and collectively cascading in that direction. It has become a model for the way in which, in the liberal West, the idea of a logical progression of societies, from oppression toward the democracy-capitalism matrix, has become naturalized. The information cascade, in its political version, is compliant with this idea of natural progress since the cascade itself is described as a phenomenon of natural science. The cascade is the informational version of an avalanche. It tends to get seen as a phenomenon of nature, not of politics.Any decision to attain a fully transparent political future will be one that is taken opaquely, and not by everyone.
WikiLeaks’ revelations, especially in the early years, spearheaded this logic, using information to trigger systemic change charged by the progressive, yet also evasive, qualities of the web. Initially WikiLeaks pledged to expose China, Russia, and Central Asian regimes. It went on to do something else, and quite something more than that. But there was no control over the outcomes of these disruptive cascades. In the aftermath of the Arab Spring this became all too visible. In Libya, the process was aided by a disastrous Western military intervention.
In our documentary The Sprawl (Propaganda About Propaganda), we present the Russian government’s counternarrative to the information cascade, which claims that all the so-called “color revolutions” and other events of the 2000s and 2010s were controlled by Western actors. The West itself, conversely, believes that such changes are transitions that happen spontaneously; for sure that is also an obfuscation of its own ideological role and geopolitical objectives. So there is a counter-cascade. Whereas one side believes that all change is spontaneous and natural, the other believes that it can only be the outcome of an explicitly hierarchical order. Our take on color revolutions once was that “in the post-political context, revolution lost the aesthetic components that it still possessed during the Cold War. The dissolution of the Left, and the de-politicization of human rights, have created not just a political but also an aesthetic vacuum, in which the ‘color revolutions’ appear, a Pantone swatchbook of pastel hues where the most overtly revolutionary color of the 20th century, red, is categorically avoided… The Dalai Lamafication of the revolutionary aesthetic has brought about its identification with earthy and flowery tints, fabrics, and plants. While each individual uprising is based in a local context, there undoubtedly is a pattern to the color revolutions. Add to this the identification of revolution with information technology, first diagnosed by the West in its take on Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, and culminating in Iran’s 2009 Green Revolution, with Twitter’s famous postponement of its server maintenance on request of the US State Department.”
On the one hand, Black Transparency sketches an image of the contemporary moment as marked by profound revisions to the Westphalian order; on the other, it reveals how state power is being buttressed and strengthened to new degrees. I’m interested in how you see the narrative of WikiLeaks and Assange as illustrating this paradoxical weakening and strengthening of state sovereignty?
Before Assange’s continued confinement in the UK, or more precisely, in the one piece of UK territory that’s Ecuadorian, WikiLeaks surfed the grid of nation-states in a manner similar to OMA/Rem Koolhaas surfing the waves of globalization. In Koolhaas’ case, this was about public-private capital offering endless inroads into scripting cities, fashions, buildings, regions, polities, perceptions and behaviors. In WikiLeaks’ case, this was about using the infrastructure of a globalized internet to disrupt state control, an idea that wasn’t itself new at all, but was never before put to such directly political use.
WikiLeaks’ hosting model was about their releases being redundantly accessible, from servers in different jurisdictions, each of them operating under laws or local practices prone to resisting takedowns. With its distributed hosting model, WikiLeaks was completely resilient in regards to the powers of any particular country or agent to take information offline; its opponents had no power over it at all and couldn’t pin down WikiLeaks as an organization either. It had no address. WikiLeaks was the free player surfing the nation-state grid, itself bound to no particular sovereign space. It then began to publish sensitive information about governments in the West, and became more symmetrical in its confrontation with familiar faces, such as then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Western governments would not seek injunctions, but resort to stealthier, trickier forms of coercive power, using exactly the secretive, grey areas of governance that had supposedly been overcome by modern democracy. The key here is not so much a resurgence of state power in general, but the resurgence of the extralegal and the extrajudicial, as Yochai Benkler has convincingly illuminated in his work around the financial embargo imposed on WikiLeaks by financial companies including PayPal, MasterCard, and Visa. WikiLeaks surfed the grid of nation-states in a manner similar to OMA/Rem Koolhaas surfing the waves of globalizationThe question though is whether WikiLeaks’ emphasis on the formal framework of legality, and its repeated unmasking of the modern democratic state’s flawed pretenses to transparency, has not at the same time endorsed, or naturalized, an older notion of ‘regime’, where almost none of the liberal pretenses of modern governance are even a thing to discuss, and where authoritarianism isn’t even a public secret, as much as an open fact.
When people upload things to ‘the Cloud’, they tend not to think of it as a material action. But in Black Transparency, you describe the Cloud as a megastructure. Rather than being immaterial, it “presupposes a piece of land where data centers can be built.” Could you talk about your interest in the spatial aspects of the Cloud?
We started working on “Captives of the Cloud” in 2011 and 2012, when it became obvious that there was some kind of disruption happening because of the material dislocation of data hosting from the places that the data comes from, or applies to. We were particularly intrigued with ways in which the United States constructed instances of ‘superjurisdiction’ based on its by-default dominance in domain name registry and cloud hosting. These takedowns and persecutions have done something else in parallel. They have transformed entities like Megaupload, and people such as its founder, Kim Dotcom, into overnight anarcho-libertarian celebrities. They have given ‘the Internet’ a more strongly political edge, adding to the fiction of its narrative. In 2012, we worked with Smári McCarthy of the Icelanic Modern Media Inititiative—who is now an MP for the Pirate Party—on a campaign that promoted data hosting in Iceland. The campaign—“Come to Iceland. Bring Data”—was never realized. But alternatives for US-based cloud hosting are more urgent than ever.
With your film The Sprawl (Propaganda about Propaganda) you depict a world marked by the proliferation of multiple, even contradictory, truths. Now, over a year after it was released, this is a major part of public discourse—so-called ‘fake news’ and its implications in the election of Donald Trump. Rather than something accidental, this ‘post-truth’ era is a strategic move by people like Vladislav Surkov in Russia, right? It’s a design, in a sense.
We never took propaganda to consist only of its factual or post-factual components, but explicitly wanted to address texture, surface, cracks in the surface, and cinematic aura. We also felt that it would be too limiting to identify propaganda only by the intent of its individual ‘architects’. It would make sense to look at the infrastructure of propaganda, which has dramatically changed since the separate media regimes of print, radio, cinema, and television converged onto the internet and the world wide web.
Should we consider the media landscape purely on terms of its output being fake or real? Far before the advent of ‘post-fact’ and ‘fake news’, major news outlets already published fictionalized or ‘augmented’ accounts. Or they endorsed wars, based on untrue or outright false information, giving them an aura of legitimacy. There is nothing new about that.
News items, fake or real, can be seen as coordinates that people use for further (in)actions and (in)decisions. Understandably there is a lot of attention for the true versus fake aspect, but a news item, especially when inflated by social media, always produces centrality. The economist and game theorist Thomas Schelling called central coordinates in games “focal points.” For example, when two people had agreed to meet at a given day in New York but had not coordinated the time or place of their meeting, Schelling found that they would likely both come to the main concourse of Grand Central terminal in New York, at 12 noon, at the clock in the center. In anticipation of what the other would do. That would be tacit coordination.
Now, news items are not Grand Central. But the role of news in public life, as a dissemination of basic facts, may on some level be compared to the role that clocks have in public space, and to a wider extent of course, to public space itself.News items, fake or real, can be seen as coordinates that people use for further (in)actions and (in)decisions
So, imagine a Grand Central terminal, filled with many clocks scattered around the place and all displaying a different time. The central clock is gone. There are no iPhones or watches or other personal time displays available. How do you decide what time it is, or when your train is leaving?
It becomes a problem not just of whom to trust, but also of coordination. The disinformation cascade distorts a relatively trivial social contract that was presupposed as a platform for coordination.
What initially appear as ‘alternative facts’, or bubbles, may become separate worlds and alternative histories, in turn working themselves into high-ranking Google search results, and Wikipedia entries, and destabilizing the further means of action and choice-making. The right choice between 12 noon and 1:00 PM is not 12:30. There must be some more fundamental discussion of the underlying assumptions, and the result is on all levels, everywhere, more fragmentation. There is no ‘post-fact’ as a lofty postmodern discursive space; there is a scattering of |
there recently contacted her about the viral challenge.
Now Williams works as a science educator at the Children's Museum of Houston. Her long limbs are often a topic of conversation with her students, as well as strangers.
"Every day someone says something about my legs," she said. "I was always taller than everyone growing up. But when you're tall, everyone assumes you're older than you are. So I had people talking to me like I was an adult when I was 10. It took a lot of time to embrace my height. As a kid, you just want to fit in."
Her mother, Shirley Williams, is 6 feet tall; father Craig Williams is 6 feet 6 inches tall; and her 30-year-old twin sisters, Alicia Joyce and Jessica Williams, are both 6 feet tall.
In the fashion model industry, height can sometimes be a disadvantage. The top models are evaluated on their height and personality, not leg length, said Ally Shell-van Koolwijk, director of Neal Hamil Agency in Houston.
"Usually, the best fit are models between 5 feet 8 inches tall and 5 feet 11 inches. It's all about who fits the clothes, not about the legs."
Shell-van Koolwijk said the agency's tallest female model is Alise Shoemaker at 6 feet 1 inches tall. "She's not an easy fit by any means. She's taller than most and has higher hips, but the clients tailor the clothes to fit her. She's beautiful and has an amazing personality. Size does matter, but when they have the personality, they make things work."
Williams, who also wears a Size 11 shoe, says finding clothes to fit is still a struggle. She favors Rock & Republic jeans because the brand offers longer lengths. She recently purchased at pair of Frame Denim jeans, which collaborated with Victoria's Secret Angel Karlie Kloss on extra-long styles for Nordstrom.
But being tall has its obvious advantages, Williams pointed out.
She can reach the top shelf almost anywhere. She can play volleyball. And in dating, her height helps her weed out insecure men.
"A few inches here or there doesn't matter," she said, "as long they are confident."The existence of an early Mars northern ocean1,2,3,4,5,6,7 remains a fundamental mystery8,9. During the Hesperian Period (~3.71 to 3.37 Ga; ages herein based on Neukum chronology as given in Michael)10, Mars’ ancient hydrosphere was apparently cold-trapped within vast systems of subsurface aquifers underneath a thick, ice-rich permafrost zone7. Groundwater outbursts at the end of the Hesperian may have generated catastrophic floods that produced an ocean in the northern lowlands, as evidenced by a deposit that covers most of this region and generally exhibits a roughly topographically equipotential margin1,2,3,4,5,6,7,11,12. Radar-sounding data are consistent with the deposit being comprised of mostly water-ice13. This deposit is identified as the Late Hesperian lowland unit (lHl) on the latest geologic map of Mars14. However, until now, the lack of wave-cut paleoshoreline features9 and the presence of lobate margins8,12 appeared to be inconsistent with the Late Hesperian paleo-ocean hypothesis. Our new geologic mapping in Chryse Planitia and northwestern Arabia Terra regions reveals previously undistinguished, older and younger members of the unit (lHl 1 and lHl 2, respectively, Fig. 1A). Both members are bounded by south-facing lobes that are typically tens of kilometers in length and width; however, in Chryse Planitia these dimensions reach a few hundred kilometers in scale (Fig. 1B, Fig. S1). The lobes reach upland boundary surfaces distributed between approximately −4087 m and −3191 m of elevation (Fig. S2). These deposits embay dozens of streamlined promontories scattered over a surface area of ~570,000 km2 (Fig. 1B,C).
Figure 1 (A) View of the circum-Chryse highland-lowland boundary region, which is made up of the Chryse and Acidalia Planitiae lowlands and the Tempe, Xanthe, and Arabia Terrae highlands (inset shows region within the planetwide context). The boundary is breached by the planet’s largest outflow channels (blue arrows). The red and black lines trace the margins of Late Hesperian lowland members lHl 1 and lHl 2, respectively. (B) View of Chryse and Acidalia Planitiae showing the distribution of streamlined promontories (green) buried by these deposits. The base images for panels (A,B) are color-coded shaded-relief MOLA digital elevation models (460 m/pixel). Credit: MOLA Science Team, MSS, JPL, NASA. (C) View of a streamlined promontory that is embayed, and partly buried (e.g., black arrows), by member lHl 2 materials. Part of HRSC image H1436_0000_ND3 (12.5 m/pixel) centered at 30.3°N, 35.9°W, (http://hrscview.fu-berlin.de/cgi-bin/ion-p?page=product.ion&mage=1436_0000), which is licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO license. The license terms can be found on the following link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/igo/. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin. We produced the mosaics and maps in this figure using Esri’s ArcGIS® 10.3 software (http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis). Full size image
In THEMIS night-time infrared images, the upper reaches of the older deposit that were emplaced along Arabia and Tempe Terrae (member lHl 1 (Fig. 1A)) appear thermally bright (i.e., rocky exposures)15 and abruptly transition upland-ward into thermally dark (i.e., fine-grained sediments)15 surfaces (e.g., Figs 2A,B and 3B). Close-up views show that the bright surfaces consist of boulder deposits, with individual boulders typically meters in diameter (Figs 2C and 3E, Fig. S3D). Exhumation of the boulder deposit from beneath ejecta blanket materials along impact crater rims (black arrows in Fig. 2B,C), as well as distinct onlapping contacts (e.g., Fig. S3C), show that the deposit overlies the thermally dark surfaces consisting of finer-grained materials (e.g., Figs 2A,B and 3B). Throughout spatially disconnected locations in the eastern part of northwestern Arabia Terra, the marginal parts of member lHl 1 cover low-slope ramps that are extensively dissected by NNW-trending (Fig. S4A) sets of aligned channels (e.g., Fig. 3A–D). These channels were first identified in Viking data (but only locally along Arabia Terra in association with an older “lowland unit A”)1.
Figure 2 (A)View of highland surfaces along the highland-lowland boundary in northwestern Arabia Terra, which are embayed by the upper reaches of members lHl 1 and lHl 2. The red (lHl 1 ) and orange (lHl 2 ) lines show contact sections mapped as certain. The yellow lines are zones where the contacts are obscured due to localized resurfacing or mantling. Out of the total 4124 km length of these mapped contacts, 76% is certain and 23% is uncertain. Part of THEMIS night-time infrared image mosaic (100 m/pixel) centered at 43°26′N, 12°29′E. Credit: Christensen et al.32. (B) Perspective close-up view on a system of mesas, which are partly covered by the upper reaches of member lHl 1. These deposits consist of thermally bright materials that pass upland-wards into thermally dark surfaces. The black arrows show locations where the thermally dark materials are exhumed from beneath the thermally bright materials by impact craters. Center location indicated by dot in panel A. Part of THEMIS night-time infrared mosaic (100 m/pixel) centered at 45°45′N, 16°41′E. Credit: Christensen et al.32. (C) Visible light close-up view on one of the craters identified in panel (B). The impact crater’s inner wall shows the boulder deposit (member lHl 1 ) overlying an exhumed non-bouldery upper stratigraphy. The boulder deposit is also locally covered by a non-bouldery ejecta blanket. The inset shows the view’s location along the crater’s northern margin. Part of HiRISE image ESP_017355_2260 centered at 45.82°N 16.47°E (50 cm/pixel). Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona. (D) Close-up view of northeast Deuteronilus Mensae showing a low-angle ramp marked by backwash channels (part of member lHl 1 ), which is cut by a shallow trough. A lobe of member lHl 2 can be observed to run up the trough’s surface. The black arrow identifies a marginal compressional fold. Location is shown in panel (A). Part of a CTX mosaic centered at 44°49′N, 11°10′E. Credit: NASA/JPL. The license terms can be found on the following link: pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/portal/mro_mission.html. We produced the mosaics and maps in this figure using Esri’s ArcGIS® 10.3 software (http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis). Full size image
Figure 3 (A) View of Deuteronilus Mensae in northwestern Arabia Terra showing the distribution and elevation ranges of ramp surfaces marked by backwash channels as well as the reconstructed location of the paleoshoreline from which the older tsunami (member lHl 1 ) propagated (see Fig. 4 and Fig. S4 for details on paleoshoreline reconstructions). Shaded-relief MOLA digital elevation model (460 m/pixel). Credit: MOLA Science Team, MSS, JPL, NASA. (B) Close-up view on panel (A) showing the distribution of some of the channel-scoured, north-sloping highland mesas (blue areas). Channels occur on bright (i.e., higher thermal inertia) surfaces, which abruptly transition (red line) in lower part of image to uplands covered by dark (lower thermal inertia) materials. THEMIS night-time infrared image mosaic, context and location in panel A. Credit: Christensen et al.32. Example of channeled surface (C) displaying streamlined bars (D) made up of rounded to angular boulders as much as ~10 m in diameter (yellow bars are 10 m in length) (E). (C–E), Parts of HiRISE image ESP_028537_2270, 25 cm/pixel. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.) We produced the mosaics and maps in this figure using Esri’s ArcGIS® 10.3 software (http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis). Full size image
Upslope flows leading to the emplacement of the lHl unit are implied by the highland-facing orientation of the deposits’ lobes as well as their relief gains, which commonly are a few hundred meters (e.g., Fig. 1A,B, Figs. S5, S6). These characteristics rule out emplacement by gravity-driven downslope moving flows such as debris, flood, glacier and lava flows. Uphill unidirectional winds can generate elongate aeolian deposits known as wind streaks. However, these deposits are largely composed of saltating sand-sized lithic particles that are deposited in scattered patches on the lee sides of topographic obstacles (typically impact craters), exhibit surface bedforms, generally cover hills and mesas situated along their paths, and mostly have length-to-width ratios >1 (ref. 16). In contrast, the lobes of member lHl 1 include boulders several meters in diameter (Figs 2C and 3E, Fig. S3D), and those of member lHl 2 appear to be mostly composed of water-ice6,12,13,14. In addition, the lobes in both members diverge around numerous mesas (e.g., Fig. 1C) as well as broad rises (e.g., Fig. S3), and have length-to-width ratios mostly <1 (Fig. S1) (which is consistent with uphill flow along with substantial lateral spreading). Therefore, we propose that the two unit lHl members represent deposits emplaced by highly energetic, sediment-rich tsunami waves that originated from a Late Hesperian paleo-ocean.
In Deuteronilus Mensae, extensive troughs cut the boundary scarps covered by member lHl 1. The troughs are locally intruded by member lHl 2 run-up lobes (e.g., Fig. 2D), indicating that they formed during the time interval separating the two tsunami events. Active resurfacing leading to the formation of these troughs likely lasted a few million years and could have been the result of Late Hesperian glacial erosion17. Crater-count statistics show that, while the deposits formed during the Late Hesperian Epoch, their absolute ages could differ as much as several tens of millions of years (see supplementary crater statistics).
The boulder deposits of member lHl 1 drape over, and therefore postdate, the incision of adjoining highland channels (e.g., orange arrow in Fig. S3A), ruling out upland fluvial systems as possible discharge sources. Highly energetic, boulder-rich tsunami fronts on Earth show diversion around topographic obstacles as they propagate onshore18. Similarly, member lHl 1 boulder deposits exhibit well-defined landward lobate margins around broad promontories (Fig. S3A–C). Member lHl 1 boulders range from rounded to angular and are as much as ~10 m in diameter (Figs 2C and 3E, Fig. S3D), which are also characteristics of some terrestrial tsunami deposits18. Thus, we interpret the member lHl 1 lobes as made up of lowland and boundary clastic materials that were captured and transported by a tsunami wave, then beached farther inland as the wave lost its momentum.
Subsequently, we suggest that rapid gravity-forced backwash of the tsunami wave into the paleo-ocean dissected the channel systems on the marginal parts of member lHl 1 in the eastern part of northwestern Arabia Terra (Fig. 3A–D). These channels have remarkable similarities to terrestrial tsunami backwash channels; including the presence of aligned channel heads19 (black arrows in Fig. 3C), perpendicular orientations to the reconstructed paleoshoreline19 (Fig. S4A), streamlined bars composed of reworked boulders20,21 (Fig. 3D,E), and widths ranging between ~50 and ~200 m (refs 19,22) (Fig. 3C,D). Parker et al.23 observed a few of these parallel channel systems in Arabia Terra using lower-resolution image data, and they also interpreted them as tsunami backwash channels.
The lower terminations of the proposed backwash channels are generally truncated by younger scarps (Figs 2D and 3C, Fig. S4A). However, the identification of a possibly subaqueously emplaced sedimentary lobe adjoining the lower reaches of a set of these channels located at ~−3795 m in elevation (Fig. S4B) provides an approximate upper boundary to the paleoshoreline from which the older tsunami propagated (Fig. 4A). The lowest margins of the mapped lHl 2 lobes are at ~−4100 m in elevation (Fig. S2), which we have used as an upper bound to the paleoshoreline elevation from which the younger tsunami propagated (Fig. 4B). The elevation difference between the two paleoshorelines implies a decrease in ocean level of ~300 m, which could have taken place via evaporation/sublimation within several million years6.
Figure 4 (A) Late Hesperian ocean with a paleoshoreline elevation close to −3795 m (light blue), and estimated extent of the older tsunami (dotted surface). (B) Late Hesperian ocean with a paleoshoreline elevation close to −4100 m (dark blue), and estimated extent of the younger tsunami (dotted surface). The ocean margins were reconstructed by tracing the estimated paleoshoreline elevations, while carefully interpolating across topography generated by clearly younger resurfacing processes. The tsunami margins were produced using the lHl unit’s lobes extending from the projected paleoshoreline elevations. Areas marked in red represent the locations of streamlined promontories in Chryse Planitia, which were embayed, and/or buried, by materials emplaced during each of the tsunami events. Topography in (A,B) from shaded-relief MOLA digital elevation model (460 m/pixel). Credit: MOLA Science Team, MSS, JPL, NASA. We produced the mosaics and maps in this figure using Esri’s ArcGIS® 10.3 software (http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis). Full size image
Based on these paleo-oceanographic reconstructions, we estimate that the areas inundated by the older and younger tsunamis within the study region were ~8 × 105 km2 and ~1 × 106 km2, respectively (Fig. S5). Measured typical run-up distances are tens to a few hundred kilometers for both the older and younger tsunamis, and their respective maxima reach ~529 km and ~650 km (Fig. S6). Overall, the morphometric characterizations of both tsunamis are strikingly similar. The slightly larger inundation area that was apparently covered during the younger event is consistent with the tsunami extending from a lower shoreline, and therefore, flowing over relatively smooth, older ocean and tsunami deposits. These run-up distances and inundation areas are enormous by terrestrial standards, which explain why the backwash channels exhibit lengths of ~20 km, while some terrestrial examples of backwash channel lengths produced by much smaller tsunamis range between ~200 and ~300 m in length22.
Our mapping (Fig. 1, Fig. S6) shows comparatively shorter run-up distances along the rougher and steeper cratered topography of the Arabia Terra boundary terrains, indicative of relatively lower wave heights and velocities, as predicted by tsunami numerical simulations24. These simulations also indicate that as the waves overflowed the Arabia Terra cratered boundary, their velocities would have abruptly dropped below the ~1 m/s threshold required to move multi-meter-scale boulders, explaining the occurrence of the boulder deposits in the region (Figs 2C and 3E, Fig. S3D). On the other hand, the more gentle slopes in Chryse Planitia would have resulted in a more gradual decrease in wave velocity, leading to the emplacement of more sorted sedimentary lobes, with their distal-most areas primarily consisting of finer-grained sediments. In addition, prior to their inundation by tsunami waves, the highland boundary surfaces were likely covered by extensive boulder fields, which would have been captured and redistributed by the waves, which is also another important factor accounting for the regional prevalence of boulder-rich lobes. In Chryse Planitia the tsunamis would have mostly propagated over gently-sloping plains that were largely made up of less bouldery outflow channel sedimentary deposits14.
The simulations also show that bolide impacts causing craters ~30 km in diameter would have generated tsunami waves with typical onshore heights of ~50 m and local variations from ~10 m to as much as ~120 m (ref. 24). Using run-up distances measured in 71 topographic profiles (Fig. S6), we have calculated the tsunami wave heights and find that they reasonably match the simulations’ predicted ranges24 (see supplementary calculations). In addition, whereas the simulations do not describe the hydrodynamic behavior of the backwash stage, the formation of several marine impact craters on Earth has also resulted in documented tsunami backwash channels25.
Using the surface area of the paleo-ocean’s region included in the numerical simulation by Iijima et al.24 (i.e., ~4.5 × 106 km2) and the crater production function of Ivanov26, we find that ~23 marine impact craters ≥30 km in diameter would have formed within this part of Mars during the Late Hesperian Epoch (3.61–3.37 Ga)10,27. Of these, 7 fit in the diameter range of 30–35 km, which was used in the tsunami simulations24. The prediction is that, within the particular region of the ocean analyzed here, on average about 2 impact craters ~30 km in diameter formed every 30 million years during this time period. Therefore, within statistical constraints for the deposits’ surface ages and for crater production rates, impacts can account for generation of both lHl members as tsunami deposits (see supplementary crater statistics).
Briny aqueous chemistry models show that the ocean could have remained in liquid form over millions of years, and consequently mostly free of an ice cover even during cryogenic climatic conditions28. Another geologic scenario invokes the formation of an ice-covered ocean soon after the ocean’s emplacement6. However, no numerical simulations have been performed to detail the behavior of impact-related tsunamis24 on these types of Martian marine environments.
High rates of marine, and subsequent periglacial6,12,14 resurfacing, likely reduced the topography of the tsunami-generating crater structures. Such resurfacing can also explain the lack of well-preserved impact craters predating the Amazonian Period in the northern lowlands12. The frequency rate of ~30 km in diameter impact craters for the entire ocean’s surface area (~24 × 106 km2, as determined by Head et al.3) is one every 2.7 million years during the Late Hesperian. Although we have only identified evidence for two tsunami events in our study area, other regions in the northern plains likely experienced similar tsunami-related coastal resurfacing, perhaps associated with other impacts, huge landslides, or large marsquakes. Older but less extensive tsunami deposits may have been completely resurfaced by more recent events with similar run-up distances. Thus, the mapped tsunami margins comprise only the largest magnitude tsunami events located at the highest elevations.
Many of the lHl 1 lobes are mostly made up of lithic deposits and exhibit backwash modifications. In contrast, the landward-facing lobate termini of unit lHl 2 lack evidence indicative of a backwash phase subsequent to their emplacement. Like on Earth, the absence of backwash features associated with these flows could have been the result of the waves transitioning into sub-aerial sediment-laden slurry flows extending over low gradient surfaces29,30 (supplementary calculations), which can also explain the presence of possible contractional folds along the margins of some of the member’s lobes (e.g., black arrow in Fig. 2D). However, the lHl 2 lobes appear to be mostly composed of water-ice6,12,13,14, suggesting that the transition into slurry likely involved the formation and incorporation of a significant proportion of ice particles. In May 2013, the Saskatchewan Water Security Agency filmed an ice surge in the Codette Reservoir near Nipawin, Saskatchewan, Canada. The surge comprises a spectacular terrestrial analog of rarely observed catastrophic ice-rich flows leading to the emplacement of enormous lobate fronts, which are remarkably similar to those of member lHl 2 (video link included in ref. 31).We propose that these morphologic differences might be linked to colder environmental conditions following the first tsunami event.
Our mapping of two unit lHl members as tsunami lobes is consistent with the occurrence of two paleoshoreline levels of a receding Martian northern plains ocean during the Late Hesperian (Fig. 4, Fig. S5). However, resurfacing by the tsunami waves has obscured the paleoshorelines, thus making rigorous testing of their equipotentiality impossible.VIENNA would have been one of the first victims of a Soviet nuclear strike on Western Europe despite its neutral status, according to documents detailing the cities to be attacked during a third world war.
The Austrian capital was joined by Munich and Verona in the list of population centres earmarked for destruction by Warsaw Pact planners preparing for war in 1965.
The documents, unearthed in Hungarian archives by a team of Swiss researchers, give an insight into the attitudes of the Soviet high command.
Officers conducting a high-level command exercise did not clarify whether the use of Soviet nuclear weapons had been preceded by a Nato strike, raising the suspicion that the Russians were not impressed by the concept of nuclear deterrence.
The planners assumed that Nato would be equally ruthless, with Budapest and other Warsaw Pact cities meeting the same fate as Vienna in the early stages of a war.
Austria's neutrality, established after the Second World War, was not even considered, it being assumed that Nato would violate her territory at the first opportunity.
The target list is contained in a joint Soviet-Hungarian planning document. In one scenario the Warsaw Pact looses off 7.5 megatons of nuclear weapons on Western targets.
Vienna is completely destroyed by two 500 kiloton bombs, while Munich is destroyed by one. The Italian cities of Verona and Vicenza follow, together with a host of military targets including airfields and military formations.
Soviet agents acting in Western Europe were integral to the planning, it being expected that the Warsaw Pact would receive timely warning of Nato formations being placed on alert or deployed for war.
Plans for full-scale nuclear war in Europe remained in force for the rest of the Cold War.
Western governments have been as reluctant as their counterparts in the former Soviet Union to go into too much detail about the numbers and names of potential nuclear targets.
An Air Ministry document recently released at the Public Record Office in London was censored to remove the number of Soviet cities the British nuclear deterrent would have to be able to destroy to remain credible.
However, the figure, suggested by the British Nuclear Deterrent Study Group, is later revealed in the document as 40.- Advertisement -
Gee. Once again the American people are offered the choice between two lousy candidates that honestly, nobody really wants. There, I said it. Nobody really wants Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. Maybe there are a few deluded Democrats and deluded Republicans that are solidly behind their candidates, but from what I've heard from people on the street, this is a battle between the lesser of two evils.
The Democrats have this idea (or the idea pushed on them by the DNC) that they are fighting big corporate money and they are like David fighting Goliath. Actually, according to The Center for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets.org) Obama has $348,413,128 to Romney's $193,373,762. That's almost $150 million dollars MORE than Romney! So all of you Democrats that believe you are the underdogs, guess what, you aren't. Obama has more campaign money than Romney. The Republicans are the underdogs. You guys are rolling in money. Isn't it amazing how the Democrats framed this election?
Do you know who's not rolling in money? All of the people running that are not Republicans or Democrats. All of you Americans that continually whine about not having a choice really don't know what you are talking about. There are plenty of choices out there. My favorite, Rocky Anderson, wants a new investigation on 9/11, wants out of Afghanistan and all of the countries where we have military personnel running drones and special ops and air bases. He wants our military to come home. He wants our civil liberties restored. He wants to investigate Bush for War Crimes.
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Frankly he hasn't a chance. The reason that he doesn't have a chance is because of all the media attention and advertisements and campaign coverage of the Democrats and Republicans. Third Party candidates get no coverage. The sad part of this is that the American people put up with it. They let money control the election. The candidate with the most money wins the election. That's true. Most Americans think that is just fine. We could have the reincarnation of Thomas Jefferson running in the race and unless he had friends in AIPAC or at GE or any of the big players out there, you'd never hear of him.
Do you know why this country is so screwed up? The reason this country is so screwed up is because the American people are just plain lazy when it comes to deciding who their leaders should be. They seem to think that there is a magical way that their leaders are chosen for them. They believe that there are really smart people in the country that somehow get together and pick people to run for office. Then most Americans believe that their only duty is to pick one of the two people that are eventually chosen and vote for one of them. This simple act of going to the polls and voting makes them "good Americans". They believe that this simple act of voting is all that is required of them. They have done their duty.
Then Americans wonder why this country is a mess. They wonder why the leaders of this country don't do what they want them to do. They get angry and blame the system.
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As much as most Americans really don't want to hear this, I'm going to tell you why this country is so screwed up. It's screwed up because the majority of Americans have no idea of how our political system works and they are too lazy to do anything about it. They delegate their responsibility to pick candidates to people that don't represent them and don't give a sh*t about them. What happens is that you get two candidates for President that represents different factions of the military industrial complex.
These two candidates, in this particular moment are Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, these two basically work for the same people, and that doesn't include the majority of average Americans. The way you'll know that are from the things that they say and do, For example; both candidates say nothing about shrinking the military budget or stopping any of these wars we are fighting around the world. Both candidates say nothing about ending or revising the free trade agreements that are strangling this nation.
They say nothing while only 27 percent of Americans say they back the war effort, and 66 percent oppose the war, according to an AP-GfK poll released. Two thirds of the country says they want an end to the war in Afghanistan yet the candidates say nothing. They say nothing about free trade agreements yet 53% in US Say Free Trade Hurts Nation: NBC/WSJ Poll. These are big issues, yet the candidates say nothing.
They say nothing because they are both on the same page. They both will continue the wars and they will both honor and expand the free trade agreements in spite of the fact that most Americans want an end to them both!
Sadly, this is OUR fault. We have allowed these two political parties to become completely co-opted by the military industrial complex. These two candidates will not work for the American people; they will work for the goals of the military and business. The candidates were chosen and financed by big business interests, not the American people. That's all there is to it. There is basically no difference between what Barack Obama or what Mitt Romney will do in the future. The military will continue to operate in other nations to continue American business interests. That includes invading other nations for their natural resources and to insure that America controls the oil market. That's the plan. Both men will continue to implement these aims.
Most trans-national corporations don't really care about what happens to the American people. Free trade agreements allow them to operate and send their manufacturing to other nations with cheap labor. Most Americans know this and are clamoring to end these free trade agreements that resulted in millions of good manufacturing jobs going overseas. The candidates say nothing about doing anything to correct this situation. That's because they don't represent the average American. They represent the MIC.
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Eisenhower warned us against this in 1960 when he left office. Including that in his last speech to Americans as our President speaks volumes. This was a man that knew the military and knew the government. He must have thought it was important. It was. In fact, he was predicting the future. We are now facing an America that is run by the military-industrial-complex. They have control of both American major party political candidates. This is the American reality.
This is another reason that third party candidates get no press coverage or opportunities to join in debates with the two major party candidates. The press is completely controlled by the MIC. Most of their sponsors are members of the MIC. Networks don't want to lose sponsors so they only cover candidates of the two major political parties.
The sad thing is that the American people let this happen. If anyone wonders what they could possibly do about this situation, all I can tell them is to spread the word. Tell people to look at these two candidates and see for themselves. They promise no new future, only more of the same.
Next Page 1 | 2U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) formally announces his candidacy for president during an event in Louisville, Kentucky, April 7, 2015. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton has slipped against leading 2016 Republican candidates in Colorado, Iowa and Virginia, according to a poll released on Thursday that cited damage from the furor over the former secretary of state's emails.
The Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll also showed Clinton in a close race with U.S. Senator Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican who declared his candidacy on Tuesday.
Clinton, who is expected to announce her White House bid this month, is tied with all the Republican candidates in Colorado and almost all of them in the early voting state of Iowa, the poll said.
"It isn't just one or two Republicans who are stepping up; it's virtually the entire GOP field that is running better against her" since the last swing state survey on Feb. 18, pollster Peter Brown said in a statement.
He attributed the drop to the controversy that erupted in March over Clinton's use of personal email for work when she was America's top diplomat. Republicans have raised the prospect of congressional hearings on the issue.
Paul led Clinton by 44 percent to 41 percent in Colorado and 43 percent to 42 percent in Iowa, the Quinnipiac poll showed. In Virginia, Clinton led 47 percent to 43 percent.
"These numbers are a boost for U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky as he formally launches his campaign," Brown said.
The poll cited a bright spot for Clinton in Virginia, where she led all Republicans, including former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, whom she led with 47 percent to 40 percent, compared to a 42-42 percent tie in February.
The telephone poll of 2,803 likely voters was conducted from March 29 through April 7 and had an error margin of 3.2 percentage points in Iowa and Virginia and 3.3 points in Colorado.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)President Donald Trump and his administration have made CNN’s Jake Tapper a bit irritable.
The network anchor was sharply critical of the president, making snide remarks about him and how his administration is attempting to cover him after his tweet accusing former President Obama of wiretapping his phones.
Fmr Obama Secret Service agent Bongino shares info on Obama wiretaps – it’s about to ‘blow wide open’
A panel on CNN’s “The Lead” weighed in on the president’s accusation Wednesday, concluding that he had no evidence for the claim but the White House continues to support the narrative.
“Time and time again this president continues to do things that make it very hard for his allies to defend him,” Washington Post reporter Abby Phillip commented. “And this is just one of those times. I mean, being a political neophyte is not really an excuse once you’ve been sworn in as president of the United States. you have to do the job.”
After some remarks about the difficulty of the job of White House press secretary, Tapper got a bit snarky.
“I find it interesting the idea that a 70-year-old man shouldn’t be held accountable for his words,” he said.
Tapper again made a sarcastic comment after the guests elaborated on how the president seems to get his information.
“There’s also a pattern of stating things as fact that are not fact,” Phillip said, pointing to Trump’s statement that he “just found out” about Obama’s alleged wiretapping.
“And what he actually meant was ‘I just read a story in Breitbart and I completely misunderstood it'” Tapper shot back.
Remember Hillary’s ‘VP’? Tim Kaine’s son arrested for dangerous rioting at pro-Trump rally, resists cops
Wake up right! Receive our free morning news blast HEREWe’re going to make use of a Raspberry Pi to build a network scanner to keep track of the hosts connecting to our local network. It’s actually pretty easy to do. And as we’re going to make use of ARP scans to do it, which are moderately stealthy unless you heavily hammer the network, it would be easy to make something that is pretty much invisible to most people.
If you did that, you’d end up with a Pi that could sit quietly in a corner and monitor your home or office wireless network, squirreling away information about what hosts are connecting to without anyone taking much notice of it at all. However, we’re not those sort of people. We’re more the glowing red 6-inch tall seven-segment display sort of people. So instead, our network scanner is going to be plenty visible.
Follow along with our live build while you make your own:
Buying Hardware
Most of the hardware for this project is fairly easy to get a hold of and, apart from the giant seven-segment displays and the controller boards for them, you may well have most (or even all) of the bits and pieces you need kicking around your workshop already.
It can also be put together with minimal soldering. The only soldering needed for the project is attaching the controller boards to the seven-segment displays. These boards use castellated mounting holes, which can be tricky to solder if you’re more used to |
this view also stresses the labor conditions necessary for teacher autonomy, cooperation, decent working conditions, and the relations of power necessary to give teachers and students the capacity to restage power in productive ways–ways that point to self-development, self-determination, and social agency.
Making Pedagogy Meaningful in order to make it Critical and Transformative
Any analysis of critical pedagogy needs to address the importance that affect, meaning, and emotion play in the formation of individual identity and social agency. Any viable approach to critical pedagogy suggests taking seriously those maps of meaning, affective investments, and sedimented desires that enable students to connect their own lives and everyday experiences to what they learn. Pedagogy in this sense becomes more than a mere transfer of received knowledge, an inscription of a unified and static identity, or a rigid methodology; it presupposes that students are moved by their passions and motivated, in part, by the identifications, range of experiences, and commitments they bring to the learning process. In part, this suggests connecting what is taught in classrooms to the cultural capital and worlds that young people inhabit
For instance, schools often have little to say about the new media, digital culture, and social media that dominate the lives of young people. Hence, questions concerning both the emancipatory and oppressive aspects of these media are often ignored and students find themselves bored in classrooms in which print culture and its older modes of transmission operate. Or they find themselves using new technologies with no understanding of how they might be understood as more than retrieval machines. That is, as technologies deeply connected to matters of power, ideology, and politics. The issue here is not a call for teachers to simply become familiar with the new digital technologies, however crucial, but to address how they are being used as a form of cultural politics and pedagogical practice to produce certain kinds of citizens, desires, values, and social relations. At stake here is the larger question of how these technologies enhance or shut down the meaning and deepening of democracy. Understanding the new media is a political issue and not merely a technological one. Sherry Turkle is right in arguing that the place of technology can only be addressed if you have a set of values from which you are working. This is particularly important given the growth of the surveillance state in the United States and Canada and the growing retreat from privacy on the part of a generation that is now hooked on the corporate controlled social media such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
The experiences that shape young people’s lives are often mediated modes of experiences in which some are viewed as more valued than others, especially around matters of race, sexual orientation, and class. Low-income white students and poor minorities are often defined through experiences that are viewed as deficits. In this instance, different styles of speech, clothing, and body language can be used as weapons to punish certain students. How else to explain the high rate of black students in the U.S. and indigenous students in Canada who are punished, suspended, and expelled from their schools because they violate dress codes or engage in what can be considered minor rule violations.
Experiences also tie many students to modes of behavior that are regressive, punishing, self-defeating, and in some cases violent. We see too many students dominated by the values of Malls, shopping centers, and fashion meccas. They not only fill their worlds with commodities but have become working commodities. Clearly, such experiences must be critically engaged and understood within a range of broader forces that subject students to a narrow range of values, identities, and social relations. Such experiences should be both questioned and unlearned, where possible. This suggests a pedagogical approach in which such experiences are interrogated through what Roger Simon and Deborah Britzman call troubling or difficult knowledge. For instance, it is sometimes difficult for students to take a critical look at Disney culture not just as a form of entertainment but also as an expression of corporate power that produces a range of demeaning stereotypes for young people, while it endlessly carpet bombs them with commercial products. Crucial here is developing pedagogical practices that not only interrogate how knowledge, identifications, and subject positions are produced, unfolded, and remembered but also how such knowledges can be unlearned, particularly as they functions to become complicitous with existing relations of power.
Conclusion
At the dawn of the 21st century, the notion of the social and the public are not being erased as much as they are being reconstructed under circumstances in which public forums for serious debate, including public education, are being eroded. Reduced either to a crude instrumentalism, business culture, or defined as a purely private right rather than a public good, teaching and learning are removed from the discourse of democracy and civic culture. Under the influence of powerful financial interests, we have witnessed the takeover of public and increasingly higher education by a corporate logic and pedagogy that both numbs the mind and the soul, emphasizing repressive modes of learning that promote winning at all costs, learning how not to question authority, and undermining the hard work of learning how to be thoughtful, critical, and attentive to the power relations that shape everyday life and the larger world. As learning is privatized, treated as a form of entertainment, depoliticized, and reduced to teaching students how to be good consumers, any viable notions of the social, public values, citizenship, and democracy wither and die. I am not suggesting that we must defend a rather and sometimes abstract and empty notion of the public sphere, but those public spheres capable of producing thoughtful citizens, critically engaged agents, and an ethically and socially responsible society.
The greatest threat to young people does not come from lowered standards, the absence of privatized choice schemes, or the lack of rigid testing measures. On the contrary, it comes from societies that refuse to view children as a social investment, consign millions of youth to poverty, reduce critical learning to massive mind-deadening testing programs, promote policies that eliminate the most crucial health and public services, and define masculinity through the degrading celebration of a gun culture, extreme sports and the spectacles of violence that permeate corporate controlled media industries. Students are not at risk because of the absence of market incentives in the schools, they are at risk because education is being stripped of public funding, public values, handed over to corporate interests, and devalued as a public good. Children and young adults are under siege in both public and higher education because far too many of these institutions have become breeding grounds for commercialism, segregation by class and race, social intolerance, sexism, homophobia, consumerism, surveillance, and the increased presence of the police, all of which is spurred on by the right-wing discourse of pundits, politicians, educators, and a supine mainstream media.
As a central element of a broad based cultural politics, critical pedagogy, in its various forms, when linked to the ongoing project of democratization can provide opportunities for educators and other cultural workers to redefine and transform the connections among language, desire, meaning, everyday life, and material relations of power as part of a broader social movement to reclaim the promise and possibilities of a democratic public life. Critical pedagogy is dangerous to many educators and others because it provides the conditions for students to develop their intellectual capacities, hold power accountable, and embrace a sense of social responsibility.
One of the most serious challenges facing teachers, artists, journalists, writers, and other cultural workers is the task of developing a discourse of both critique and possibility. This means developing languages and pedagogical practices that connect reading the word with reading the world, and doing so in ways that enhance the capacities of young people as critical agents and engaged citizens. In taking up this project, educators and others should attempt to create the conditions that give students the opportunity to become autonomous actors who have the knowledge and courage to struggle in order to make desolation and cynicism unconvincing and hope practical. Educated hope is not a call to overlook the difficult conditions that shape both schools and the larger social order. On the contrary, it is the precondition for providing those languages and values that point the way to a more democratic and just world. As Judith Butler has argued, there is more hope in the world when we can question common sense assumptions and believe that what we know is directly related to our ability to help change the world around us, though it is far from the only condition necessary for such change.[24]
I want to end by insisting that democracy begins to fail and political life becomes impoverished in the absence of those vital public spheres such as public and higher education in which civic values, public scholarship, and social engagement allow for a more imaginative grasp of a future that takes seriously the demands of justice, equity, and civic courage. Democracy should be a way of thinking about education, one that thrives on connecting equity to excellence, learning to ethics, and agency to the imperatives of social responsibility and the public good.[25] We may live in dark times, but the future is still open. The time has come to develop a pedagogical language in which civic values, social responsibility, and the institutions that support them become central to invigorating and fortifying a new era of civic imagination, a renewed sense of social agency, and an impassioned international social movement with a vision, organization, and set of strategies to challenge the anti-democratic forces engulfing the planet. Given the shadow of totalitarianiasm that haunts the United States, resistance is not simply something to consider, it is both a necessity and an urgent call to rise up and once again seize the reigns of collective struggle in the interest of a radical democracy.
Notes.
[1] See, for example, David Harvey, The New Imperialism, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Wendy Brown, Edgework (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005); Henry A. Giroux, Against the Terror of Neoliberalism (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2008); Manfred B. Steger and Ravi K. Roy, Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction, (Oxford University Press, 2010).
[2] Bill Dixon, “Totalitarianism and the Sand Storm,” Hannah Arendt Center (February 3, 2014). Online: http://www.hannaharendtcenter.org/?p=12466
[3] See, Brad Evans and Henry A. Giroux, Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of the Spectacle (San Francisco: City Lights, 2015).
[4] Hannah Arendt, “The Origins of Totalitarianism, (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York: 2001).
[5] Terry Eagleton, “Reappraisals: What is the worth of social democracy?” Harper’s Magazine, (October 2010), p. 78.online at: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/10/0083150
[6]. Alex Honneth, Pathologies of Reason (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), p. 188.
[7] Cited in Maria Popova, AJames Baldwin on the Creative Process and the Artist=s Responsibility to Society,@ BrainPickings http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/08/20/james-baldwin-the-creative-process/
[8] See, for instance, Evgeny Morozov, “The Rise of Data and the Death of Politics,” The Guardian (July 20, 2014). http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/20/rise-of-data-death-of-politics-evgeny-morozov-algorithmic-regulation
[9] Personal correspondence with David Clark.
[10] Gary Olson and Lynn Worsham, “Staging the Politics of Difference: Homi Bhabha’s Critical Literacy,” Journal of Advanced Composition (1999), pp. 3-35.
[11] For examples of this tradition, see Maria Nikolakaki, ed. Critical Pedagogy in the Dark Ages: Challenges and Possibilities, (New York: Peter Lang, 2012); Henry A. Giroux, On Critical Pedagogy (New York: Continuum, 2011).
[12] Roger Simon, “Empowerment as a Pedagogy of Possibility,” Language Arts 64:4 (April 1987), p. 372
[13].Henry A. Giroux, Education and the Crisis of Public Values, 2nd edition (New York: Peter Lang, 2015).
[14].Cornelius Castoriadis, “Institutions and Autonomy.” In Peter Osborne(Ed). A Critical Sense (New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 8.
[15] Rachel Donadio, “The Failing State of Greece,” New York Times (February 26, 2012), p. 8.
[16]. Greig de Peuter, Universities, Intellectuals and Multitudes: An Interview with Stuart Hall,” in Mark Cote, Richard J. F. Day, and Greig de Peuter, eds. Utopian Pedagogy: Radical Experiments Against Neoliberal Globalization (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), p. 113-114.
[17]. De Peuter, Ibid. P. 117.
[18] Noam Chomsky, “The Death of American Universities,” Reader Supported News, (March 30, 2015). Online at: http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/29348-the-death-of-american-universities
[19] This idea is central to the work of Paulo Freire, especially his Pedagogy of the Oppressed and his Pedagogy of Freedom.
[20] Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff, “Millennial Capitalism: First Thoughts on a Second Coming,” Public Culture 12, no. 2 (Duke University Press, 2000), pp. 305-306.
[21].For a brilliant discussion of the ethics and politics of deconstruction, see Thomas Keenan, Fables of Responsibility: Aberrations and Predicaments in Ethics and Politics (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), p. 2.
[22].Terry Eagleton, The Idea of Culture (Malden, MA: Basil Blackwell, 2000), p.22.
[23] Robert Hass cited in Sarah Pollock, `Robert Hass,” Mother Jones (March/April, 1992), p. 22. (19-22)
[24] Cited in Gary Olson and Lynn Worsham, “Changing the Subject: Judith Butler’s Politics of Radical Resignification,” JAC 20:4 (200), p. 765.
[25] Andrew Delbanco, College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006).Welcome to this edition of the e-Book Cover Design Awards. This edition is for submissions during December, 2012.
Here’s what we received:
103 covers in the Fiction category
18 covers in the Nonfiction category
Guest Judge: Damon Za
I’m pleased to welcome cover designer Damon Za (aka Damonza) as a guest judge this month. Damon Za is an award-winning specialist cover designer and creative director with 15 years experience in advertising and design. He has designed hundreds of book covers as well as creatively managed multi-million dollar advertising and creative campaigns. Recently he left the advertising world to focus exclusively on cover design and currently manages a team of cover designers as well as creates the occasional cover himself. He is also a two-time winner of these awards.
Damonza’s comments are prefaced ( DZ: ).
Award Winners and Listing
Thanks to everyone who participated. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think, too.
Now, without any further ado, here are the winners of this month’s e-Book Cover Design Award.
e-Book Cover Design Award Winner for December 2012 in Fiction
Brian LeTendre
DZ:
e-Book Cover Design Award Winner for December 2012 in Nonfiction
Åsmund Seip
DZ:
Fiction Covers
Adam Bodendieck
DZ:
Amelia C. Gormley
DZ:
Amelia C. Gormley
DZ:
Angela Oltmann
DZ:
Ann Philipp
DZ:
Anthony Camber
DZ:
April White
DZ:
Ardin Lalui
DZ:
Bernard M. Cox
DZ:
Blair MacGregor
DZ:
Blake Hausladen
DZ:
Brian Panhuyzen
DZ:
Bryce Beattie
DZ:
Charlene Newcomb
Chris Ryser
DZ:
Christy Olesen
DZ:
Clark G. Vanderpool
DZ:
Colin F. Barnes
DZ:
Colin F. Barnes
Colleen Ruttan
DZ:
D. R. Martin
DZ:
D.L.Johnstone
DZ:
Daniel Patterson
DZ:
Dave Bricker
DZ:
Diana Kimpton
Erick Burgess
DZ:
F.J. Bergmann
DZ:
F.J. Bergmann
DZ:
Frank Malinoski
DZ:
H.A.L. Wagner
DZ:
Heather McCorkle
DZ:
Helen J Beal
DZ:
Helen J Beal
DZ:
Holloway McCandless
DZ:
Ioana Visan
DZ:
J. Lee Coulter
DZ:
J. Lee Coulter
DZ:
J.D. Dawson
DZ:
J.M. Ney-Grimm
J.M. Porup
DZ:
James
DZ:
Jan Bear
DZ:
Jane Ayres
DZ:
Jena Leigh
DZ:
Jill B Zimmerman
DZ:
JILL TEITELMAN
DZ:
Jo Michaels
DZ:
Joan Druett
DZ:
Jonathan Joseph
DZ:
Jonathon Burgess
DZ:
Joss Landry
DZ:
Joyce Burns
Judy Goodwin
DZ:
JustinS wapp
DZ:
K.M. Weiland
Katie W. Stewart
Kaz Augustin
DZ:
L.C. Chase
DZ:
L.C. Chase
L.C. Chase
L.C. Chase
DZ:
L.C. Chase
DZ:
L.C. Chase
L.W. Patricks
DZ:
Laura Wright LaRoche
DZ:
Liana Mir
Liana Mir
Liana Mir
DZ:
Lisa Buie-Collard
DZ:
Lj McEvoy
DZ:
Louis Tridico
DZ:
Marcelo Martinez
DZ:
Marcelo Martinez
Marcelo Martinez
Mary Ann Cook
DZ:
Matt Rubinstein
DZ:
JF:
Meghan Ciana Doidge
DZ:
Michael Sloane
DZ:
Michele Hauf
DZ:
Nils Hodyas
DZ:
Patricia Burroughs
Pauline Creeden
Philip Benjamin
DZ:
Phillip Grizzell
Phillip Grizzell
DZ:
Phillip Grizzell
DZ:
Phillip Grizzell
Phillip Grizzell
DZ:
R.J. Spears
DZ:
Rebecca Berto
Rene Folsom
DZ:
Richard Sutton
Ripley Patton
Rita Toews
Ros Clarke
DZ:
Ryan Redmond
Shawne Workman
Suzanna Williams
Tasha Harrison
DZ:
Theresa Couchman
Thomas Kimpel
Ty Justice
DZ:
Nonfiction Covers
Alexander
DZ:
Charlie Plunkett
DZ:
David Bergsland
Donald Griffin
Dumitru Sandru
Ed Ditto
DZ:
Eldon Sarte
Eldon Sarte
Jackie Cummings Koski
JP Jones
DZ:
Lawrence Winkler
Lucy Tobias
Mistress Magick
DZ:
Nancy Hendrickson
DZ:
Rita Toews
Sandra Bornstein
Wahido Marata
Shares
submitteddesigned by Brian LeTendre / Jeff Rodgers. “I wrote a blog post about the design concept for this cover and its influences at http://www.seebrianwrite.com/2012/10/covering-courting-king-in-yellow.html ”Great cover! Interesting and it draws me in. The colour contrasts here are excellent.submitteddesigned by Åsmund Seip.Love it. Contemporary design with unusual and interesting title treatment. Great job.submitteddesigned by Greg Simanson.Nice colors, interesting font, although it looks like it’s designed with the print cover in mind, rather than the ebook version, as the author name is a bit too small. Overall, it’s a good-looking cover.submitteddesigned by Kerry Chin and Michael Hart.The title is legible and the image is relatively clear, which is good for an ebook cover at thumbnail size, however the brown coloring may be a bit dull.submitteddesigned by Kerry Chin and Michael Hart.Same comments as the previous cover. That dirty water brown color is a bit off-putting, in my opinion.submitteddesigned by Angie-O Creations.Easy to read. Looks similar to many covers in this genre.submitteddesigned by Ann Philipp. “The photo is a still shot taken from a movie I filmed for my book trailer.”Great font size and clarity for an ebook. The movement in the title also works well.submitteddesigned by blogshank.com.Not sure what this is about. Seems like the title is describing the cover. Easy to read at thumbnail size.submitteddesigned by Edward Gorsuch. “This cover was designed on a nine-hour skype call using screen share, a creative commons background image by Zyllan, and free textures by Skeletalmess.”Seriously? This took 9 hours? Looks like the author had too much input. The text at the top and bottom is very difficult to read. It also looks like the title font was stretched vertically, which hurts the overall appeal.submitteddesigned by Ardin Lalui. “Hi there, thanks for letting me submit this cover for your great competition. Ardin”Very nice. Clear and legible. Lovely texture and great detail.submitteddesigned by Sabine Krauss. “This is the second cover by Sabine Krauss for Bernard M. Cox’s short story series The Space Within These Lines Is Not Dedicated. This is the title story but there are four other stories to come. Each story stands on its own, but is linked thematically. As such, the goal of each cover is to provide a unique portrait of the individual story while maintaining the look and field across the set of stories.”Clear and easy to read, if a bit dull. It has a non-fiction look about it.submitteddesigned by http://blairmacgregorbooks.com/2012/11/16/sword-and-chant-is-here/.The visual is pretty good, although the title font is a bit flat.submitteddesigned by Blake Hauslden.The green and brown area in the middle isn’t very clear, which makes it difficult for a potential reader to see what’s going on with this cover.submitteddesigned by Brian Panhuyzen. “Fonts used: SuperGroteskC, Adobe Jensen Pro; images from iStockPhoto; designed in Adobe InDesign CS5.5 for OS X.”Way too much going on here. There is no focus which makes the cover look disorganized.submitteddesigned by. “Adam Masterman (http://www.adammasterman.com) painted the cover, and then I used the Gimp to add in the title & my name.”Nice work. Clean simple and effective.submitteddesigned by Travis at ProBookCovers.com.submitteddesigned by Chris Ryser.This cover is somewhat dull, although it’s easy to read in thumbnail size. The images are too small to have any impact.submitteddesigned by Christy Olesen. “There are so many historical romances set in Scotland I wanted the reader to know that this is a contemporary sweet romance set in Scotland.”Not bad, although the bottom section is too busy. It may have been better to have the title much bigger and the symbol far smaller.submittedNice. Great font selections here. Clean and professional.submitteddesigned by Illustrator: Thomas Boatwright Layout/Design: Colin F. Barnes. “The first of a regular series of modern pulp stories.”Excellent cover. Suits the genre perfectly. Really good job here.submitteddesigned by Illustration: Thomas Boatwright, Designer/Layout: Colin F. Barnes. “The third modern pulp story in a series.”submitteddesigned by Colleen Ruttan. “YA Fantasy Novel”This is good. The sword in the background is a bit distracting though. Perhaps if it was in black and white and slightly lighter?submitteddesigned by Jesse Pelkey. “I wanted my canine cozy mystery’s cover to avoid the “picturesque tea shop” look that many cozies have. I guided Jesse’s design in the direction of some of Carl Hiaasen’s early paperback covers, instead. And I think he nailed it.”Interesting and unusual. Easy to read at thumbnail size.submitteddesigned by Jeroen ten Berge. “Beautiful composition, ominous, clearly indicates it as an historic thriller. Subtly ties in with the visual equity of the author’s other thriller title, CHALK VALLEY.”Great cover. Lovely unusual title treatment. One of my favorites.submitteddesigned by Kenneth Gorden.Easy to read. Perhaps the headlights and road could have been slightly brighter. It’s difficult to see the image here, and when a potential reader is skimming over cover and only glances for a second or two, they may miss it.submitteddesigned by Dave Bricker.Interesting cover. Works quite well, but could perhaps have a border to make it stand out more on a white background.submitteddesigned by Steve and Diana Kimpton. “Although this book was written for older children (9+), it appeals strongly to teens and adults so I wanted to avoid a cover that made it look too young.”submitteddesigned by Rena Burgess. “A rerelease of my debut novel with a new cover. ”This is quite good. Strong font and easy to read.submitteddesigned by F.J. Bergmann. “Fantasy novel.”This looks like the negative of a photo. I’m not sure if that’s intentional but it doesn’t work for me. The yellow and orange gradient on the font also looks like it was done in Word Art.submitteddesigned by F.J. Bergmann. “Fantasy: leprechauns/detective/dragons quest.”There’s something happening under that rainbow, but I’m not sure what it is.submitteddesigned by George Foster.This cover has potential, although the silhouette of a two full people inside the silhouette of another full person clashes. In general, when combining images in this way, they should be different types of images, so they contrast with each other rather than compete with each other.submitteddesigned by Tom Wolfe.Interesting and contemporary. Good work.submitteddesigned by CP Design. “Designer’s URL: http://cpdesignandcompasspress.blogspot.com/”This cover is let down by the fonts used. Too frilly, too common.submitteddesigned by Nick Thacker.This says nothing to me other than “this is a book called Half a Dozen Star Jumps.” Why would I click on it?submitteddesigned by Nick Thacker.Same comment as before.submitteddesigned by Holloway McCandless. “This book cover was created with iBooks Author 1.0 by me. I had limited access to fonts and had to work with what was available in the App. The borders with baseballs, roses, and slugs refer to themes in the kids’ story. Thank you for all the information on your site.”Unfortunately this just looks like the author took a photo of his daughter and put it on the cover. That’s fine, but it has a very amateur look about it.submitteddesigned by Ioana Visan. “The story collection features scenes from the life of shapeshifters (mainly werewolves and were-eagles) living in a modern city, so instead of going for the current fantasy art trend, I felt like the cartoonish look fit much better the content of the stories.”The mixture of overused fonts lets this cover down. It has a very amateur look about it.submitteddesigned by J. Lee Coulter.Title text is difficult to read. Author name is impossible to read. The image is off-centre which makes the cover look unbalanced.submitteddesigned by J. Lee Coulter.The red font is far too difficult to read.submitteddesigned by J.D. Dawson.There’s too much going on here, too many words. Looks like the title and author name and “book 1” are running away from the cover. Why are they so close to the edge?submitteddesigned by J.M. Ney-Grimm. “Sarvet’s world was inspired by the folk tales in East of the Sun and West of the Moon. Kay Nielsen’s 1914 illustrations in that volume capture the eery beauty of the landscape. One depicting a lassie wandering through mountainous terrain could easily be Sarvet herself.”submitteddesigned by Derek Murphy.Quite nice. Good texture.submittedInteresting, took me a while to “See it”. Don’t know if that’s a good thing when a potential reader is just skimming along. This needs a border when on a white background.submitteddesigned by Jan Bear. “It’s a book about addiction and the road to recovery.”Is the illustrated man floating next to the building? The angles don’t quite match up.submitteddesigned by Klaus Hartleben. “This design used several different images that were customised to create a unified whole. I love the colours and the mood it creates and have had positive feedback from readers.”This is sweet. The author name could be bigger.submitteddesigned by Jena Leigh.Not bad. The author name could be bigger. Good font choice.submitteddesigned by Neil Wells. “My main request from Neil with this cover was that he incorporate Santa because this was integral to the plot. I believe my exact words were, “Blood and Santa,” and the result was a cover that blew me away! He always has a way of expanding upon the story and my ideas while creating something all his own.”I’m not sure on the relevance of the lines in the background, but they don’t work here. The font is very overused.submitteddesigned by HARRY TEITELMAN.Nice cover. Good mix of texture and photography.submitteddesigned by Jo Michaels. “This cover was created using a wacom intuos 4 and Photoshop’s watercolor brushes on various layers. It’s a historical fiction novel that’s the coming of age tale of Genghis Khan and his deep love of his wife, Borte. I love simple design and lovely type. Thanks for the opportunity!”The illustration is great. The title is great. The placement between the two clashes slightly.submitteddesigned by Ron Druett.Nice image. The spacing on the title doesn’t look quite right, and it seems strange that all the text is centred except for one small line.submitteddesigned by BoyandSheep.Nicely done. Author name could be bigger.submitteddesigned by Vladimir Verano, Third Place Press. “Novel by Jonathon Burgess. Cover art by Ksenia Mamaeva. Cover design by Vladimir Verano, Third Place Press.”Very nice. Love the font. Good job.submitteddesigned by Richard Sutton. “Richard and I worked hard on the design of the book, and felt that mymain two characters were well represented on the cover.”Nice imagery, although the title is tough to read in that color.submitteddesigned by Joyce Burns.submitteddesigned by Lucas Pandolfelli. “Artwork by Lucas Pandolfelli, graphics by Judy Goodwin”Nice cover art, although it may be too overpowering for the title.submitteddesigned by Justin Swapp.This cover lacks definition and is a bit bland.submitteddesigned by Dominick Finelle.submitteddesigned by Katie W. Stewart.submitteddesigned by Sandal Press. “This is another re-do of an old cover that didn’t quite work in terms of legibility. Quite a few readers commented that they didn’t know that this book was the first in a series, so I had to come up with a way to make it obvious that, not only is it in a series, but it’s part of a closely entwined series (no standalones), hence the use of “Part” instead of “Book”. The other four books follow/will follow the same design elements to provide consistency.”Unusual edges on this cover. Nice idea.submitteddesigned by L.C. Chase. “This cover was done for a re-release of the author’s short story. I went a little off page from what he had previously. The image is a play on the characters who are both involved in theater, and whose fight becomes a dance.”Clever and interesting.submitteddesigned by Jordan Taylor. “Artist Jordan Taylor, for Riptide Publishing.”submitteddesigned by Petite-Madame VonApple. “The third of four titles for the Warriors of Rome collection, He Is Worthy. Digital painting by artist Petite-Madame VonApple, typography by L.C. Chase.”submitteddesigned by Petite-Madame VonApple. “Artist Petite-Madame VonApple did a series of digital paintings for our Warriors of Rome collection. Once the artwork was complete I took over and did the typography.”Nice title treatment.submitteddesigned by Petite-Madame VonApple. “The fourth of four titles for the Warriors of Rome collection, The City War. Digital painting by artist Petite-Madame VonApple, typography by L.C. Chase.”Looks more like a farmer than a warrior.submitteddesigned by Petite-Madame VonApple. “Artist Petite-Madame VonApple digitally painted all the covers for Riptide Publishing’s “Warriors of Rome” historical collection. Four books in total I’ve already submitted Mark of the Gladiator and figured I should show off her work on the other three titles as well. As with Mark of the Gladiator, once the paintings were completed I did the typography to finish off the covers.”submitteddesigned by Kehanne Lo.The author name in red is tough to read.submitteddesigned by LLPix.com. “There’s no mistaking what genre this one is.”Nice cover. Easy to read and create its own “mood.”submitteddesigned by Liana Mir. “This was a redesign to give a more polished, professional look to the series and give them all cohesiveness.”submitteddesigned by Liana Mir.submitteddesigned by Liana Mir.Nice colors, although the author name is very difficult to read.submitteddesigned by Lisa Buie-Collard.Tough to read the title and author name here.submitteddesigned by Teddi Black. “First Book in Romance Genre, available on Amazon Kindle and CreateSpace. Thanks”Nice visual, although the title looks like it was just added on as an afterthought.submitteddesigned by Chad Vander Lugt.Excellent texture and font choices. Love it!submitteddesigned by Marcelo Martinez | Laboratório Secreto Design Studio. “”Great names of Brazilian literature in a book series designed only for the epub environment. The book cover design explores RGB colors, shadows and volumes “impossibles on paper”.”Well executed contemporary design for this whole series.submitteddesigned by Marcelo Martinez | Laboratório Secreto Design Studio. ”submitteddesigned by Marcelo Martinez | Laboratório Secreto Design Studio.submitteddesigned by Aleta Rafton. “A fictional wartime love story based on the life of Lieutanant Lilya Litvyak, the world’s first woman fighter pilot ace and Captain Alexei Salomaten.”Nice visual but fonts let this cover down. Very unusual to see the cover design attribution on the front cover.submitteddesigned by Matt Rubinstein. “Most of my books are in different genres so I wanted the covers to unify around a common design that can adapt to each book while still being recognisably one of mine I liked the idea of using physical printers’ type to decorate a purely digital emanation. In the same spirit I’ve called my digital imprint “Ligature”, and chosen Mrs Eaves for the author and subtitle, as it’s a font famous for its extensive ligatures. ”Yes, well done. The title is part of the creative rather than just added on as an afterthought.Sorry to butt in here, guys. Cover is beautiful but anyone who has printed with actual type will see instantly that this is “imaginary” type since it would have to read in reverse to print properly. Okay, back to what you were doing.submitteddesigned by Irene Langholm. “This is the fourth book cover that Irene has designed for me. I send her a pitch sheet which describes the story, setting, main character, and highlights a few of my favourite scenes. She hones in on an idea that intrigues her, asks a bunch of questions, and then gets to work. I always wait with bated breath for the reveal, and always end up loving the cover even more than I imaged I would. The cover for Time Walker is no exception. In a single image, Irene has captured the genre and the main character in an utterly magical moment full of tension, loneliness, and a tinge of hope in the dawn. All four of Irene’s cover can be found on my blog, www.madebymeghan.ca Thanks in advance for your consideration, Meghan ”Good work.submitteddesigned by Michael Sloane. “I would appreciate an honest critique of this cover. My intent was to visually convey the genre and mood of the book, and at the same time drop a few subtle details to hopefully pique the potential reader’s curiosity.”Nicely done. Images are well combined here.submitteddesigned by Michele Hauf. “I like to design my own covers, and the only Photoshop experience I have is ‘try this and see if it works’. I like this cover, and think it’s the best I’ve done so far.”This is pretty good. The yellow text could be placed better.submitteddesigned by Nils Hodyas.Cute, could do with a border.submitteddesigned by Mj Butler, Twisted Mojo. “This is a digital release of a book originally published by Bantam Loveswept. I gave an idea or two to Mj Butler who put together this design, which I adore. It captures to romantic tone of the story as well as the heroine’s quirky character. ”submitteddesigned by Marcy Rachel Designs.submitteddesigned by Philip |
and Melbourne City, when a fierce shot from City’s Luke Brattan struck the crossbar, bounced down and back out into play.
Within seconds, a replay proved that the ball crossed the line. This was instantly conveyed to the referee and a goal properly awarded. No fuss, no drama – just an undeniable truth confirmed. Here the camera saw with certainly what the eye can only process fleetingly: a high-speed action that turns into a fragment of deteriorating memory almost as soon as the mind registers it.
This incident also reinforced the huge disconnect between reality and our technologically-enhanced version of it. Commentators and fans express outrage at the failings of referees based upon what we see through the medium of film, and in slow motion. These human failings – perfectly understandable in a case like Brattan’s goal, in the absence of supporting images – are then used as further evidence of the need for technology to intervene in all moments of contention.
The problem is that contention in football usually concerns matters of opinion, not fact. As countless recent examples from the A-League have illustrated, even when the camera serves as artificial memory what is actually seen differs from one individual to the next. As Lowe points out, the VAR is still just “another human making a decision”.
In this context, age-old rules like handball get buried beneath a morass of new “interpretations”. In their round eight tie in Adelaide, Western Sydney Wanderers defender Robbie Cornthwaite was dismissed after receiving a second yellow card for a handling offence which appeared entirely inadvertent. This past weekend Adelaide United were on the receiving end of an even poorer decision with a penalty awarded against defender Ryan Strain for a supposedly illegal intervention with his arm. Valiantly staving off apoplexy, afterwards the Reds’ suitably crimson-faced coach Marco Kurz could only say, “if that’s a penalty, I need glasses”.
And then there are the offsides. In round nine in Wellington, Melbourne Victory’s Besart Berisha was denied a wonderful goal when replays determined him offside in the lead-up. Consigning to history Fifa’s previous edict to the effect that “the benefit of any doubt should go to the attacking player”, apparently the VAR will now cause more and more goals to be disallowed based on hair’s breadth offences that the naked eye could never identify.
Further muddying the waters is the use of split-second freeze-framing, which renders some decisions near impossible. Berisha, for instance, appeared minutely offside in one frame but well onside in the next.
The VAR is also being liberally employed in cases of alleged foul play, causing referees to issue sanctions after much unseemly deliberation. Saturday night’s dismissal of Central Coast’s Jake McGing was seen as ridiculous even by players and officials from the opposing Western Sydney team. All this leads to howls for a more “efficient” system, though the question as to why such punishments cannot be meted out retrospectively where warranted, rather than dispersed willy-nilly in the heat of the contest, has yet to be answered. Wanderers coach Josep Gombau later suggested the VAR should be used once every five games, not five times every game.
A-League: Western Sydney Wanderers' revival flatters to deceive Read more
What ultimately we are left with are exactly the same disagreements as before, now punctuated by stoppages in play while referees hold their hands to their ears, fight off bickering players and make “TV screen” signals with their hands. They then run off the field to review their own decisions, on a tiny screen before a baying crowd who more often than not will be vindicated in their anger.
At this particular historical juncture, football in Australia has more than enough problems to be concerned about. In these circumstances, Football Federation Australia might want to rethink exactly how the A-League is being used as guinea pig for such an experiment. Instead, competition head Greg O’Rourke is standing firm and indicating that the system merely needs further “tweaking”.
It is a standpoint far removed from that of Mariners coach Paul Okon who, after last weekend’s events, bemoaned how the use of VARs is “killing the love of football”. If the game continues to conflate fact with opinion and equate the eye of the camera with the myth of perfection, it is in danger of proving him right.Image copyright Macau Government Information Bureau Image caption Giant panda Xin Xin gave birth to the twins on Sunday afternoon
A giant panda in Macau has given birth to twins, the first pandas to be born in the Chinese region.
Xin Xin delivered the two male cubs on Sunday afternoon at the Giant Panda Pavilion in Coloane, said officials.
She and the larger cub were in good health, but the smaller cub was underweight and was taken into intensive care.
Xin Xin and her mate Kai Kai were a gift from the mainland and arrived in Macau last year.
They mated naturally, a government spokeswoman told BBC News, but Xin Xin was also artificially inseminated with sperm from Kai Kai.
Image copyright Macau Government Information Bureau Image caption In Putonghua 'kai' means open and 'xin' means heart, and 'kai xin' mean happy
Image copyright Macau Government Information Bureau Image caption Xin Xin and Kai Kai mated naturally, according to a government spokeswoman
The larger cub, weighing 138g (0.3 lb), was born at 15:45 local time (08:45 GMT). The smaller cub, weighing just 53.8g, was born at 16:27 local time.
The panda pavilion has been closed since 14 June to prepare for the delivery.Syracuse, N.Y. -- The 2018 NCAA tournament will have a new feature. The NCAA has adopted The Basketball Tournament's post-game bracket celebration.
After games in The Basketball Tournament, the winning team goes over to a giant replica of the tournament's bracket. In a fashion that's part ceremony and part celebration, a member of the team moves a card with the team's name ahead to the next round of the tournament.
It has fast become a favorite moment for both players and fans alike during The Basketball Tournament.
The NCAA took notice and starting next year the NCAA tournament will do the same thing.
David Worlock, the NCAA's director of media coordination, dropped the nugget on Twitter Wednesday night. He then confirmed the decision via an email.
"Yes, we're doing it,'' Worlock said in the email. "I noticed in the The Basketball Tournament and liked the idea. Then a few weeks ago there was some chatter on Twitter from some members of the media, saying they wished we would do it during our tournament. So I obviously wasn't the only person who thought it was a cool idea.''
Worlock said the NCAA men's basketball committee has approved the post-game bracket celebration.
Worlock said the enlarged version of the NCAA tournament would most likely be located outside the post-game press conference area.
The NCAA officials have talked about allowing the team to select the person who gets to move the team's card to the next round in the bracket.
"If they want a senior walk-on, the star player or the star of the game, it doesn't matter to us,'' Worlock said. "We think it will be fun for the teams, fans and the media.''One of the billionaire investor’s top managers is alleged to have leaked details of Soros Fund Management’s purchase of a near-5pc stake in Herbalife before the deal is believed to have been finalised last week.
The claim is part of a complaint reportedly filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by Bill Ackman, who runs the Pershing Square hedge fund and holds a $1bn short bet on Herbalife.
The filing alleges that a portfolio manager at Mr Soros’ firm attended “idea meetings” with hedge fund managers in the past month, giving investors the chance to make profits by trading ahead of Herbalife deal, the New York Post reported.
Shares in the company jumped 9pc last Wednesday after CNBC ran a story on Mr Soros’ stake-building.
Mr Soros, who famously “broke the Bank of England” by betting against the pound during the 1992 sterling crash, “officially” declined to comment on the stake reports.
“I’m very disappointed with George Soros as I think of him as a humanitarian,” Mr Ackman told the NY Post. “Instead, his firm is trying to profit off the backs of low-income Latinos who’ve been misled that Herbalife is the answer to the American dream.”
Mr Ackman has seen his bet against Herbalife increasingly squeezed as the shares have risen 106.9pc so far this year to $66.60. They hit a low of $27 in December when Mr Ackman revealed his position, urging regulators to investigate what he claimed was a pyramid scheme at the company.
Herbalife, which has said it is a legitimate business that has been operating for 33 years, sells products such as weight-loss shakes and vitamin pills.
Billionaire Carl Icahn, a bitter rival of Mr Ackman, has a 16.5pc stake in the group, worth $1.1bn.
Mr Soros and Mr Ackman did not comment on Monday.Since passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a growing number of organizations have voiced their displeasure with Indiana, and in a variety of ways.
Buy Photo One of the earliest blows in the “religious freedom” backlash was struck by Angie’s List, which announced it would halt its expansion plans in Indianapolis. (Photo: Charlie Nye/The Star)Buy Photo
The opposition to Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act includes a growing number of canceled conventions, speeches and concerts. It includes Indiana travel bans from cities and states. It includes statements from corporate leaders inside and outside Indiana. And it includes sports organizations and state universities.
Here's a look at some of the backlash Indiana has already felt.
Not on Angie's List: An Indy expansion
Angie's List canceled its proposal for a $40 million headquarters expansion that promised to bring 1,000 jobs to Indianapolis. The expansion, which would have used $18 million in state and city aid, would have anchored the redevelopment of a long-struggling neighborhood on the city's Near Eastside.
The announcement carried additional weight because Angie's List CEO Bill Oesterle is a Republican who managed the campaign of former Gov. Mitch Daniels.
An exodus of the Disciples
The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) said Wednesday it would be pulling its 2017 national convention from Indianapolis, a blow that could cost the city 8,000 visitors and $5.9 million in lost spending.
The decision by the church's board comes even though the denomination's headquarters is in Indianapolis.
"We are a church that values diversity and values freedom of religion," said Cherilyn Williams, a spokeswoman for the church. "For us... (that) cannot impede the freedom of others."
Women of labor work for a new destination
AFSCME, a labor union representing state, county and municipal employees across the country, said Monday it was moving its annual women's conference, scheduled for the JW Marriott Indianapolis in October.
"This un-American law allowing business to refuse service to gay and lesbian customers sets Indiana and our nation back decades in the struggle for civil rights," said AFSCME President Lee Saunders.
The conference would have brought more than 700 attendees from across the country for a three-day event expected to generate $500,000 in spending in Downtown Indianapolis.
Wilco and out
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Wilco, a two-time Grammy Award-winning rock band based in Chicago, announced Monday it was canceling its May 7 performance in Indianapolis.
The band, which was to play at the Murat Theatre in Old National Centre, took to Twitter to say the " 'Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act' feels like thinly disguised legal discrimination."
A follow-up tweet read, "Hope to get back to the Hoosier State someday soon, when this odious measure is repealed."
Not so funny anymore
Nick Offerman, the comedian most people know as Ron Swanson from "Parks and Recreation," canceled a May appearance in Indianapolis, where he was scheduled to perform with his wife, Megan Mullally. He was scheduled to keep a date Wednesday in Bloomington and donate the proceeds to the Human Rights Campaign.
When the speaker doesn't show
A lecture Thursday at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law had to be canceled after the featured speaker opted not to come to Indiana for the speech.
Marcia Greenberger, founder and co-president of the National Women's Law Center, was scheduled to speak on Title IX, the law that requires gender equity in federally funded programs for kids. But after passage of the RFRA, Greenberger opted out.
States with travel bans
Connecticut — Gov. Dannel Malloy signed an executive order banning state-funded travel to Indiana. "When new laws turn back the clock on progress, we can't sit idly by. We are sending a message that discrimination won't be tolerated." The move prompted UConn men's basketball coach Kevin Ollie to boycott the Final Four.
New York — Gov. Andrew Cuomo banned all state-funded travel to Indiana that wasn't essential to law enforcement, public health or safety.
Washington — Gov. Jay Inslee imposed an administration-wide ban on travel to Indiana, saying "Indiana's law appears to legalize private discrimination."
Cities with travel bans
Washington, D.C. — Mayor Muriel Bowser banned city-funded travel until Indiana repeals the "religious freedom" law. The order, issued Tuesday, went into effect immediately.
Denver — Mayor Michael Hancock banned nonessential travel to Indiana on Tuesday, saying the state's "religious freedom" law "is just wrong, plain and simple, and we will not condone discrimination through the use of taxpayer dollars."
Seattle — Mayor Ed Murray banned city-funded travel to Indiana, saying, "Laws that say you can discriminate have no place in this country."
San Francisco — Mayor Ed Lee banned all city-funded trips to Indiana, saying "San Francisco taxpayers will not subsidize legally sanctioned discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people by the state of Indiana."
West Palm Beach, Fla. — Mayor Jeri Muoio suspended city-funded travel to Indiana until the "religious freedom" act is repealed.
Corporate America speaks out
Gen Con — The largest tabletop gaming convention in North America has been a fixture in Indianapolis and has a contract with the city through 2020. But the convention's CEO, Adrian Swartout, said discussions have begun on where to take the convention in the future.
Levi Strauss & Co. — The iconic blue jean maker spoke out not only against Indiana's law, but also efforts in Arkansas and other states, saying the efforts "turn back the clock on equality and foster a culture of intolerance."
Salesforce.com — The CEO of the San Francisco-based company, which owns locally based ExactTarget, declared in a Twitter post that his company would stop holding meetings in Indiana in protest.
Yelp — Jeremy Stoppelman, the CEO of the online consumer review site, said: "It is unconscionable to imagine that Yelp would create, maintain or expand a significant business presence in any state that encouraged discrimination by businesses against our employees, or consumers at large."
Indiana's largest businesses use their influence
Nine CEOs from some of Indiana's largest businesses signed a letter they sent to Gov. Mike Pence expressing their opposition to the "religious freedom" act. They are:
Tom Linebarger, Cummins Inc.
Bill Oesterle, Angie's List
Joseph Swedish, Anthem
Jeff Smulyan, Emmis Communications
Dan Evans, Indiana University Health
Jack Phillips, Roche Diagnostics
John Lechleiter, Eli Lilly and Co.
Tim Hassinger, Dow AgroSciences
Scott McCorkle, Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Indiana colleges speaking out
Butler University — President James Danko issued a statement Sunday urging state leaders to address the damage done by the RFRA. He said the law "strikes me as ill-conceived legislation at best, and I fear that some of those who advanced it have allowed their personal or political agendas to supersede the best interests of the state of Indiana and its people."
Indiana University — President Michael McRobbie issued a statement saying the law's passage has brought negative attention to the state that's done damage to Indiana's reputation. It said that "all public officials and public institutions in our state need to reaffirm our absolute commitment to the Hoosier values of fair treatment and nondiscrimination."
Christian Theological Seminary — President Matthew Myer Boulton said the Indianapolis seminary believes deeply in religious liberty but opposes the new law because it is "an offense to the spirit of civil rights."
University of Indianapolis — President Robert Manuel called on the governor and legislators to build an environment of inclusion. He said the university "cannot offer support for this law that may impinge upon the rights of certain groups in our community."
Sports organizations
NCAA — The nation's pre-eminent amateur sports organization is based in Indianapolis and is holding its premier event, the Final Four, here this weekend. But that hasn't stopped NCAA President Mark Emmert from saying the "religious freedom" law might affect the organization's future in the city.
NBA, WNBA, Indiana Pacers and Fever — The city's professional basketball organizations spoke up as one, saying: "The game of basketball is grounded in long-established principles of inclusion and mutual respect. We will continue to ensure that all fans, players and employees feel welcome at all NBA and WNBA events in Indiana and elsewhere."
Mid-American Conference — The collegiate sports league, which includes Indiana's Ball State University, said it will hold no more meetings or championship events in Indiana because of the "religious freedom" law's passage.
Arts organizations getting backlash
Arts organizations are facing potential cancellations from artists and donors, and event organizers fear the fallout is only beginning if Indiana's "religious freedom" bill isn't changed.
"Several generous art collectors" from across the country are discouraged from "making future donations to the (Indianapolis Museum of Art) and other Indiana charities," IMA Director and CEO Charles Venable said in a statement.
A nationally prominent travel writer originally looking forward to the IMA's upcoming "Dream Cars" exhibit now "does not plan to cover events in Indiana in the foreseeable future," Venable said.
Drum Corps International, whose World Championship Finals drew 40,000 attendees and 3,000 participants to Indianapolis last year, is being pressured to move its headquarters and championship events out of the state by a petition with more than 7,000 supporters. DCI has not commented on relocating.
The Indiana Repertory Theatre hit a snag in planning its 2015-16 season, scheduled to be announced next week, as nationally known directors and designers pushed back against working in Indiana, said managing director Suzanne Sweeney.
"The Indiana Repertory Theatre is already witnessing the harmful effects of reactions to Indiana's newly passed RFRA legislation, as theatre practitioners cancel reservations to attend a national conference we are hosting in April, and fellow theatre producers and artists from around the country threaten to boycott our work," IRT leaders wrote in a statement. "We fear this could be only the beginning."
Playwright Ramon Esquivel canceled a speaking engagement at the IRT's national writing conference, Write Now, taking place May 3-6.
Organizers of Developing History Leaders at the Seminar for Historical Administration, a prestigious conference for the nation's top historical museum leaders hosted by the Indiana Historical Society every year, are "seriously considering" pulling out of Indianapolis and relocating to St. Paul., Minn., said Indiana Historical Society President John Herbst.
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra is facing pressure, as well.
"Several world-renowned guest artists scheduled to perform with the ISO in coming months have expressed concerns about coming to Indiana," CEO Gary Ginstling said in a statement.
Star reporter Wei-Huan Chen contributed to this article. Call Star reporter Robert King at (317) 444-6089. Follow him on Twitter: @RbtKing.
Read or Share this story: http://indy.st/1ams1vqBeing young and looking for a job in the United States is hard. But it could be worse. You could be Spanish, where the youth unemployment rate is 40%. That's right. Forty. Percent.
Or if you're more worried about your generation's comparative unemployment, thank your lucky stars you're not living in Scandinavia, especially Sweden where the youth joblessness is quadruple the rate among those older than 25. (These surveys should come with a grain of salt on the side, because different countries' ways of measuring and determining unemployment can help to skew international comparisons.)
Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
But once again, things could be much worse. You could be young and in Spain or Sweden, where youth joblessness is expected to surpass 40% and 30%, respectively, in the next year.
If you're wondering why this matters, read Don Peck's Atlantic article about the long-term implications of joblessness on young generations. It's not just the lasting dampening of wages, it's also the various psychological effects of protracted post-graduate years spent idle, angry and frustrated. The OECD projects youth unemployment to stay above 15% for the next two years in the United States, while the Congressional Budget Office expects overall joblessness to fall to about 8%. That would keep the above ratio steady for the next 20 months or so.But once again, things could be much worse. You could be young and in Spain or Sweden, where youth joblessness is expected to surpass 40% and 30%, respectively, in the next year.DragonForce
Interview with Herman Li and Marc Hudson
April 10, 2017 – London, UK
Interview by Torbjørn ‘Toby’ Jørstad
Photography by Prislla Pattuzzo Macao
We sat down with guitarist Herman Li and vocalist Marc Hudson of DragonForce in London to discuss their new album, Reaching Into Infinity. Read on to find out what’s to expect when their new opus is released on May 19th!
Hello, my name is Toby and this is Prislla, and we’re from Metal-Rules.com.
You’ve been very cryptic in the way you’ve been promoting this album. The album cover was revealed piece by piece on Instagram, and instead of posting tour dates you posted pictures of locations from cities that you’ll play this October. What’s the reason behind all the secrecy?
Herman: It’s kind of a sad thing these days, I have to admit, because the world is impatient and people want all information delivered on whatever social media platform. But also, if you deliver it all at once, a lot of people miss it. The album art posted on Instagram was made into nine pieces, I wanted double that, but we decided to do nine so it fits better with Instagram’s layout. And the city thing was also kind of funny, some people thought we were gonna talk about religion because there was a church in one of the pictures. So you kind of just have the make a bit of noise on social media and make people talk about it, it’s kind of sad but that’s just the way it works these days. I just came from Germany, people went there to see me perform at the Musikmesse, an exhibition of musicians, and there were fans during the signing sessions who didn’t know we had a new album coming out or a new song even, and these are big fans!
Can you explain the title of the album?
Marc [looks at Herman]: I can do the bullshit version if you like [laughs]!
Herman: Then I can do the real version! Try yours first!
Marc: Okay, so the album is called Reaching Into Infinity because music is something that is timeless, infinite, people always go back to it. It’s a method of escapism for a lot of people, to put something on, and get away from your real life and stuff. Also at the same time I think, speaking about music and the number of things you can do with music, all the emotions you can create, that’s also infinite. There’s so many different things you can influence, and that kind of ties in with our album cover, which is obviously some kind of desolate wasteland, but with a kind of portal, which for us was kind of like reaching into the portal of music, blah blah blah.
Herman: That’s the exact same bullshit I got [laughs]. But that’s really what it’s about, the kind of cover where you see an open wormhole with infinite times and it’s also about the speed of music and the timelessness of the music.
Stylistically, how would you say this album differs from other DragonForce albums?
Marc: I think this album is an evolution from Maximum Overload, but I think it also takes bits from other albums that I really liked, so occasionally I can hear a bit of Sonic Firestorm, and in the new song we just released [“Judgement Day”], I can hear some, fuck, what’s that album called…
Herman: Ultra Beatdown.
Marc: Ultra Beatdown! So I think we have evolved from the last album, but then taken things we like from the other stuff, and I think there’s a lot of variety. Vocally there’s a lot of different stuff on this album as well, which people might not expect, and I think it’s just more diverse. Also, having gone back to Jens [Bogren, producer] I’m really pleased with the sound of the whole thing as well, I think that’s also really great about this album.
The single “Judgement Day” probably surprised quite a few fans, with its borderline black metal intro, featuring blast beat drums and tremolo picked guitars. What was the reasoning behind this approach?
Herman: I guess maybe for some people, but I think we did the blast beat thing on the second album, Sonic Firestorm, with “Fury of the Storm”. It was just a different approach this time, we’re putting a spin on it to kind of mix up the dynamics, to make it into a more epic, uplifting song. So I guess the more and more we play with the atmosphere and the changes, it creates contrasts in the music.
What are some of the lyrical themes you’re exploring with this album?
Marc: I think there’s quite a lot of stuff on this album actually, cause we’ve got a few songs that are kind of just the lyrical style you might be used to, just the more traditional DragonForce themes with fantasy and stuff. There’s a few songs like that, then we’ve got the song called “The Edge of the World”, which is like an epic song with kind of an actual concept behind the whole thing, and different sections and stuff, so that’s like a storytelling-song about something specific. We have a ballad on there called “Silence”, which is a more somber song with a serious theme. “Ashes of the Dawn” again is a song about redemption and stuff like that, another kind of uplifting song that kicks off the album as well. So yeah, I think we covered all the bases on this album, really. Some light-hearted stuff and some more serious stuff.
What’s your personal favourite song on the album?
Marc: I really like “The Edge of the World”. But, when we were first doing the demo and heard the album progress, I really liked “Judgement Day”, that’s a good song. But for me, “The Edge of the World”. There’s a lot of different vocal styles, so I’m being biased cause it’s me doing the thing, but I like to hear that change.
Herman: I never have a favourite song. Yeah, so sorry, If you google that, you’ll find the same answer. I always see an album as a whole, so the songs work with each other. So it actually takes some time when picking a setlist, because I always see it as a full album.
Marc, the song “WAR!” features a singing style from you unlike anything we’ve heard from DragonForce before. Was this challenging for you?
Marc: Not really, no. It was really easy. That vocal style isn’t even singing to me, it’s just like shouting almost. So for me that came really easily. I was kind of thinking about who do I want to sound like, what kind of thing was I going for, and that’s just the first thing that came out. I might sound a little Slayer-y, a little bit lamer maybe [laughs], but yeah, so that was quite easy for me, but quite fun to do as well.
Who’s idea was it to push your vocals in that direction?
Marc: I think that song was really calling for that. We did think about whether we should do this with clean vocals, but it’s very fast so it could sound a little unusual maybe and take away from the theme a little bit, because it’s a really aggressive theme behind it, lyrically and everything. That was just the voice that was called for in the song.
The song “Silence” seems to tackle particularly dark and sad themes, with lyrics such as “Mother, these are the final words I write”. Can you comment on the creation of and the themes of that song?
Marc: The theme is basically suicide, and people struggling with things. That was a song that Fred [Leclercq, bassist] started writing the lyrics for, then I kind of got involved with it and then it became that. It’s not a theme we’ve addressed before, it’s something new, and I think at the same time it’s gonna hit home with a lot of people. I’m sure there’s a lot of people dealing with stuff like that, and like we said we have this whole thing about escapism, a catharsis, making people go “oh, there’s a band singing about that, I can listen to that”, and then when it’s over, it’s over, you can escape it for a while. I think that’s kind of why we did it.
The 11-minute epic “The Edge of the World” is your longest track ever, beating “Soldiers of the Wasteland” with over a minute. Can you explain the idea and story behind this song?
Marc [looks at Herman]: Me again, right?
Herman: Oh, you can do it [laughs].
Marc: The story behind this is actually taken from a story previously written, it’s not something we created. It’s from the Epic of Gilgamesh, a story that predates the Bible by a long, long way. It’s probably been used before, but it’s not really that, we just took that as an influence. As we went along, we thought “ah, this is cool the way it’s developing,” and we kind of changed it, so we didn’t stick hard and fast to the story. But we took it as a concept that we could divide into pieces that would then give the music kind of different directions here and there, depending on what’s happening with the story.
What are the prophecies of Babylon that are referenced in the song?
Marc: Man, that’s the line I didn’t want in the song [laughs]!
Herman: It’s a nonsense line.
Marc: Anyway, it’s a Babylonian tale, from that place. That’s where this tale originates from, but I don’t know what the prophecies are [laughs].
The second bonus track “Evil Dead” – is it paying homage to the 80s-horror cult movie of the same name?
Herman: No, it’s actually a Death [American death metal band] song. So Chuck Schuldiner.
I thought I could hear some “Spirit Crusher” at the end.
Herman: So it’s kind of paying homage to a legendary guitar player who influenced a whole new generation of musicians, including us. He’s Sam’s [Totman, guitarist] favourite guitar player as well. I guess we chose to do it to be different, something that people wouldn’t expect from us at all; especially from DragonForce. So we put our own spin on it, we also did pick this more kind of underground song.
You recorded this album in studios in Sweden, France, the UK, and the US. You must’ve had a busy schedule in between touring last year?
Marc: Yeah, we were busy, we had the job of recording basically everything at the same time as we were doing festivals and stuff, so that was where it became a little bit problematic here and there, trying to give our best there and coming back to do all the other stuff. But, like you said, using the different studios, we were doing it as conveniently as we could for ourselves. So I would do vocals where I live, in my studio, and then it just made things a lot easier because we could just send stuff to each other.
Did you get together as a full band at all during the recording process?
Herman: Well no, you can’t really because the songs develop. So before recording it, we always end up changing it anyways. We usually play together after we finish recording it, because otherwise, you start going “oh, I don’t even like that anymore” [laughs].
Do you think this affected the overall quality of the album in any way?
Marc: I don’t think so, I mean everything is recorded at the same sort of quality wherever we are. So I’m pretty happy with it, the sound is good.
What was the most challenging thing about the creation of this album?
Herman: Getting the cover concept to work with the music, that wasn’t easy. I mean, “challenging”, there’s really no easy album to make. One is easier in some way, but not in another. I guess doing the shows as well and making an album at the same time.
Marc: Yeah, the process of doing both parallel.
Marc, power metal being a very vocally demanding form of music, what steps do you take to ensure you’re able to perform consistently while on tour?
Marc: I guess just “know your songs”, practice them a lot. Know your limitations as well, so know when you can go for it and when you shouldn’t go for it. I think in general it’s the same as playing guitar, you just keep on top of it in your own time, so that when you come to the shows you go “I can do this”. I know what I’m capable of doing, and then, yeah, just keeping on top of it, like a when training for a sport.
Do you have any rituals to take care of your voice?
Marc: I have crazy, really irritating rituals that ruin my day most of the time [laughs], I have to sing quite a lot before I go on stage. I warm up just before going on, and if it’s a long day I’ll warm up earlier on in the day, and sometimes I just have a third one just in case [laughs], cause I’m and idiot and I need to check everything works before I can do something, so kind of like an OCD [laughs]. So that’s my thing, sing all this shit that I have to sing later on so that I know I can do it.
Herman, do you have any pre-show rituals?
Herman: No, no rituals. I try starting to warm up one hour before the show, and play along to music I like to get my brain thinking of music; to be in the zone of music.
This was your first time recording with Gee Anzalone as your drummer, how did having him affect the recording process?
Marc: Didn’t affect me at all, because he was done first [laughs].
Herman: Gee, when we were doing the album, we sent him the demos of the songs, without the drums so he could express himself and work his way into it. He’s been touring with us already for a few years and we did the live DVD [In The Line of Fire – Larger Than Live] together. He’s a great player, and I really enjoy working with Gee, he knows his stuff; his gear, he takes care of himself, he doesn’t need any babysitting.
What are your expectations for your intimate gig at the Black Heart here in London on Wednesday?
Marc: I don’t know, should be fun, should be a good one. It’ll be a small, sweaty show. I’ve already been to the venue, just in the daytime, to check it out and see how big it is.
Herman: The main thing with that was just doing a fun show while we’re in London, before we head off to Asia. You know, the band is a London-band, so it’ll be a bit of chaos at the Black Heart. I’ve only been there once as well last week, just to see what it’s like.
What can the fans coming out expect to see and hear from you guys?
Herman: We’re playing about an hour and a half. We’re gonna play two new songs, because another one of the new songs will be out on Wednesday [“Curse of Darkness”] so we’ll play that one. Obviously “Judgement Day”, we already played that once two weeks ago in Austria, and we’ll be playing it now as well. So a couple of new songs and obviously old favourites, so it’ll just be a get-packed-in and have-a-laugh kind of thing.
Was “Judgement Day” well-received when you played it in Austria?
Marc: I thought it was really well-received actually. I was really surprised, because most songs that people haven’t heard before, especially with them, they hadn’t heard it at all because we played it before we released it online. So you would expect them to be confused, but at the end everyone was getting into it along with the other stuff, so that was cool.
You have an extensive touring schedule laid out already, hitting South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and the United States this summer before hitting UK shores again in October. Is there any place you’re looking forward to playing the most?
Herman: Indonesia.
Marc: Indonesia should be fun.
Herman: Yeah, it’s a good way to kick off the tour. The fans there are so crazy, they are so into metal, it’s unbelievable. So it’s a great way to start the tour, the Philippines also, we did the Summer Slam festival last time. The headliner’s for that one was Megadeth and we were just before Megadeth. The fans there are so crazy, so sometimes you come back to Europe and you go “ahh, okay”.
Marc [laughs]: Yeah, it’s quite different in comparison.
Herman: Yeah, they really appreciate you making it all the way down there for them.
Is there anything you would like to add in the end?
Marc: Uhm, buy the new album [laughs].
Herman: Come and check us out in October! One of the shows [Dover] sold out in like a day; it’s looking |
with him to discuss his hopes for the project, tackling overnight success and the importance of education.
Can you tell us about this project and your involvement in the ASOS Supports Talent initiative? Elf Kid: We wanted to do something in Africa. There were six spots out there that we wanted to go and visit, and we were keen to do stuff with the artists out there. ASOS came to us and said they could make the project happen – it kind of went from there. Are you looking forward to collaborating with Ethiopian musicians as part of the initiative? Elf Kid: Yes, one hundred per cent, because I’m all about culture. I’m African myself and we’re going out there to collaborate with some sick local musicians... we’re (bringing) this thing from South London to Ethiopia. We want them to show us their culture and we want to show them grime. What’s your personal hope for the project? Elf Kid: We want to help out and work with musicians out there, first and foremost. We want to make a tune and a video for it too. We wanna get all the tribes in, all the local kids and just capture the vibe of Ethiopia. This is the first time I’m going to Africa as well, I’ve never been before, so it’s going to be a mad experience, man. “I’m African myself and we’re going out there to collaborate with some sick local musicians... we’re (bringing) this thing from South London to Ethiopia” – Elf Kid What have the last 12 months been like for you? Elf Kid: I’ve gone from Deptford, just an average kid on the block, to a kid that’s just literally toured from January right up until the summer. Touring, making music and doing what I love with all the people that I love doing it with. Life’s changed in a good way because I feel like I’m now in a place where I can represent. I can help the youngers from my area, the elders from my area and help them understand what’s really going on out here. As I’m going out to these places and I’m seeing everything, I’m bringing it back to my block. That’s what it’s about, helping people. Did you anticipate the success of ‘Golden Boy’? Elf Kid: No, not for a second and that’s why it’s sick. We didn’t expect anything. We just did it and worked hard, we made a video and we made a tune. It’s just one of the rhythms too, just one of a few of our tunes that were there, floating about. The hook was banging, people knew the hook before and we just put it out there to be honest, but it worked out. The video was shot in my hood, in my estate. Everything is local. Everything in that video is my life, really. What is your vision for your own music? Elf Kid: Going forward with this Ethiopia project through ASOS, I want people to know that I don’t want to just be in my own bubble. We’re going out to show people that we’re doing grime in Africa – man is pushing the limits. I’m trying to be anything and everything I want. I want to have the freedom to wake up one day and go to Ethiopia, but at the same time, I want to wake up on another day and work with people in the electronic world, DJs and producers. I want to do what I want as Elf Kid and have a good time while I’m doing it. I want to be known for that: pushing boundaries and pushing limits and doing things that no one’s done before, but still being the same Elf Kid from Deptford.
Photography Amy Gwatkin
How did your time as part of The Square benefit your solo work? Elf Kid: It’s benefited everything. The energy that we all gave to each other and the vibes we caught. The way we came up was through pirate radio, don’t forget, and that came back just as we were coming into the game really. We were hopping barriers to go to Deja Vu, Mode FM and NTS as kids. I’m 20 now and we were doing that stuff when I was 17. The last few years have gone so quick – we’ve gone from that to the stage, but we’re still here in Lewisham and we’re still representing. How much of a challenge do you find working solo in comparison to working as part of a crew? Elf Kid: In the crew I’m Elf Kid, without the crew, I’m Elf Kid. It doesn’t change. How do you think the DIY ethos of the current grime scene has benefited artists like yourself? Elf Kid: It’s sick. Grime has been around for like 13 years and now it’s all over the place. I started listening to grime when I was in Year 7 and now it’s sick that everyone is doing well, especially people like Stormzy and Skepta. He just went gold with his album on Boy Better Know, which means that people like me can now make music and release on whatever label we want. It opens sick doors for everyone. We can now step out with no pressure from any labels and do what we want – and the nation is listening to us. It’s inspirational because we’re just youts from the ends and now we’ve got a big door that’s been bust open by all the olders, for us to walk through and push the boundaries even further. “I want to be known for that: pushing boundaries and pushing limits and doing things that no one’s done before, but still being the same Elf Kid from Deptford” – Elf Kid What did you make of Skepta winning the Mercury Prize for Konnichiwa? Elf Kid: When I saw it, I got a little tingling feeling down my spine. I don’t know why, but that’s how you know it’s special. I saw his mum on stage with him and I got a tingling feeling. I don’t care if I didn’t do grime ever again, just to see that, man like Skepta on that stage winning a Mercury award and so many years after Dizzee won it, it just made me think that there’s no limits to this. We’re not here to play games. If you hadn’t got to where you are and weren’t involved in music, what you do think you’d be doing? Elf Kid: I think I’d be a preacher. Actually, either a footballer or preacher, but I was raised as a Christian by my mum and I talk so much and have so much to say. If I put my energies into something like that, I’d be sick at it. I’ve always wanted to do talking though, like, I was always good at talking in assembly. Sometimes when I say things, I’m shocked at what I’ve just said, because stuff just comes so naturally to me. That’s why music is good, because I can say everything on a track. Looking ahead, what do you think the future holds for Elf Kid? Elf Kid: As a musician, my next thing to do is release good music. I feel like my job now is to release music that the people need. I’ve listened to everything, I’ve heard everything. I know what the people need and I’m going to deliver that. As for the future, I want to get a degree, do the preacher ting, maybe start an organisation and do talks and one day, I’d like to be a businessman. I have no limits, but I know that, right now, music is what comes first. And I’m ready to deliver. ASOS Supports Talent is a global initiative from online fashion destination ASOS, providing up-and-coming creative talent with funding, mentoring and support to realise personal passion projects. Find out more here.This look has to be one of my favorite marbles so far. I love the colors, and the patterns turned out so well. I’ll have to keep in mind these types of polishes for future marbling. It seems like most colors without too much sparkle work pretty well, which is to be expected. This look is a base of Trixie with Neve, Ginessa, and Suvi on top. Suvi comes out very thin, so it barely even gives a green tint to the silver underneath. The thinner colors also make for cool patterns since the spread out and push the other colors into tighter ribbons of color.
Each time I do a water marble there is a favorite nail or two. I really liked how the thumb on my left hand turned out. I’ve been trying to practice with getting my nails more even.
AdvertisementsRaNia previously announced their plans to start promotions in the U.S this Summer and has now revealed that they will be teaming up with Britney Spears' managers�Larry Rudolph as well as Adam Leber!
Their agency DR Music confirmed, "Larry Rudolph and Adam Leber, two of Britney Spears' managers decided to be RaNia's managers throughout their U.S. promotions."
"Larry Rudolph asked this and that about our group at Fireworks. After requesting various resources, he contacted us saying that he wants to bring us under his management. This is good news for us and we are aware that this kind of partnership cannot be obtained easily," they said.
"[Larry Rudolph] was impressed by 'Just Go's powerful choreography and charismatic stage so he wanted to directly manage their U.S. promotions."
As mentioned before,�Empire Records will be handling the girls' distribution while�Fireworks handles their American management. They'll be introducing themselves to the American audience through a TV documentary series with�MTV.
RaNia will travel to the U.S. mid-May to start their U.S. promotions this summer.ROHTAK: The notorious khap panchayats of Haryana on Sunday demanded a legal ban on same-gotra and same-village marriages, saying such a measure could solve the problem of rising crime against women.Leaders of 30 khap panchayats who met in Rohtak passed a resolution calling for an amendment in the Hindu Marriage Act to bring the ban on such marriages into effect.The leaders vowed to take up this demand at the highest level and said they would visit Delhi next month for submitting their representations to the President, Prime Minister and the Union law minister.The meeting, held at the Chhotu Ram Dharamshala, was hosted by Rohtak’s Chorasi khap and presided over by its leader, Hardeep Ahlawat.Terming modern culture as “obscene”, the leaders said the state’s social fabric had been vitiated because people were “blindly following so-called modernization which is the root cause of crime against women and incidents of rape”.“The minds of the younger generation have been corrupted due to invasion of obscene and vulgar culture. Our youngsters have forgotten the rich values and customs of our society,” said Baljit Malik of Gathwala khap.Addressing the meeting, Hardeep Ahlawat demanded a change in the law to ban matrimonial ties between couples from same gotras and same villages — traditionally viewed as brothers and sisters.“A legal ban on such marriages would also help curb the menace of honour killings and female feticide which has brought a bad name to Haryanvi society,” said Om Prakash Dhankar, a khap leader.Other leaders argued that there would not be any honour killings or female foeticide if same-gotra marriages were banned. “People kill their daughters out of the fear that one day they might elope with men of the same gotra,” said Dhankar.“A delegation of khap panchayat would visit Delhi on November 5 with copies of our memorandum to be handed over to India’s top leaders. We would also call on the national commission for women the same day and asked it to raise the demand,” he added.The khap leaders distanced themselves from a recent statement of a khap mahapanchayat spokesman who had sought lowering of the marriageable age of girls from 18 to 16 years to avoid rapes. The leaders said such statements had been spoiling the image of khap panchayats.“We strongly differ with such people. We have decided to launch social awareness campaign against extravagant marriages, dowry etc in society,” he said.The khap panchayats have also urged the Haryana government to ban wedding ceremonies at night which they said lead to road accidents. Khap leaders said most people get drunk while attending marriages at night and then drive, resulting in road accidents.Photo by Leah Nash
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks' new album is Wig Out at Jagbags (out January 7 via Matador in the U.S., January 6 in the UK via Domino). They've just announced a North American tour, which follows their already-announced European dates. Support comes from Speedy Ortiz, Tyvek, Purling Hiss, Disappears, and Endless Boogie.
Check out Larry Fitzmaurice's interview with Malkmus, and below the dates, watch their lyric video for "Lariat".
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks:
01-13 Leeds, England - Brudenell
01-14 Glasgow, Scotland - Oran Mor
01-15 Manchester, England - Gorilla
01-16 London, England - Forum
01-18 Paris, France - Divan Du Monde
01-20 Madrid, Spain - Joy Eslava
01-21 Barcelona, Spain - Bikini
01-23 Milan, Italy - Tunnel
01-24 Bologna, Italy - Covo Club
01-25 Fribourg, Switzerland - Fri-Son
01-26 Frankfurt, Germany - Zoom
01-27 Berlin, Germany - Postbahnhof
01-29 Copenhagen, Denmark - Vega
01-30 Hamburg, Germany - Knust
01-31 Cologne, Germany - Gebaude 9
02-01 Brussels, Belgium - Botanique Orangerie
02-02 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Bitterzoet
02-12 Denver, CO - Gothic Theatre *
02-14 Columbia, MO - Mojo's *
02-15 St. Louis, MO - Old Rock House *
02-16 Omaha, NE - The Waiting Room *
02-18 Minneapolis, MN - Cedar Cultural Center *
02-19 Madison, WI - High Noon Saloon *
02-20 Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall #
02-21 Ferndale, MI - The Loving Touch #
02-22 Toronto, Ontario - Lee's Palace #
02-23 Montreal, Quebec - Cafe Campus #
02-25 Boston, MA - Paradise #
02-26 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom #
02-27 Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall of Williamsburg!
02-28 Washington, DC - Black Cat!
03-01 Philadelphia, PA - Theatre of Living Arts!
03-03 Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle $
03-04 Atlanta, GA - Terminal West $
03-05 Birmingham, AL - The Bottletree $
03-06 New Orleans, LA - The Parish at House of Blues $
03-07 Houston, TX - Fitzgerald's Upstairs $
03-09 Dallas, TX - Granada Theater $
03-15 Portland, OR - Star Theater
03-27 San Francisco, CA - Slim's %
03-28 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre %
03-29 San Diego, CA - Casbah %
03-30 Pioneertown, CA - Pappy & Harriet's Pioneertown %
04-01 Phoenix, AZ - The Crescent Ballroom %
04-02 Las Vegas, NV - Beauty Bar %
04-03 Salt Lake City, UT - Urban Lounge %
04-05 Missoula, MT - Top Hat %
04-07 Calgary, Alberta - Republik %
04-08 Edmonton, Alberta - Starlite Room %
04-10 Vancouver, British Columbia - Rickshaw Theatre %
04-11 Victoria, British Columbia - Lucky Bar %
04-12 Seattle, WA - Neptune Theatre %
with Tyvek
with Disappears
! with Endless Boogie
$ with Purling Hiss
% with Speedy Ortizby
There are a few things in the world that just don’t make sense to me: Nicholas Cage’s successful film career. Vegetarianism. Crocs.
But if there’s one thing that completely mystifies me it’s attempted censorship. As an artist, I think it offends my very nature. Anytime that ugly little beast coerces a company to remove any work of art, media, or culture from the collective “many” because of the opinion of the narrow-minded, but vocal, “few”, I get very angry. We all have the right to our opinions, but nobody has the right to undermine free speech and promote censorship.
The question, one that I can’t answer even though I’ve thought about it, is “Why are some Americans completely incapable of having a sense of humour about their own country?”
(AP Photo/Teran/TBWA)
So here’s an ad that ran last month in Mexio, created by Teran/TBWA for Absolut Vodka. The map shows Mexico’s borders before The American-Mexican war of 1846-1848. The war started when Mexico had the cojones to not recognize the U.S. annexation of Texas. It’s been a sore spot with Mexico ever since, as the transfer of land and re-drawing of borders post-war usually tends to be.
The joke is simple, innocent, and harmless, and was only ever intended to run in Mexico. No harm, no foul. That’s until American media outlets got a hold of it, the ad started to spread across the web, and I’m sure you can guess what happened next.
People lost their shit. The Absolut website got a couple thousand complaints, threats of a boycott, and the Neo-Cons foamed at the mouth at the audacity of anyone to ever assume that the world could possibly be a better place is America had less land. People starting reacting as if Mexico had made a formal declaration of war and was massing troops along the Rio Grande.
The offender takes over a billboard in Mexico City. Pic courtesy of Kyle Fletcher.
The main point of all this, the one that drives me nuts, is that somewhere along the line everyone managed to forget that this was just an ad. It’s not a UN treaty. It’s a vodka ad.
Last week, Absolut’s makers Vin & Spirit said the ad was created “with a Mexican sensibility” and was not meant for the U.S. market. Absolut released an apology saying “In no way was this meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues.”
No shit. That’s because it’s an ADVERTISEMENT FOR VODKA. Just the fact that anyone should have to explain that a print ad isn’t literally suggesting the Mexican annexation of Texas proves how worked up some people are. Worse than that, the fact that some Americans would react with such vitriol towards Mexico over something so inconsequential illustrates just how intrinsically racist the offended, boycott-happy bunch really are.
Want proof? Here are some of the choice comments from the website absolutads.com:
“How about an ad that shows a mushroom clowd [sic] over Mexico and USA people rejoycing [sic] that we don’t have to put up a fence to keep law breakers out. Thats no worse than you giving half of our country away.”
“In an world of Absolut America haters, the USA wouldn’t exist. But, where will the Mexicans run to for jobs and indoor plumbing?”
“I know what an intelligent marketing move is: pandering to a bunch of illiterate Mexicans, most of whom are dirt-poor and have no discerning taste anyway, while pissing off millions of savvy Americans, who can, far and away, afford to purchase much more of your product and are more likely to drink it anyway. Genius!”
“How dare you INSULT The United States just to sell your poison to some hispanics. I hope you go under from lack of sales.”
“The makers of Absolut have crossed the line. They are now encouraging the overthrow of my country. Screw them.”
Who are these people? If they put half the energy of their vehemence over this ad and morphed it into, say, working to fight cancer or stopping global warming or saving Darfur, just imagine what they could accomplish. “Encouraging the overthrow of my country…”. Are you fucking kidding me?
One particular foamy-mouthed Neo-Con blogger, who I’m not going to name because a) I don’t want to give them any more credit, and b) I’m worried they’ll try and have me killed, went as far as to post this lovely graphic response to the ad, photo-shopped by an equally foamy-mouthed reader:
Wow. I don’t know what else to say to that except wow. I wonder if these people get all chest-beaty when they think about the Statue of Liberty, or does that entire “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…” concept only get upheld when it’s convenient?
Sure, the global opinion of America is at an all time low and maybe they’re feeling a little deflated, but it’s still the richest, loudest, shiniest, showiest, most powerful country in the world. Isn’t that enough to just chill out and let Mexico get a little jab in? Do people seriously think that Mexico will have a few vodkas and say “Gee, that Absolut ad has the right idea… let’s take our non-existent army and invade California. That’ll show those Yanks…”.
I’m not trying to paint an inaccurate picture that these few complaints speak for all Americans. The problem is that these are the type of people that speak up. This is who Absolut is listening to. That’s what bothers me.
I’m disturbed that the racism of someone who can’t correctly spell “cloud” is partially determining what kind of advertising the rest of us should see. No matter the issue, discrimination and hatred is never a valid response.
Thanks to kp for sending me this.Artist’s impression of the wandering black hole with optical and X-ray images of the real thing (inset). CXC/M. Weiss; X-ray: NASA/CXC/NRAO/D.-C. Kim; Optical: NASA/STScI
Astronomers are chasing a rogue black hole with a mass 160 million times greater than the Sun.
The black hole, located 3.9 billion light years away, was first spotted by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. While most black holes are stationary, and sit at the centres of galaxies, this one is unusual because it is on the move. Recommended Supermassive black hole spotted tearing star to shreds: study Space
It is also huge: so huge, in fact that one theory suggests it was formed when two smaller black holes – each one of them big enough to be classified as supermassive – collided.
It is possible that this collision is what set the resulting super-supermassive black hole on the move, a phenomenon astronomers call a “recoil”.
When the two smaller black holes crashed into each other they would have created gravitational waves that went out more strongly in one direction than in others. In line with Newton’s law, the newly minted black hole might have been pushed in the opposite direction to the trajectory of the waves.
The force generated to propel the black hole depends on the direction and rate of spin of the two smaller holes. An accurate assessment of the new black hole’s speed and momentum will yield, though retrospective calculation, strong information about these elusive variables.
The renegade black hole has been named CXO J101527.2+625911. If it was, indeed, formed by the merger of two smaller ones, it implies that their two host galaxies probably also merged. Indeed, NASA researchers report signs of disturbance in star clusters in the vicinity of their target.
A paper describing the black hole can be found on the preprint site axRiv.Salty language lands Russia's Lavrov in social media storm
MOSCOW - Reuters
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir shake hands as they attend a news conference after a meeting in Moscow, Russia, August 11, 2015. Reuters Photo
It was meant to be a news conference about solving the Syria crisis and combating Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), but an unguarded remark into the microphone from Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov grabbed all the attention.Even a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow joined the social media storm triggered after Lavrov let slip the less than diplomatic language on August 11 as he and his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir met the press.Taped footage showed Lavrov waiting as part of the conference is translated into Arabic, checking his mobile phone, making notes, adjusting glasses, briefly rubbing his forehead and then saying quietly: "Fucking morons."It was not clear who or what Lavrov was referring to and his spokeswoman, who was present, said she did not hear the minister swear and that his talks with Jubeir went well.The two had earlier failed to resolve a disagreement over the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.The reaction on social media included a contribution from ex-U.S. ambassador Michael McFaul in response to a suggestion that Lavrov had aimed the comment at the Saudi minister.That would be a major embarrassment for Moscow at a time when it has launched a new diplomatic push over Syria."Really? And he used to accuse me of undiplomatic language," McFaul wrote on Twitter.Lavrov's spokeswoman said he was not annoyed about the talks with Jubeir."I cannot comment on what's not related to the essence of the talks," she said. "Interjections, noises, sneezing - I think it's unnecessary to comment on lip reading. Everyone hears differently."A Reuters photographer and cameraman present said the remark by Lavrov, known for often getting annoyed with photographers, appeared aimed at those who started snapping pictures as he raised his hand to adjust his glasses.But some on social media, tongues at least partly in cheeks, drew different conclusions.One Twitter user said Riyadh would respond by pumping more oil and dragging the price further down to hurt Russia, which is overwhelmingly reliant on energy exports.Microsoft today announced a few updates related to its Kinect sensor.
For one thing, the company said that it has followed through on its promise to expose RGB, depth, and infrared data from the Kinect for third-party Universal Windows Platform (UWP) applications to use, with the launch of a new Kinect driver for Windows 10.
But the new driver also makes it possible for end users to easily set up the Kinect to function as a simple webcam. There were other ways to do this, including code in the Kinect for Windows software development kit (SDK) beta 2, but now it’s as easy as opening Device Manager on a Windows 10 machine and locating the driver under the “Kinect sensor devices” folder. You’ll be able to use the Kinect to make Skype video calls, and you can configure the Kinect to perform Windows Hello biometric authentication through face recognition, Microsoft’s Yin Li wrote in a blog post.
With the release of the Xbox Summer Update in July, Microsoft also enhanced the Kinect’s capability for developers. “Apps that use the Kinect sensor’s RGB, infrared, and/or depth cameras will run on Xbox with same code, and Xbox can also use the Kinect RGB camera as a normal webcam for Skype-like scenarios,” Li wrote.Adam Sachs is just a little more than a month into his tenure as CEO of Midroll Media, after joining the company in September 2013. It seemed like this would be a good time to give readers and Earwolf fans a chance to get to know him better and learn more about what he envisions for the company and podcasting in general.
Q. How did you get started working at Midroll?
A. I was in New York City running my previous company, StepOut.com, when I got an email introducing me to Jeff [Ullrich, founder of Earwolf and Midroll Media]. That email came from a mutual friend of ours, Ally Hord, who is an executive producer at Funny Or Die.
Jeff and I met over coffee when he was in New York in early 2013. It was inspiring to hear about the company that he was building. In fact, I was so excited that afterward I immediately ran home to tell my wife about how well the meeting went, and what a great opportunity it would be to work with Jeff at Midroll.
What he was doing combined so many things that I love. One is comedy. I’ve been a life-long comedy fan. Ally Hord–who introduced us–during and after college she and I were writing partners. We would write comedy spec scripts, and then she would go on to achieve our collective career goal by herself. Radio-Television-Film was my college major and still a big interest for me. And, so, those aspects alone were exciting to me.
What was perhaps more exciting and impressive–and what I was so envious of–was that Jeff built a sustainable, profitable company from the ground up. He didn’t have a board, he didn’t have investors, and he was able to make decisions by himself, or with his trusted advisors and management team. But ultimately he was able to guide the direction of the business, in a way where he didn’t have to rely on investment dollars coming in.
At the time [Jeff and I met], I was at a company that struggled to get to profitability. It was a venture-funded company, and eventually was acquired by IAC / Match.com. It was a different world. I had a board, I had investors, and I did not have profits. Therefore I was so excited about the business Jeff had built.
Q. Were you already a podcasting fan?
A. I’ve been a big podcasting fan for a long time. At my previous company, I traveled to India all the time and podcasts helped me get through those flights. I listened to a lot of different stuff, including Earwolf shows. I’ve been a big Improv4Humans fan. In High School I used to take the train from New Jersey into NYC to see Matt Besser and Assscat at UCB. It’s very cool to be working with his show now.
Q. What attracts you to podcasting, as a business?
A. I love the fact that podcasting feels like a truly pure art form. The artists have the freedom to create their content when they want, where they want, and how they want. They get to do it in a way where, typically, they don’t have a studio giving them notes. What results feels very free, authentic and original. I feel that it’s some of the best content I’ve been exposed to.
What also is so powerful is the relationship it creates between the host and the listener. As a long-time podcast listener I have felt that. You just feel a connection to the podcast host or artist in a way that you don’t feel when you watch them on TV.
Q. What’s the biggest opportunity for the business of podcasting?
A. We’re still in early adopter mode from a consumer basis, a listener basis, an advertiser basis, and an artist basis. There are more people everyday who are getting turned on to podcasting–listeners, artists, and advertisers. But there is still so much greenfield opportunity to get more of the world’s best content creators making podcasts, for more mass audience adoption, and more big advertisers. We truly believe it’s going to happen.
Listening to podcasts is a mobile experience. People are turning away from traditional media and moving to on-demand media. There’s going to be 4G in cars that is helping people to access content while they commute. The wind is at our backs.
Q. It seems like we’re at this precipice. The stars are aligning for on-demand audio, and, as you say, people will be able to get that content in their cars more easily than before. Given this, what do you predict will happen in a year?
A. A year will go by quickly. We’ll have people using 4G in their cars to listen to podcasts within a year, without having to hack in an auxiliary cable from their phone to their dashboard.
I think that in five years we’ll take that for granted. We’ll just blink and there we are. At least that’s my hope.
Q. Kind of like how five years ago we wouldn’t have predicted that so many of us would just be watching Hulu and Netflix all the time?
A. Yes. There were a few people doing it, and then suddenly you blink and it’s a major part of the fabric of our media consumption.
Q. So, what’s in store for Midroll and Earwolf in the next year?
A. There are a lot of things I can’t talk about, yet (laughs).
What I can say is that we really are focused on creating more great shows. With Earwolf, for example, we’re not slowing down. We have a couple of new shows that we signed and are working on their first episodes.
Looking forward, we’re not restricting ourselves entirely to comedy, but we’re maintaining that same integrity when it comes to only producing shows that we think are the highest quality. We’ll have more to talk about soon. But know that we’re in the process of creating more content under the Earwolf banner, and other shows, perhaps under a different banner.
On the Midroll side the momentum is really incredible. We’re working with some great content creators. Some are from traditional media businesses that are finally getting into podcasts. Others are from new media or are artists who have podcasts who need help monetizing.
But for us it’s all about growth. We are a profitable company and we’re investing all of the profits back into the business to keep growing on all sides. We have hired a new Director of Business Development, and we’re continuing to hire more people. We want to continue this momentum.
Q. Do you think podcasting has room to grow, in 1, 3 and 5 years?
A. I think it has a lot of room to grow, and it’s already grown an incredible amount. Our most popular [Earwolf] shows have quadrupled in audience size over the past couple of years. They’re big and they’re going to get bigger, gaining more listeners. More great content creators are coming into the space.
Also, the tools for listening are continuing to improve. You can listen in more places. Everywhere you go you’ll be able to access the content. It will be ubiquitous.
So, we feel bullish about the opportunity.No other contender close
TORONTO MAY 26th, 2014 - In a random sampling of public opinion taken by the Forum Poll™ among 1694 Canadian voters, one seventh (15%) say Peter MacKay would be the best leader for the Conservative party when they elect one, and this is three times as many as cite any other leading Conservative politician (Jason Kenney - 5%, Brad Wall - 4%, Tony Clement - 4%). Fully one third (the plurality) say none of the politicians listed would make a good leader (32%), and more than a quarter have no opinion (28%). Among Conservative voters, preference for MacKay is even more pronounced (23%), and half as many say none would be a good leader (19%). Jim Prentice is especially popular in Alberta (15%), as is Brad Wall in the prairies (23%). MacKay is most popular in Atlantic Canada (35%).
“Of course, asking the general population who would make the best party leader is difficult, as only party members vote, and there are very few of those in the population. Nevertheless, this is an indication Peter MacKay has a profile and presence that elevates him above the usual suspects, among the general public as well as among Conservative Party voters," said Forum Research President, Dr. Lorne Bozinoff.
Lorne Bozinoff, Ph.D. is the president and founder of Forum Research. He can be reached at lbozinoff@forumresearch.com or at (416) 960-9603.UPDATE 5:15 p.m. ET: The storm has weakened a bit, but remains a Category 5 Super Typhoon, with maximum sustained winds of 165 miles per hour. Continued weakening is likely overnight on Monday and into Tuesday. The forecast track now takes it far enough off the Japanese coast to diminish concerns there about major impacts.
UPDATE Nov. 3, 7 a.m. ET: Super Typhoon Nuri has maintained its extraordinary Category 5 intensity for at least 12 hours, and remains a 180 mile per hour storm. It is still forecast to intensify slightly to a record tying strength on Monday before beginning to weaken as it moves over colder ocean waters. The storm's path may bring the storm closer to Japan than previously expected, as the country is within the "cone of uncertainty" from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. So some impacts on Japan are possible, even though a direct landfall is less likely.
UPDATE: 10:15 p.m. ET: A video (see below) recorded from the International Space Station on Sunday shows Super Typhoon Nuri moving over the planet in real-time. Discovered by Twitter user Earthspace (@earthspace101), the video offers a rare high-definition, top-down view of the powerful weather event.
UPDATED: 5:30 p.m. ET: The Joint Typhoon Warning Center has officially upgraded the storm's intensity to maximum sustained winds of 180 miles per hour. It is forecast to intensify further, to a rare 195 mph storm by Monday. This intensity would be "record matching," according to the center's meteorologists.
The northwest Pacific Ocean basin, home to some of the strongest typhoons on the planet, has done it again. Barely one month after Super Typhoon Vongfong peaked at an intensity that was among the top 30 most intense such storms on record, Super Typhoon Nuri rapidly intensified on Sunday to rival or beat that milestone.
The storm is located over the open ocean, hundreds of miles to the south of Japan, and is forecast to swerve to the northeast, moving out to sea before hitting land. Based on satellite estimates, it now has maximum sustained winds of 180 miles per hour, which is about equal to or stronger than Vongfong was.
See also: The 8 Best Views of Category 5 Super Typhoon Vongfong
However, both Super Typhoon Vongfong and Super Typhoon Nuri likely come in behind the intensity of 2013's Super Typhoon Haiyan, which devastated the city of Tacloban, Philippines, with sustained winds of about 190 mph and a massive storm surge.
The satellite imagery of Super Typhoon Nuri is of a storm straight out of central casting, with an area of towering thunderstorms surrounding a pinhole-like, 15-mile wide eye. The storm intensified rapidly from Saturday to Sunday, going from a Category 2 storm to what will likely be classified as a Category 5 storm in the next advisory that will be issued from the U.S. military's Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
Water vapor image of Super Typhoon Nuri at |
what it was before the raid, marking the end of some of the most challenging weeks in the site’s history.Real Madrid and Olympique Lyon have reached an agreement for the transfer of striker Mariano Diaz, according to reports from Spain. The French club will pay €8 million for Mariano, who barely played last season.
However, the attacked proved to be a useful player when given the chance to play and even scored a crucial goal against Deportivo which allowed Real Madrid to come back and earn the three points at the Bernabeu.
Considering that Alvaro Morata is set to leave Real Madrid as well, Karim Benzema won't have a backup striker behind him on the depth chart unless Madrid decide to sign someone this summer. Reports indicate that Monaco star Kylian Mbappe is on Madrid's radar but he would like to be more than a reserve next season, something that could be problematic if Zidane can't find him those big minutes he wants to keep developing as a player.These easy muffins to make are only sweetened with apples and dates. So here I am again, promising you another delicious HEALTHY dessert!
The only bad thing about classic muffins – you know, the ones that have all purpose flour, sugar, and so on – is that they can often be carb- and sugar-heavy.
Not my babies!
These muffins are wonderfully light, with a slightly sweet apple-nutty flavor and a delightful texture, balanced with rolled oats and almond flour.
Did you know that almond flour gives a sweet, nutty flavor to baked goods and is high in protein, fiber, vitamin E and healthy fat? And by balancing with rolled oats, the muffins come out lighter without losing the moist taste.
The combination of apples, rolled oats, almond flour, Greek yogurt and coconut oil is amazing. So mind blowing that I HAD to make them three times in less than two weeks.
Now, the interesting part is that I only sweetened them with apples sauce and dates. Actually, I did my own apple sauce, which is, by the way, one of the easiest things to make. The only trick is to choose a SWEET variety of apples.
How To Make Apple Sauce: core the apples, cut them in slices and add them to a saucepan on medium heat together with the water. Bring to a boil and then turn down the heat. Let simmer for 15 to 20 minutes and then blend them until smooth.
Now, going back to my babies, all you need to do is really combine all the ingredients together: rolled oats, almond flour (you can try using your favorite flour, but I won’t guarantee the same taste), 2 eggs, baking powder, cinnamon, Greek yoghurt, salt, dates (mashed), apple sauce and coconut oil (don’t like the coconut oil? No worries, use olive oil instead). Mix them well until batter is smooth. Then transfer it to the muffin tins, filling them all the way up. Top each muffin with almond flakes (or your favorite thing) and bake them for 30 minutes. Et Voilà, que easy peasy apple muffins to make!
Serve them as a quick, easy-to-grab kind of breakfast, as a healthy snack, or even a DELICIOUS dessert – make sure you buy vanilla ice-cream for that! I like mines right before my training runs as it feels like I am running with the wind. I mean very fast!
… you gotta try them soon … maybe this weekend?! ;)
5.0 from 4 reviews Print Easy Apple Muffins To Make Author: Cook it fit Prep time: 15 mins Cook time: 30 mins Total time: 45 mins Serves: 12 These Apple Muffins are light, slightly sweet from the homemade sauceapple and dates and very delicious. Ingredients 2 cups rolled oats
2 cups almond flour
2 eggs
15 fresh dates (mix them in the blender until mashed)
4 apples (make your own sauce apple)
150 gr plain Greek yoghurt
2 tbs coconut oil, melted (or olive oil, but it's not the same)
1 ½ tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp sea salt Instructions First things first, preheat the oven to 200°C (~400°F) and grease a muffin pan with olive oil ( or line it with muffin tins). I personally like to grease them with olive oil. Secondly, prepare the applesauce: core the apples, cut them in slices and add them to a saucepan on medium heat together with the water. Bring to a boil and then turn down the heat. Let simmer for 15 to 20 minutes and then blend them until smooth. Thirdly, add the rolled oats to a food processor or blender and process on high speed so the oats turn into coarse flour. Then add the dates to the blender and process them until mashed (smooth). Transfer this to a large mixing bowl and add the rest of the ingredients: almond flour, eggs (beat them first in a small bowl), cinnamon, baking powder, salt, Greek yoghurt, apple sauce and coconut oil (melted beforehand) and the apple sauce. Mix all the ingredients until smooth. In case you prefer the muffins sweet (like really sweet), I'd suggest you taste them to see if it needs more applesauce or maybe you could use honey. Divide the batter into the muffin tins, filling them all the way up. Top each muffin with almond flakes and bake them for about 30 minutes. Let cool for a bit before taking them out of their tins and they will release easier. Enjoy! Notes Store in an airtight container or covered with plastic wrap for several days. Freeze for longer storage.
Recipe slightly adapted from Green Kitchen Stories.
Did you make these muffins? :) Please let me know how it turned out for you too! Leave a comment below or share a picture on Instagram and tag photos you post of my recipes with he hashtag #cookitfit so I can see. Wordpress Recipe Plugin by EasyRecipe 3.5.3208
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Enjoy them & be happy!Xoxo, CrisSusan is a speech-language pathologist with over 30 years experience working with students with language-learning disorders and complex communication needs. She is also the owner of Language Learning Apps, LLC. They develop applications designed to help children learn necessary language skills for communicating and literacy learning.
People who use AAC are those individuals whose current mode of communication does not meet all their communication needs; restricts the quality and quantity of interactions with others.
All individuals are considered potential candidates for AAC; ASHA and the Joint Commission for Persons with Disabilities have a “zero exclusion” criterion and consider not whether an individual is eligible for services, but rather consider where along the continuum they are currently operating as a starting point. As long as there is a discrepancy between needs and abilities, an individual qualifies for services in AAC.
Best practices also dictate that, while there is a relationship between cognitive and linguistic skills, this is not a causal relationship. Language skills are just as likely to affect cognition as vice versa.
There is no such thing as the typical or average AAC user. You will find individuals who need access to AAC from all age groups and a wide range of diagnostic categories. There is almost no group of clients or students you will work with where you will not find some need for AAC. Many congenital and acquired disabilities will require the use of AAC. You will find users who have a communication disorder due to a congenital disorder, and those for whom it is acquired; such as aphasia, traumatic brain injury, and ALS.
Children who do not have speech or whose speech is not meeting their communication needs need to be considered as candidates for AAC intervention. Among children cerebral palsy, Autism Spectrum Disorder and other developmental disabilities probably are the largest groups of AAC users; however, there are a variety of other disabilities or disorders that will require you to think about AAC access. Children with Angelman’s Syndrome, girls with Rett syndrome, developmental apraxia of speech and a host of less common or low-incidence disorders can show up on the SLP’s caseload.
Among adults, cerebral palsy and developmental disabilities continue to be a large group of AAC users. Also adults with ALS, MS, and those who have suffered a stroke/ CVA or spinal cord injury.
In both adults and children traumatic brain injury (TBI) also accounts for too many AAC users.
Not all of these users require high technology AAC systems to communicate. But they do require a robust system that allows them to be effective communicators. The “…ultimate goal of an AAC intervention is not to find a technological solution to the communication problem, but to enable the individual to efficiently and effectively engage in a variety of interactions.” (Beukelman and Mirenda, 1998)
They all also require that there be partners who keep them motivated and stimulated, who provide opportunities for them to communicate, who assess their AAC systems on an on-going bases, and who provided the aided input and modeling needed for them to learn how to use their AAC system and language. These partners also need to know the wide range of communication functions that need to be represented in the users’ toolbox.
As we continue to talk about AAC systems, bear in mind that a functional AAC system is a compilation of strategies that allow the individual to communicate effectively a variety of intents in a variety of contexts, with a variety of partners.Barack Obama today released four top secret memos that allowed the CIA under the Bush administration to torture al-Qaida and other suspects held at Guantánamo and secret detention centres round the world.
But, in an accompanying statement, Obama ruled out prosecutions against those who had been involved. It is a "time for reflection, not retribution," he said.
The memos provide an insight into the techniques used by the CIA and the legal basis on which the Bush administration gave the go-ahead.
In the first of the memos, dated 1 August 2002, the justice department gave the go-ahead to John Rizzo, then acting general counsel to the CIA, for operatives to move to the "increased pressure phase" in interrogating an al-Qaida suspect.
Ten techniques are approved, listed as: attention grasp, walling (in which the suspect could be pushed into a wall), a facial hold, a facial slap, cramped confinement, wall standing, sleep deprivation, insects placed in a confinement box (the suspect had a fear of insects) and the waterboard. In the latter, "the individual is bound securely to an inclined bench, which is approximately four feet by seven feet. The individual's feet are generally elevated. A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner........produces the perception of'suffocation and incipient panic'."
'Walling' involved use of a plastic neck collar to slam suspects into a specially-built wall that the CIA said made the impact sound worse than it actually was. Other methods include food deprivation.
The techniques were applied to at least 14 suspects.
The Bush administration, in particular former vice-president Dick Cheney, claimed that waterboarding did not amount to torture but the Obama adminstration has ruled that it is. Obama ordered the closure of Guantánamo and the CIA secret detention sites abroad.
In spite of that, civil rights organisations have been disappointed by a series of rulings by the Obama administration that have protected a lot of material relating to Guantánamo and the sites abroad. The release of the memos today reversed that trend, though there will be unhappiness over the immunity from prosecution.
Obama, in a statement from the White House, said: "In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carrying out their duties relying in good faith upon the legal advice from the department of justice that they will not be subject to prosecution."
Anthony Romero, the ACLU executive director, said: "President Obama's assertion that there should not be prosecutions of government officials who may have committed crimes before a thorough investigation has been carried out is simply untenable."
The ACLU described the legal basis for torture as spurious.
Echoing the president, the attorney-general, Eric Holder, reiterated that there would be no prosecution of CIA operatives working within the guidelines set by the Bush administration."It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the justice department," Holder said.
The director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, told CIA employees that "this is not the end of the road on these issues", apparently in expectation of Congressional inquiries and court actions abroad. He promised legal and financial help for any CIA employees who faced such action.
In Spain, the chances of court action against six senior Bush administration members over the torture receded today after a ruling by the attorney-general, Candido Conde-Pumpido.
He said that any such action should be heard in a US court rather than a Spanish one, and that he would not allow Spain's legal system to be used as a plaything for political ends.
"If there is a reason to file a complaint against these people, it should be done before local courts with jurisdiction, in other words in the United States," he told reporters.
Spanish human rights lawyers last month asked Judge Baltasar Garzón, who indicted the former Chilean president Augusto Pinochet in 1998, to consider filing charges against the former US attorney-general, Alberto Gonzales, and five others.Drivers can now see what is happening in front of a car or bus moving in front of them, thanks to augmented reality technology. Researchers from Portugal are developing an AR technology to make this a reality. The system will be integrated into a car and it is likely to be very helpful in preventing accidents as drivers will have more information about the road ahead and can take proper and safe decisions when it come to passing a large vehicle.
Professor Michel Ferreira along with his team is working on a life saving AR technology at University of Porto in Portugal. This AR technology provides drivers with an X-ray vision whereby they can see what is going on in front of the truck or bus moving in front of them. Though the technology sounds as if it is coming straight from a sci-fi movie, it is quite down to earth. Heavy vehicles like busses and trucks already feature backwards facing cameras that allow the drivers to see where they are heading to while driving backwards. Professor Ferreira is using a forward facing camera to make this technology work.
Provided the large vehicle is already equipped with a camera, all you need is to attach a transmitter to it and the camera will broadcast a live feed to the car driving behind it. Besides, an LCD or a Head’s Up Display needs to be integrated on the windshield of the car to view the broadcast. And this feature is already available in some of the recent luxury cars. This augmented reality technology will allow drivers to see the live feed that the front facing camera fixed in the bus or truck is transmitting. Thus, the drivers can decide whether or not it is safe to pass. Professor Ferreira has already tested this system with on-road real vehicles and it proved to be very helpful. However, this augmented reality system is still in development stage.
The only limitation that the system is facing at present is video delay, which is around 200ms. Though the figure is not much, it is enough to miss a moving vehicle’s exact location on the highway. Besides, the Head’s Up Display (if used) can distract the driver, which is another possible drawback of the system. But to see the real possibilities of this augmented reality system, we will have to wait till it is formally launched.
Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest writer and not necessarily by augmentedrealitytrends.comLONDON (Reuters) - British intelligence eavesdroppers are suffering a steady loss of Internet experts to the private sector because the likes of Google and Microsoft offer much higher wages, a group of lawmakers said on Wednesday.
The Intelligence and Security Committee, a group of MPs that monitors the work of British intelligence, said it was concerned that a cut in real terms of 11 percent in funding over the next four years for its three main agencies could harm their work.
In an annual report, the committee quoted the head of the signals intercept agency, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), as saying his organization was losing “whizzes,” or very able performers, to better-paying employers.
“I need some real internet whizzes in order to do cyber and I am not even sure they are even on the contractor market, so I need to work on that. They will be working for Microsoft or Google or Amazon or whoever,” the director, Iain Lobban, was quoted as saying in evidence to the committee.
“And I can’t compete with their salaries; I can offer them a fantastic mission, but I can’t compete with their salaries. But I probably have to do better than I am doing at the moment, or else my internet whizzes are not going to stay... and we do have a steady drip, I am afraid.”
“THREE TIMES THE SALARY”
“Month-on-month, we are losing whizzes who’ll basically say: ‘I’m sorry, I am going to take three times the salary and the car and whatever else’.”
The Committee, which reports not to parliament but to Prime Minister David Cameron, said the Single Intelligence Account that funds the three agencies had risen from about 800 million pounds ($1.28 billion) to 2 billion in cash terms in the past decade.
But for the four-year period from April 2011 spending was going to be kept level, implying an 11.3 percent reduction in budgets in real terms over that period because of inflation.
This “will inevitably have an impact on the ability of all three Agencies to maintain current levels of coverage of all aspects of the threat, and that this may worsen if inflation remains at its current levels. This will require tough decisions in the coming years.”
As well as GCHQ, the committee reviews the Secret Intelligence Service, the SIS or MI6, which spies overseas, and the Security Service, known as MI5, which is responsible for domestic intelligence and security.
GCHQ, which snoops on electronic communications, helps defend Britain’s cyber security and develops an offensive cyber ability, had 5,675 employees, the report said.
Lobban said in Oct 2010 in a rare speech that countries were already using cyber warfare techniques against each other and needed constant vigilance to protect computer systems. British government systems were targeted 1,000 times each month.
The report said GCHQ’s work on cyber security included the protecting Britain’s cyber infrastructure, detecting and analyzing electronic attacks on British interests, intelligence gathering and developing a military cyber capability for the UK. ($1 = 0.624 British Pounds)0 Shares 0
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The Saudi security forces have laid siege to Al-Awamiyah, a village of about 30,000 situated in the Al-Qatif region in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Cement roadblocks have closed all exits. Electricity and water has been cut off to many houses, and Saudi regime snipers roam the streets in armored vehicles. Residents report suffering from food shortages and are deprived of medical aid.
A number of deaths and injuries have occurred among the residents, including the death of a small child identified as Jawad al-Dagher, and the child’s mother was also critically injured. A young man, identified as Ali Mohammad Kazim, was also shot dead at the hands of the Saudi forces.
After the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, which became known as the Arab Spring, anonymous Facebook users called for demonstrations against the Saudi monarchy on March 11, 2011, but the uprising was met with a brutal crackdown on activists. Some were arrested for using social media, many were imprisoned, and some were beheaded. Saudi nationals are online and 2.4 million of them are active on Twitter, accounting for nearly half of its active users in the Arab region: the possibility of organization and revolt exists.
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy and does not tolerate calls for freedom or reform. The oil rich kingdom executes by beheading over one hundred people each year. The absence of human rights and gender equality in Saudi Arabia are well documented.Amnesty International reported that 156 people were put to death in Saudi Arabia last year. Human rights groups said among those beheaded were political activists.
According to the CIA supported “The Political Instability Task Force” (PITF), which studies risks, the Saudi government could fall by several factors: either from a popular uprising, or by the failure of the Saudi King and royal family, who are the ruling elite, to remain united and loyal to each other, in the face of a revolution. A revolution can be crushed using brutal force against the people, but will the ruling elite remain loyal to each other? According to expert observers of the Saudi Royal family, they are embroiled in power struggles, based on money and jealousy most of the time. In fact, one of their Kings was murdered by his own nephew. At the present time, there is an acutely tense situation between the King’s youthful son Mohammed bin Salman, and the designated Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef. If the Monarchy depends on loyalty and brotherly love, we may witness a meltdown.
Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, known as Sheikh Nimr, was a cleric from Al-Awamiyah. During the 2011–2012 protests, al-Nimr called for protestors to resist police bullets using "the roar of the word" rather than violence, and predicted the collapse of the government if repression continued. The uprising developed into a call for equality. He was arrested for his calls for free elections in 2006, 2009, and in 2012 the police shot him and arrested him. On October15, 2014 al-Nimr was sentenced to death, and was beheaded in January 2016 along with 46 others. In March 2017, after a long campaign of harassment, the Saudi security forces killed two members of the Nimr family during a raid on a farm in eastern Saudi Arabia. Miqdad and Mohammad Al-Nimr were killed at a farm in Awamiyah, the Nimr family hometown. Awamiyah is identified as a center for resistance against the Saudi state.
British lawyer Ben Emmerson concluded there are suspected cases of torture and that activists were being jailed by secret, closed door courts. Emmerson conducted an investigation into the Saudi 2014 counter-terrorism law saying it contains an "unacceptably broad definition" of what terrorism is.
"I strongly condemn the use of counter-terrorism legislation and penal sanctions against individuals peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression," said the special rapporteur to the UN's high commissioner on human rights.
The attack on Al-Awamiya started at dawn on Wednesday May 10, 2017 with Saudi forces bringing bulldozers, excavators and police armored cars in order to begin the wholesale demolition of a neighborhood called Al-Masoura. Al-Masoura is a neighborhood that comprises historic buildings in Al-Awamiya. Tractors and demolishing equipment, supported by military vehicles, began to demolish houses and ancient structures.
The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) reported that the security forces closed additional entrances to the city with barricades in an indication that authorities intend to continue their raid until they demolish the largest possible number of houses. “Residents have been pressured in many ways, including through power cuts, to vacate their homes and businesses without adequate alternative resettlement options, leaving them at best with insufficient compensation and at worst, with nowhere to go," said the UN Special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Leilani Farha.
Saudi government forces are bombing, shelling, firing and bulldozing houses in a plan of forced displacement and collective punishment against the people in the region over their role in the peaceful demonstrations about demanding reforms in the Kingdom. The Saudi solution to legitimate aspirations of the citizens is to erase the village and disperse the population under forced expulsion and displacement. They think that Awamiyah is the threat against the throne, and not the lack of human rights.
Mohammed Al Nimr, son of the martyr Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr said, “The whole town is under heavy weapons attack by the Saudi forces and the people are suffering under a barbaric regime that does not know any language except violence.” Photos and videos have emerged of destroyed buildings riddled with bullet holes and huge fireballs burning from the aftermath of aerial bombing. The main mosque in Qatif has been shut by Saudi authorities, and regime troops fired rocket-propelled grenades at al-Sayed Mohammad mosque in Awamiyah’s al-Masoura neighborhood, completely destroying it, while attacking another mosque in the district of al-Deira. Saudi Arabia was forced in 2016 to admit their use of UK-made cluster bombs in neighboring Yemen, and now images emerge of their use in Awamiyah, on Saudi citizens.
The British PM Theresa May has time and again denied that the UK is ignoring its value of freedom in order to make money selling the Saudi regime weapons. The US has long sacrificed human rights for other foreign policy objectives. A senior White House official stating on condition of anonymity, said the US arms package could end up surpassing more than $300 billion over a decade to help Saudi Arabia boost its defensive capabilities. The “international community”, so often referred to as the “civilized world”, has no problem with brutal regimes as long as the money is flowing into weapons manufacturers in USA, UK, Canada and France. In fact, US Senators and British MPs as well as German officials all refer to Saudi Arabia as their key ally in the region.
On April 6, 2017 three experts from the United Nations on cultural rights, housing and extreme poverty called on the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to immediately halt the planned demolition of a 400-year-old walled neighborhood in the village of Awamiyah as these actions violate international law. Karima Bennoune, the United Nations Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, explained the “importance not only to local people and the entire cultural landscape of Awamiyah, but also has national significance for the history and cultural heritage of Saudi Arabia.”
The King and his ruling elite were under the impression they would be immune to the Arab Spring, however by failing to respond to the legitimate demands of the citizens, they are now facing a late Arab Spring which may shake the country to its foundations in the shifting sands.
Sources:
https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2017/5/5/saudi-arabia-detaining-activists-on-terrorism-charges-says-un
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/several-killed-saudi-town-enters-fifth-day-siege-2023122130
https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/how-stable-saudi-arabia
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12482678Backup your Linux remotely using rsync command
rsync is a command in Linux which stands for remote sync. It is used for backing up the data. It synchronizes the directories and files from one location to another in a good way. The backup destination could be either on local or on remote server.
Features
Speed: rsync replicates all the data from source to destination and then it transfers only the changed blocks/bytes to the destination. This makes the transfer fast.
rsync replicates all the data from source to destination and then it transfers only the changed blocks/bytes to the destination. This makes the transfer fast. Security: It uses encryption using ssh technique.
It uses encryption using ssh technique. Bandwidth: It compresses the block at source and then at the receiving end it decompresses the block. It transfers the data block by block using compression and decompression at source and destination side respectively. Hence uses less bandwidth.
It compresses the block at source and then at the receiving end it decompresses the block. It transfers the data block by block using compression and decompression at source and destination side respectively. Hence uses less bandwidth. Privileges: No extra privileges are required to use rsync.
Syntax
$ rsync options source destination
Case 1: Synchronize two directories in local server
use rsync -zvr command (z to enable compression, v for verbose, r for recursive)
$ rsync -zvr /var/opt/installation/inventory/ /root/temp $ rsync -zvr /var/opt/installation/inventory/ /root/temp
The above command does not preserves the timestamp.
Case 2: Preserve timestamps using rsync -a
The -a options preserves symbolic links, permissions, timestamp, owner and group.
$ rsync -azv /var/opt/installation/inventory/ /root/temp/ $ rsync -azv /var/opt/installation/inventory/ /root/temp/
Case 3: Synchronize only a single file
Specify the file name to the rsync command
$ rsync -v /var/lib/rpm/Pubkeys /root/temp/ $ rsync -v /var/lib/rpm/Pubkeys /root/temp/
Case 4: Synchronize files Local->Remote
$ rsync -avz /root/temp/ chankey@192.168.200.10:/home/chankey/temp/ $ rsync -avz /root/temp/ chankey@192.168.200.10:/home/chankey/temp/
Case 5: Synchronize files Remote->Local
$ rsync -avz chankey@192.168.200.10:/var/lib/rpm /root/temp $ rsync -avz chankey@192.168.200.10:/var/lib/rpm /root/temp
Case 6: Select remote shell
$ rsync -avz -e ssh chankey@192.168.200.10:/var/lib/rpm /root/temp $ rsync -avz -e ssh chankey@192.168.200.10:/var/lib/rpm /root/temp
rsync -e ssh => uses the ssh shell for remote sync
Case 7: Do not overwrite modified file at destination
If the file at the destination is modified and if we don’t want to change it back to the old one again then using rsync -u option.
$ rsync -avzu chankey@192.168.200.10:/var/lib/rpm /root/temp $ rsync -avzu chankey@192.168.200.10:/var/lib/rpm /root/temp
Case 8: Synchronize only the directory Tree structure (not files)
use rsync -d option for this purpose.
$ rsync -v -d chankey@192.168.200.10:/var/lib/. $ rsync -v -d chankey@192.168.200.10:/var/lib/.
Case 9: Do not create new file at destination, just update existing files
use --existing option
$ rsync -avz --existing root@192.168.1.2:/var/lib/rpm/. $ rsync -avz --existing root@192.168.1.2:/var/lib/rpm/.
Case 10: Transfer the entire file
use rsync -W option
# rsync -avzW chankey@192.168.200.10:/var/lib/rpm/ /root/temp # rsync -avzW chankey@192.168.200.10:/var/lib/rpm/ /root/tempEditors Note: This story has been updated multiple times throughout the day to reflect ongoing developments.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened an investigation in connection to the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal.
In a letter (PDF) from FBI director James Comey to lawmakers, Comey said the FBI "in connection with an unrelated case" has "learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation." The bureau, he said, is taking "appropriate investigative steps to determine whether they contain classified information."
Comey told lawmakers in his letter that he did not know how long the investigation would take, but the development comes less than two weeks before the presidential election, where Clinton is facing off against the GOP's Trump. The Clinton campaign told NBC News that it had "no idea" what Comey was referencing in the letter, and later demanded that Comey "immediately provide the American public more information than is contained in the letter." Trump said voters should reject Clinton because of her "criminal scheme."
The New York Times reported that "Federal law enforcement officials said Friday that the new emails uncovered in the closed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server were discovered after the F.B.I. seized electronic devices belonging to Huma Abedin, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton, and her husband, Anthony Weiner. The F.B.I. is investigating illicit text messages that Mr. Weiner sent to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina."
The FBI declined to elaborate, telling Ars "We cannot comment beyond the language used in the letter from Director Comey." Comey's letter, however, said the FBI "cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant."
In July, Comey issued a harsh assessment of Clinton's use of a private e-mail server during her tenure as secretary of state, calling her handling of classified data "extremely careless" and suggesting that it was possible her home-based mail server had been breached by hackers.
But Comey at the time closed the case and said he would recommend no criminal charges. He said there was a lack of evidence that Clinton had intended to expose or transmit classified data or that she mishandled information in a willful oversight of her responsibilities.
Comey said the following in July:
Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way, or a second statute making it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities. Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.
Trump has said that Clinton would be in jail for using private e-mail if he were elected. Before a New Hampshire speech Friday, Trump uttered the "criminal scheme" remarks and said that "Hillary Clinton's corruption is on a scale we have never seen before."
House Speaker Paul Ryan, (R-Wis.) tweeted that Clinton should be suspended from any classified briefings and that she "has nobody but herself to blame. She was entrusted with some of our nation's most important secrets, and she betrayed that trust by carelessly mishandling highly classified information."Chicago, IL - For her activism on behalf of her fellow transgender youth, Jazz Jennings will be honored at the 2018 Equality Illinois Gala as the first recipient of the Spotlight Award.The presentation of the Equality Illinois Spotlight Award will be made at the Midwest's largest LGBTQ formal celebration, to be held on Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018 at the Hilton Chicago, Equality Illinois announced Thursday.More than 1,000 attendees, including more than 100 political figures and community VIPs, will celebrate the accomplishments that advanced LGBTQ civil rights over the last year and hear about Equality Illinois'mission in 2018 and beyond to create a more welcoming and inclusive state for LGBTQ Illinoisans and our families."We created the Spotlight Award to annually recognize people who use their visibility in the public eye to advance the cause of LGBTQ civil rights, and we could not think of anyone better to be the first recipient than Jazz Jennings," said Brian C. Johnson, CEO of Equality Illinois "From a very young age, Jazz was proud and open about being a transgender person, and through the force of her personality she has educated Americans about the challenges, hopes, and dreams of transgender people," Johnson said. "We are thrilled to be able to honor her at our 2018 Gala."Jazz, now only 17-years-old, first discussed her status as a transgender girl when she was six years old in an interview with Barbara Walters on 20/20. With her supportive parents, Jazz was an honorary co-founder in 2007 of the TransKids Purple Rainbow Foundation, which assists transgender youth. In 2013, she founded Purple Rainbow Tails, a company in which she fashions rubber mermaid tails to raise money for transgender children. The third season of her TLC reality TV series, I Am Jazz, which focuses on her life with her family as a teenager and as a transgender youth, aired this summer. Jazz is also an actress, model, and book author."I am an activist and a public figure because I believe transgender young people deserve to know they are special, brave, and powerful. I'm proud to be transgender, and through my voice, I hope America will hear the voice of all transgender youth everywhere," Jazz said. "Just as my work takes me across the country, I know Equality Illinois works across the state to fight for the rights of transgender Illinoisans to be treated equally, to be supported, and to be respected for who they are. I am incredibly proud to be honored by such an impactful organization like Equality Illinois and feel fortunate to partner with Equality Illinois to make the world a little bit brighter for transgender Americans."The Equality Illinois 2018 Gala, with presenting sponsor United Airlines, is the single-largest fundraising event for the Equality Illinois Institute, which funds the ongoing educational and outreach work for LGBTQ equality throughout the state of Illinois. Equality Illinois previously announced that the 2018 Freedom Award will be presented at the gala to Jim Bennett of Lambda Legal, and the 2018 Business Leadership Award will be presented to Planned Parenthood of Illinois.Tables and individual tickets for the 2018 Equality Illinois Gala are now available onlineExtending *ngFor in Angular to support “for…in”
Josep Sayol Blocked Unblock Follow Following Dec 26, 2016
Disclaimer: the only point of this post is to give some insight into Angular’s structural directives. As a general rule you shouldn’t alter built-in directives like ngFor, since bad and unexpected things might happen to your app anytime.
You’ve probably used *ngFor to loop over the values of an Array. It tends to look like this:
<ul>
<li *ngFor=”let item of items”>{{ item }}</li>
</ul>
This snippet loops over the values of the iterable “items” and displays them in an unordered list. Pretty straightforward, but let’s find out what is Angular really doing under the hood to achieve this.
What are structural directives?
Keeping things simple, we can say there are two types of directives in Angular: attribute and structural. Attribute directives such as NgClass and NgStyle change the styling and behavior of an element, while structural directives like NgIf and NgFor alter the DOM tree by adding and removing DOM elements on the fly.
How does NgFor manage to do this?
Going back to our example, Angular transforms that little snippet into the following:
<ul>
<template ngFor [ngForOf]="items" let-item>
<li>{{ item }}</li>
</template>
</ul>
Whoa, hold on. What’s going on there? Angular takes our original *ngFor and breaks it down into its basic pieces: the variable or expression holding the values we want to iterate over, and the template variable that will hold each individual value so that we can use it.
The expression “let |
that these stains are very moisturizing but they did lend enough moisture on my lips to avoid feeling dry. Pigmentation was great and as mentioned earlier, semi-opaque. The balm felt natural on my lips - light and not heavy.I observed some transfer on my coffee cup but not enough to make the color disappear. It wears off evenly - i.e. without the lip liner effect. The main color lasts for up to 2-3 hours, but the stain it leaves behind practically lasted the whole day (8 hours+++). While I favor matte formulations, I (surprisingly) like the balm stain texture. I'm now thinking of trying other colors in the future. Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in Crush is a sheer, buildable lip color that lends enough pigmentation and moisture to your lips. It's a deep, dark stain but would definitely suit an everyday look because of its sheerness. Its lasting power is amazing as the color it leaves behind lasts for more than 8 hours. This is definitely a MUST TRY if you haven't already.On a lighter note, because I'm a bit (teeny, tiny) crazy today: (featuring my derpy faces)Nick D'Aloisio, founder of Summly Nick D'Aloisio via Twitter A few weeks ago, Yahoo made headlines when it acquired Summly, a startup run by a 17-year-old CEO named Nick D'Aloisio for $30 million.
Summly is a news aggregation app.
We thought the deal was weird.
Here is why:
Now we've learned another piece of information that makes the deal stranger.
Not only did the Summly team not invent the app's technology, they also did not build the app. A company called Somo did. Somo is "the UK's largest independent mobile marketing agency." It just raised a bunch of money.
So here is what Yahoo did: It "aqui-hired" a team of people, led by a 17-year-old living in London, that cannot claim to have invented a cool technology OR to have built a cool app. Yahoo does own the technology SRI invented for Summly, but it doesn't own SRI, so it hasn't acquired the team that can scale the technology for Yahoo.
Odd.
Anyway, $30 million is not a lot of money for Yahoo, and this story is getting a little old, so we're kind of beating a dead horse. But still. What a strange acquisition.
UPDATE: A source at Yahoo explained why Mayer bought the app. Read more here.A Dutch tourist was stopped by a police officer in downtown New York City for showing too much skin, the New York Daily News reported.
Jasmijn Rijcken, 31, was pulled over on her bike and told she was a dangerous distraction to drivers because she was bicycling while wearing a short skirt.
“I didn’t even think for one second that my outfit could be harmful or disturbing,” she said, but she went back to her hotel and changed into pants anyway.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said that the NYPD couldn’t comment on the case, since Rijcken wasn’t ticketed, and therefore official paperwork does not exist.
“Whether this story bears even a modest semblance of what actually occurred is impossible to establish without being provided the purported officer’s name and getting his side of the story,” he said.
There is no New York law against cycling in a skirt, but Rijcken was intimidated, and didn’t know that at the time.
“If you’re by yourself in a different country and a police guy comes really angrily at you, you get scared,” she told Streetsblog.As you drive towards the coast the change becomes subtle. You notice the gardens look increasingly unkempt. There are fewer and fewer other vehicles on the road. Large weeds appear in the drives of shuttered shops. Finally, on low land at the coast itself, all this mixes with houses wrecked by the tsunami.
The tidal wave was reckoned to be around 54 feet when it hit this part of the coast, taking with it most structures on any low ground near the sea-walls which were quickly destroyed in those fateful minutes, that Friday afternoon in March, two years ago. To visit the evacuation zone now is to enter a land where hope has run out – the hope of return.
Some houses are wrecked by the tsunami. Others intact but ravaged by summer heat and winter snows now. Family heirlooms lie scattered around – Japanese dolls, photos, clothing, sports trophies – the ephemera of family lives shattered not just by the quake and tsunami – but what came next.
The hydrogen explosion at the nuclear plants and the meltdown of several reactors means you can visit the outer evacuation zone daily, but you have to leave by sundown. Each afternoon comes the Tannoyed announcement echoing across deserted streets and fields gone to seed long ago:
“This is the public information department. It is four o’clock. You need to be screened for radiation levels and then leave the area.”
It ends. The silence descends again, broken only by the chirruping of frogs in brackish pools left by the inundation and recent rains of the summer wet season, and the mournful barking of crows overhead, stray feral dogs at ground level.
It is searingly hot and steamy, the grey heavy skies and dank air of the summer wet season. Creepers grow over every structure and across the edges of the roads now. You can almost hear the vegetation moving up walls, verandahs and telegraph poles bringing phone lines to ghost-houses.
Nowhere else on earth has suffered a large earthquake, tsunami and then radiation disaster. Over 150,000 remain displaced across Japan as far south as Tokyo itself and their hopes of ever coming back here are disappearing with every passing season.
Only in the past few weeks the authorities admitted 54,000 from the four ghost towns surrounding the plant will not be coming back here until at least 2017 and frankly that is a purely notional date given the plant’s clear-up is now scheduled to last at least 40 – yes 40 – years.
Ironies abound in this abandoned landscape. The garish Coca-Cola vending machine left by the seas sitting jauntily and tilted in a vast green swamp of paddy gone-to-seed. The garish JJ faded pink slot-machine hall on the empty main road through Namie, 12 miles out from the plant, with its slogan that this is a Perfect Place To Play. Inside the slot machines are still there, long-rotted fast food and spilled tokens as people ran out, terrified in the quake that went on for over a minute and a half.
The only new structures at all here? The loudspeakers to tell you to get out each day or warn of radiation alerts or – God forbid – another tsunami. And the radiation sensors which are powered, we note, by solar panels in a world made uninhabitable by nuclear energy.
Follow @alextomo on TwitterCNN was on the streets of Chicago reporting on the “Not My President” protests sweeping the country and happened upon a man who was quite upset that Donald Trump won the presidency. But as it turned out, it was staged outrage.
The man complained that the election wasn’t fair because “more human beings voted for Hillary” and surmised that since she lost, his vote didn’t count.
“It was just like back in the day when your vote was one-third,” the man said to the black CNN reporter.
He argued that Clinton needs to use her skills as a lawyer to go to the Supreme Court and challenge the Electoral College vote. He then looked straight into the camera and overdramatically took over the segment:
“I believe in you Hillary. I’ve been to Rwanda. I’ve been to your hospital in Rwanda. I’ve seen all the good you’ve done. I believe in you. Women need you. Minorities need you. I need you. Chicago needs you. We all need you. This country needs you to stand up and walk into the Supreme Court and say one vote equals one vote. What’s wrong with that? What’s the debate.”
The on-the-street reporter threw it back to the studio noting that he could feel this man’s passion. From the studio, Don Lemon could feel a connection to this man's passion probably because they are friends:
“Yeah, Ryan, you know I used to live there and I know that guy. That’s John Grkovic. He actually went to Africa with me as a cameraman.”
Grkovic was brought back into the frame by Ryan, but Lemon quickly ended the segment before it got any more embarrassing for the network.
An online search for Grkovic revealed that not only is he a cameraman and wedding videographer but also very involved in the Chicago improv comedy scene, hence the performance, and works in television commercials.
It’s moments like these that are the reason the public so distrusts the media.
But... This is CNN.In recent weeks, there have been signs sentiment may be changing around the contentious policy of negative gearing.
There are well-rehearsed arguments on both sides. Critics argue that the deduction of property losses from other sources of income (such as wages) is a tax shelter that imposes an unfair burden on other taxpayers. Defenders of the policy suggest that it is used by prudent savers to “get ahead”, and by high income individuals to lower unduly high tax burdens that blunt work incentives.
However, these arguments are tax policy concerns since taxpayers can negatively gear other financial investments such as shares. There are housing policy specific issues that instead warrant a focus on housing; three deserve particular attention.
The first is a familiar refrain. Given a fixed supply of land, negative gearing advantages property investors who are better able to out-bid other land users. Part of the tax break gets shifted into higher land and housing prices; some other users of land – first home buyers, for example – are “crowded-out”.
But a second reason, related to so-called tax “clientele effects” has been rarely mentioned. It is a more nuanced influence, yet it is important to an understanding of the supply side effects of reform in this area.
The Australian private rental housing stock is relatively large by international standards and mostly held by “mum and dad” investors. There are not enough high tax bracket investors willing and able to hold all the housing in this tenure. Lower tax bracket investors must be enticed into the market. These investors are often retirees looking for secure, regular flows of income, and are attracted to those segments of the market where rental yields are relatively high.
On the other hand, the appeal of property investment to the high tax bracket investor is that they can negatively gear the asset’s acquisition, yet an important part of the returns (capital gains) are lightly taxed compared to other types of investment income. The consequence is that high tax bracket investors crowd into segments of the market offering high capital growth but low rental yields. Low tax bracket investors concentrate in segments offering high rental yields but lower capital growth.
The removal of negative gearing is then likely to have supply side impacts that are not as straightforward as has been suggested in some of the media commentary. To be sure some high tax bracket investors will withdraw and as price pressures ease and rental markets tighten, rental yields will rise.
But those higher rental yields will prompt some growth in the number of low tax bracket investors, and especially so in today’s low interest rate environment. As low tax bracket investors face tighter borrowing constraints, the overall supply side impact will be negative. But it will not be the collapse in supply that some fear.
The third reason for change with respect to negative gearing and housing is perhaps the most important in the current context. The share of investment property loans in total debt has tripled from one-tenth to three-tenths in a little over two decades. Investors now take up a higher share of the value of new loans than do first home buyers.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, investment housing accounted for 40% of the total value of housing finance commitments in April 2015. Of the dwellings that secured housing finance commitments within the owner occupation sector, only 15% was attributable to first home buyers. The presence of housing investors on such a large scale is a potential source of instability, especially if highly geared.
In their seminal research, the late Professor John Quigley and his colleague Karl Case note that when markets slump home owner behaviour differs from that of other investors.
They can “consume” the housing they have bought – by enjoying the surroundings and the comforts of home – and provided mortgage payments are met, they are invariably willing to “sit out” the slump. This can be an important source of stability in housing markets.
But property investors have not bought a dwelling to live in it. When prices slump some if not many will cut their losses and seek a safe haven for their capital elsewhere, especially if they are highly geared. Our research finds that negatively geared investors are more likely to terminate rental leases than equity-oriented investors. The former are also prone to churn in and out of rental investments as they refinance to preserve tax shelter benefits.
When large numbers of indebted investors come to bank on continued house price gains, and low interest rates, the resilience of housing markets is undermined. Phasing out negative gearing should be a priority for a housing policy fit for the 21st century.
Gavin will be on hand for an author Q&A between 4 and 5pm AEST on Wednesday June 24. Post your questions in the comments section below.Update: KVIA.com has completely edited their original article and removed all mention of the orginial statement that Darnell said there was no investigation.
Of course with no mention whatsoever of their edits/corrections. Well, at least KVIA.com got a metric shit ton of traffic I guess. Also, this tweet from Brent Zwerneman seems to put it to rest.
Darnell told me he never said there was no NCAA investigation, only 'that's just part of their rules, I can't say yea or nay.' — Brent Zwerneman (@BrentZwerneman) August 9, 2013
So this whole fiasco got started when Darren Rovell adamantly stated that he simply needed to report the news about an investigation the NCAA has open against Johnny Manziel. Of course, he then went on to not talk about the investigation and only talk about rumors, but that's water under the bridge or something stupid like that.
Tell me how my hat tastes Darnell: "...he'll be the starting quarterback for the Aggies against Rice"
This evening, Twitterer and good Ag @dougigem tweeted a story out from KVIA.com, the CBS affiliate in El Paso, Texas. And, well, there's a pretty interesting damn paragraph in that story.
Darnell said the NCAA has not started an investigation into Manziel and that there has been no formal allegations made by the NCAA.
Well, that is a pretty damn big revelation in this whole saga if you ask me. Rovell has mentioned to his attackers on Twitter on multiple occasions that it is his job to report the news of the investigation. Since then we've seen backtracking and no ability from either Rovell or Schad to bring forth any sort of evidence in the case. Perhaps this is why Manziel's lawyer was awfully confident in saying Johnny would be playing on August 31st.
If this thing turns out to be an entirely forced story by ESPN, oh man. The fury of Aggieland will be fierce and swift on Rovell and Schad.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
April 25, 2017, 12:08 AM GMT / Updated April 25, 2017, 12:08 AM GMT By Tim Stelloh
Top Trump Administration counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka abruptly left a panel on fake news at Georgetown University on Monday after he was questioned about his work at Breitbart and links to a far right Hungarian group with Nazi ties, three people who were there told NBC News.
During a roughly six-minute statement, which NBC News obtained a recording of, Gorka described allegations that he belongs to the group Vitezi Rend as a "propaganda campaign" and said that protesters quietly holding signs during the event were "victims of fake news."
Sebastian Gorka poses with his wife at an inaugural ball wearing a medal from the Hungarian Order of Heroes, Vitezi Rend. Courtesy of LobeLog
Related: Sebastian Gorka Made Nazi-Linked Vitezi Rend ‘Proud’ by Wearing Its Medal
"Every young person holding a placard to protest my parents and myself — I challenge you now: go away and look at everything I have said and written in the last 46 years of my life and find one sentence that is anti-Semitic," he said. "You won’t find one."
One of the protest organizers, Andrew Meshnick, said that roughly 50 Jewish and Muslim students attended the event because they wanted a chance to challenge Gorka’s “extreme views.”
They had their chance during a question and answer session that followed the panel. One student, Roey Hadar, raised a column that Gorka wrote when he was an editor at Breitbart — which Hadar called a “yellow journalism rag" — that described the New York Times and the Washington Post as “shills” for “the Jihadis.”
Hadar asked if such "anti-Muslim rhetoric" legitimized groups like ISIS.
"Could you quote for me exactly what I said," Gorka replied.
Hadar pressed for an answer, to which Gorka responded: "No. If you’re going to sling accusations against me, a word-for-word verbatim quote because you are lying or misinformed."
Students moved on to several more questions. Meshnick asked if the administration created fake news by accusing Susan Rice of committing a crime ("He said: ‘You don’t know anything — I’m not going to answer your questions,'" Meshnick recalled).
Another student asked if Gorka would disavow Vitezi Rend. A university researcher who attended the panel, Mobashra Tazamal, told NBC News that he didn’t, and during his statement, Gorka said the organization had a single purpose: battling communism.
After five questions, Tazmal said, Gorka stood up and said the rest of the panel should have a chance to speak.
Then he left.
“We’re wondering how a bunch of 20-year-olds with signs and facts scared away the president’s counterterrorism advisor,” Meshnick said. “Why was that so intimidating to him?”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Despite constant harangues from pundits in regards to the apathy of youth in the face of a divided political landscape, one of the deciding factors of the 2012 General Election was the 18-29 year old demographic, just as it was a critical factor in Obama’s initial 2008 victory. Roughly half of all eligible voters in this demographic turned out to the polls on election night, and despite all predictions to the contrary, this number is in fact at 18 to 19 percent of the total electorate, a stark increase over the turnout found during the 2008 Election. President Obama won the youth vote at 67 percent to 30 percent on the national level, and according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), which studies the voting habits of young people, in the four critical battle ground states that tipped the election in Obama’s favor, young voters supported the president by at least 61%. Even more astonishing, most analysts now agree that without Obama’s support from young voters, Romney would’ve easily won the election.
“If you wipe out the youth vote [in those states], or if you allocate the vote for [Obama and Romney] 50-50, those states switch from blue to red,” said Peter Levine, director of CIRCLE. “It’s enough to make Romney the next president.”
So how, and why, did young people defy the stereotype and vote in hordes in favor of the president?
In my own opinion, the outcome of the youth vote was never truly in question. While the standard view of the young voter as being too disinterested and too feckless to go to the polls was true for a time, it was only in Generation X that this apathy was truly endemic of young people. When Gen X made up the youth demographic, its voter turnout was usually less than 40 percent of those eligible.
It has never been so with the Millenials, however. The reason why the stereotype has changed is quite simple: the times and issues have changed significantly in the last twenty years, in which the stakes of politics seem all the more steep and the act of voting all the more critical. Growing up under the Bush Administration has formulated the political mindset of Generation Y in a way that the GOP never expected, and it left us with a sour taste in our mouths in regards to what can occur when an unchecked Republican Party is in power. The advancement of social issues like gay marriage, drug reform and women’s rights are seen by Millenials as ethically critical to the progress of the United States, and cannot be left up to the older generations to decide for them. This election proved that we, as one of the emergent dominant voting blocks of American politics, demand to be heard.
Perhaps a large part in ensuring that has been the digital revolution, which has left young people with an avenue for investigating, discussing and promoting these issues in a way never before possible with Generation X. Whereas previous generations of young voters only had their apathy increased by receiving news through the filter of the established media, the youth of today are now free to view news through various mediums and find the truth of an issue out for themselves. We are better informed and more engaged than ever before. Coupled with our increasingly progressive state of mind on the whole, young voters understood that the outcome of this election was absolutely critical for their own future.
The Romney camp, however, didn’t quite get the message. Knowing full well that each generation of Americans has become increasingly more liberal over time, they instead put all their chips on young people simply not arriving at the polls on Tuesday at all, and harped on our supposed cynicism by reminding us of our less-than-stellar job prospects after college graduation. They believed that by simply increasing our jaded outlook even more, rather than truly attempting to win over the hearts and minds of a traditionally anti-Republican demographic, that young people would simply not turn out in the same numbers as 2008.
But, the influx of money from Republican-aligned SuperPACs into the Romney campaign was largely viewed as an arm of the notorious “1 percent” that much of the youth voting bloc blames for the shrinking of the middle-class and the widening of the income gap between the rich and poor. In hindsight, the outcome would be inevitable: young people would never allow a return to the Bush Years, and unlike the 2000 and 2004 elections, they now had the power to prevent it.
“More than 22 million [young voters] cast a ballot in our estimate,” said Heather Smith, president of Rock the Vote. “This voting bloc can no longer be an afterthought to any political campaign.”
This election, to an even greater extent than in 2008, proves that the pundits were wrong about Generation Y. To put it simply, the Republican Party has created its own worst nightmare: a hyper-political generation of voters that have been driven to action by the failed policies of the Bush Era. A generation committed to the promotion of social equality and progressive policies, and they will make sure that their vision of an egalitarian future will come to fruition no matter what.The Arizona Cardinals and wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald failed to come to terms on a contract extension last week before the league's collective bargaining agreement was set to expire.
But Fitzgerald said on Wednesday that he is "not really" interested in testing the free-agent market.
Fitzgerald is entering the final year of a four-year, $40 million contract he signed in 2008.
He said on Wednesday that he is "absolutely" hopeful that he can work out an extension with the Cardinals. Fitzgerald said "progress was being made" in contract talks between his agent and the Cardinals before the end of the NFL's business calendar on March 3.
It seems like Arizona is doing everything it can to keep Fitzgerald. League sources told ESPN's Adam Schefter last month that the Cardinals solicited Fitzgerald's advice on which quarterback the club should trade for or sign.
Fitzgerald was asked on Wednesday if there was anything that would sway his decision to stay in Arizona.
"If the Cardinals cut me or if they feel like they want to trade me," Fitzgerald said at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan during an appearance at the EAS Unstoppable Tour. "I don't have a choice at that point. I'd have to go try to find other employment."
Contract negotiations for Fitzgerald or any other player cannot continue until NFL owners and players agree on a new collective bargaining agreement.
The league and owners are in mediation talks. If a deal isn't reached by Friday, the sides could agree to another extension. Or talks could break off, leading to, possibly, a lockout by owners or antitrust lawsuits by players.
Fitzgerald said he believes any potential lockout would not affect the 2011 schedule.Patrick McGunigal (May 30, 1876 – January 19, 1936) was a sailor in the United States Navy who received the Medal of Honor for his actions during World War I.
Biography [ edit ]
McGunigal was born in Hubbard, Ohio on May 30, 1876 and died January 19, 1936. He retired from the Navy in 1920. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery Arlington, Virginia. His grave can be found in section 6, lot 8674, map grid W/21.5.
Medal of Honor citation [ edit ]
Rank and organization: Shipfitter First Class, U.S. Navy. Born: 30 May 1876, Hubbard, Ohio. Accredited to: Ohio. G.O. No.: 341, 1917.
Citation:
For extraordinary heroism while attached to the Huntington. On the morning of 17 September 1917, while the U.S.S. Huntington was passing through the war zone, a kite balloon was sent up with Lt. (j.g.) H. W. Hoyt, U.S. Navy, as observer. When the balloon was about 400 feet in the air, the temperature suddenly dropped, causing the balloon to descend about 200 feet, when it was struck by a squall. The balloon was hauled to the ship's side, but the basket trailed in the water and the pilot was submerged. McGunigal, with great daring, climbed down the side of the ship, jumped to the ropes leading to the basket, and cleared the tangle enough to get the pilot out of them. He then helped the pilot to get clear, put a bowline around him, and enabled him to be hauled to the deck. A bowline was lowered to McGunigal and he was taken safely aboard.[1]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Army Center of Military History.Appeals Court To Cops: If You 'Don't Have Time' For 'Constitutional Bullshit,' You Don't Get Immunity
from the they're-rights,-not-privileges dept
A disabled vet with PTSD accidentally called a suicide prevention hotline when intending to dial the Veterans Crisis Line. Within hours, he was dealing with DC Metro's finest, dispatched to handle an attempted suicide. This brief quote from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals opinion [PDF] -- part of veteran Matthew Corrigan's first conversation with responding officers -- sets the tone for the next several hours of Constitutional violations.
The officer who had asked for his key told him: “I don’t have time to play this constitutional bullshit. We’re going to break down your door. You’re going to have to pay for a new door.” Corrigan Dep. 94:15–18. Corrigan responded, “It looks like I’m paying for a new door, then. I’m not giving you consent to go into my place.” Id. 94:19–21.
This is as much respect as the responding officers had for Corrigan's Constitutional rights. The rest of the opinion shows how they handled the supposed suicide case with the same level of care.
The opening of the opinion recounts just how dangerous it is to talk to nearly anyone linked to the government about your personal problems.
Matthew Corrigan is an Army Reservist and an Iraq war veteran who, in February 2010, was also an employee of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. On the night of February 2, 2010, suffering from sleep deprivation, he inadvertently phoned the National Suicide Hotline when dialing a number he thought to be a Veterans Crisis Line. When he told the Hotline volunteer that he was a veteran diagnosed with PTSD, she asked whether he had been drinking or using drugs and whether he owned guns. Corrigan assured her that he was only using his prescribed medication and was not under the influence of any illicit drugs or alcohol; he admitted that he owned guns. The volunteer told him to “put [the guns] down,” and Corrigan responded, “That’s crazy, I don’t have them out.” Corrigan Dep. 56:2–5.
Despite Corrigan’s assurances that his guns were safely stored, the volunteer repeatedly asked him to tell her “the guns are down.” Id. 56:2–14. When asked if he intended to hurt himself or if he intended to “harm others,” he responded “no” to both questions. Id. 69:6–18. Frustrated, Corrigan eventually hung up and turned off his phone, took his prescribed medication, and went to sleep. Id. 56:10–14; 70:6–7. The Hotline volunteer proceeded to notify the MPD.
The MPD picked up the case, drawing in new hunches and "facts," picked up from the world's most direct game of Telephone.
At approximately 11:13 p.m., according to the February 9, 2010, Barricade Report from Lieutenant Glover to the MPD Chief of Police, officers from the MPD Fifth District were dispatched to Corrigan’s home for “Attempted Suicide.” Barricade Rpt. 1. Certain undisclosed “information” led them “to believe the subject was possibly armed with a shotgun.”
"Undisclosed" may as well mean "imaginary." The only thing relayed by the Hotline was that Corrigan owned guns. And owning guns is not the same as being armed with them, as Corrigan tried to make clear to the hotline operator. This wasn't the only thing the MPD imagined into existence to justify its Constitutional violations and destruction of Corrigan's home.
Upon arrival, the officers thought they detected a “strong odor” of natural gas and contacted the gas company, which turned off the gas to the row house.
Police officers have the best noses. The greatest. Perhaps the MPD should have spoken to someone who knew Corrigan and the place he lived FIRST.
[H]is landlady, upon being advised that the reason for the police presence was Corrigan’s attempted suicide, had insisted that was “outrageous” and repeatedly told the MPD officers that there was “a big misunderstanding” because she had known Corrigan for two years and had “never felt more comfortable with a neighbor in [her] life.” She had explained to the officers that Corrigan had guns because he was in the military and that his home had electric, not gas, appliances.
So, the police -- faced with a possible suicide intervention -- did what police do best: turned a neighborhood into a war zone and an "intervention" into a standoff where the police were the only willing participants.
The officers contacted Lieutenant Glover at home and he, in turn, gave orders to declare a “barricade situation...” [...] At 2:00 a.m., the ERT assumed tactical control of the situation. At 2:10 a.m., the MPD began to secure the perimeter around Corrigan’s home, including evacuating his neighbors.
Inside of this "barricade" was a sleeping war veteran. After being awakened by cops kicking at his front and back doors, Corrigan decided to retreat from the impending confrontation by moving to his bathroom and attempting to return to sleep. When it became apparent sleep wouldn't be an option, he checked his voicemail -- helpfully filled with demands of responding officers -- and placed a call to one of the MPD's "negotiators."
He told the officer he was coming out of the house, that he was unarmed, and that he would be carrying his cellphone in his left hand so it wouldn't be mistaken for a gun by trigger-happy suicide prevention "negotiators." He exited his house, locked the door behind him (both to keep his dog in and the MPD out), and laid down on his back. Police zip tied his hand and told them they only wanted to talk to him. He had committed no crime. Corrigan voluntarily agreed to check in at the Veteran's Hospital for PTSD treatment.
But he refused to give the "negotiators" permission to search his home. That's what triggered the "fuck you and your Constitution" outburst from the MPD's specially-trained suicide prevention unit. The MPD remained convinced Corrigan's house was loaded with IEDs, weapons, and whatever else they could dream up to justify their unconstitutional invasion.
After Corrigan was in MPD custody, Lieutenant Glover ordered the ERT, led by Sergeant Pope, to break in Corrigan’s home to search for “any human threats that remained or victims.”
Screw the Constitution. There might be any number of lives to be saved. How do we know this? Because the DC Metro Police firmly believes this is always the case in these situations, despite any information gathered that points to the contrary.
As a matter of course, Glover explained, if an ERT unit is called to a scene it goes inside 99.9% of the time, see id. 18:12-14, because “[s]tandard protocol” assumes “if there’s one [person inside] there’s two, if there’s two there’s three, if there’s three there’s four, and exponentially on up,” id. 13:18-21.
In the MPD's eyes, every individual is an army. With this being the MPD's "standard protocol," one wonders how it deals with the constant disappointment.
Upon breaking in Corrigan’s home, the ERT encountered only Corrigan’s dog; no one was found inside and no dangerous or illegal items were in plain view.
Frustrated by the lack of plain view dangerousness, the MPD decided to take it out on Corrigan's uncooperative residence. It did this five hours later and, again, without a warrant.
During the second MPD search, EOD officers cut open every zipped bag, dumped onto the floor the contents of every box and drawer, broke into locked boxes under the bed and in the closet, emptied shelves into piles in each room, and broke into locked boxes containing Corrigan’s three firearms.
But wait, there's more:
Upon returning home, Corrigan found his home in complete disarray: the police had left the contents of his bureau drawers and shelves scattered on the floor, his electric stove had been left on, and the front door of his home was left unlocked.
Recovered in the two unconstitutional searches were some weapons, smoke grenades, and fireworks. Corrigan's mistaken call to the wrong hotline resulted in the ten weapons and ammunition charges. That evidence has been suppressed. And because the Appeals Court doesn't find any of the MPD's actions remotely justifiable, the officers performing the searches will have to face Corrigan's lawsuit.
Even assuming, without deciding, that the initial “sweep” of Corrigan’s home by the MPD Emergency Response Team (“ERT”) was justified under the exigent circumstances and emergency aid exceptions to the warrant requirement, the second top-to-bottom search by the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit (“EOD”) after the MPD had been on the scene for several hours was not. The MPD had already secured the area and determined that no one else was inside Corrigan’s home and that there were no dangerous or illegal items in plain sight. Corrigan had previously surrendered peacefully to MPD custody. The information the MPD had about Corrigan — a U.S. Army veteran and reservist with no known criminal record — failed to provide an objectively reasonable basis for believing there was an exigent need to break in Corrigan’s home a second time to search for “hazardous materials,” whose presence was based on speculative hunches about vaguely described “military items” in a green duffel bag. And assuming, without deciding, that the community caretaking exception to the warrant requirement applies to a home, the scope of the second search far exceeded what that exception would allow. In the end, what the MPD would have the court hold is that Corrigan’s Army training with improvised explosive devices (“IEDs”), and the post traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD”) he suffers as a result of his military service — characteristics shared by countless veterans who have risked their lives for this country — could justify an extensive and destructive warrantless search of every drawer and container in his home. Neither the law nor the factual record can reasonably be read to support that sweeping conclusion.
Better yet, the "screw your Constitution" officers have had their immunity stripped.
Because it was (and is) clearly established that law enforcement officers must have an objectively reasonable basis for believing an exigency justifies a warrantless search of a home, and because no reasonable officer could have concluded such a basis existed for the second more intrusive search, the officers were not entitled to qualified immunity across the board.
"Objectively reasonable" is not a high bar. But the MPD never had any intent of reaching it. The officer's statement that there was "no time" for the Constitution made that very clear. The failure to find anything in plain view during the first sweep was treated as an excuse to turn a cooperative man's (cooperative except for consent to search) upside down until officers could find something to excuse their steamrolling of the Fourth Amendment. They figured what they uncovered would save them after the fact. That's the ends justifying the means and that's precisely what the Fourth Amendment is there to protect against.
Filed Under: constitution, matthew corriganMLB commissioner Rob Manfred says that the league is nearing the end of its investigation into the improper accessing of the Astros’ computer systems by at least one Cardinals employee, as the Associated Press reports (via USA Today).
“We are in the process of finishing up our investigation,” said Manfred. “I wish it had gotten a little more help a little |
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